It was my impression that when setting down the rules for a committee, it was important to avoid naming political parties, because the rules are valid for a certain period of time, and changes within political parties are always a possibility. As we have seen in the past, representation in the House can change. I thought the objective here was to decide on the order of questioning for government representatives, representatives of the official opposition and representative of other parties, not, for instance, to specifically mention Bloc representatives.
Mind you, I have no objections to proceeding either way. I understand that amongst ourselves, we refer to specific parties. It's simpler and quicker and there's no confusion. That's why when I was asked by Mr. McKenzie to put forward his idea, I suggested two different wordings, one where the names of political parties were mentioned -- that's what you would like to see - and another where no names are mentioned. Obviously, these suggestions were based on the first scenario, but they can easily be adapted to the current situation.
The approach advocated by Mr. McKenzie is difficult to set down in writing, but can easily be adopted in practice. In committees, the Chair begins by recognizing representatives of the opposition, following by government representatives. What Mr. Mckenzie wants, and what I want as well, is for the member representing the party with the fewest members to have an opportunity to ask questions.
It was my understanding that we were proceeding in the same order, beginning with the official opposition, followed by the second opposition party, then by the third opposition party, before going to a government representative. However, during the second round, there are fewer questioners, because there is only one representative of the last party on the committee. Therefore, the Chair should recognize a representative of the official opposition, followed by a representative of the second opposition party, but not ultimately the representative of the last party, so as to be certain that all committee members have an opportunity to speak. The final person to be recognized would be a government representative. I believe this conveys the opinion expressed by Mr. McKenzie.
I share Mr. McKenzie's objective. You stated that even NDP members would have an opportunity to put their questions, as indeed would all committee members in the course of the first round of questions.
I thought that I had come up with the appropriate wording:
The Chair asks the first questioners to ask their questions within [...]
The total elapsed time would be seven minutes.
[...] in the following order: representatives of the Opposition parties in the order of their representation in the House of Commons, followed by the first representative of the Government, and finally, other members who have not yet asked questions, to do so within [...]
They would have five minutes.
[...] in a similar but not identical order, given that not all parties have the same number of members on the Committee.
We could keep the words “until every member has asked questions at least once”.
After reflecting long and hard on this, I concluded that this a similar approach. The Chair proceeds in a similar order, skipping over those parties whose members have already asked questions, to recognize parties with many members.
However, I'm not convinced that by proceeding in the suggested order, the desired results would be achieved. You name the political parties. In our proposal, we felt it was best to proceed in the order mentioned. However, I've observed that this is generally how the Chair proceeds. You begin with the official opposition, followed by the Bloc Québécois, then by the other opposition party and finally by the government party. Then you go back to the opposition until...
