Evidence of meeting #1 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:05 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
--of our representation in the House. That actually does break down if you look at total minutes; it actually breaks down to pretty well exactly the percentage. So for the total minutes, if we did go for full rounds, the government would have about 50 minutes, and in the House we have 53%. The official opposition would have almost 36 minutes, and they're at 33%, so we've worked it out so that it does truly reflect the House.
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
I don't mean to slow this down, but I don't quite understand. In the first round, we have the government for seven minutes, the official opposition for seven minutes, the government for seven minutes, and the third party for seven minutes. Then we go--
6:05 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you.
Then it's the Liberal Party for seven minutes. In the second round, we have the opposition for five minutes, the government for five minutes, the official opposition for five minutes, and the government for five minutes...? Okay, so the percentages over the two rounds...? Because normally you get in two rounds per set of witnesses.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Normally you get two rounds with three or four parties. In former parliaments, you'd always get two rounds and you had the Bloc in there. In the third round, then, we would come back to--
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
No. Normally we'd set up the rules not based on how much time we would have. We'd set up the rules so the first round goes a certain way and the second and subsequent rounds follow the same process. That's the motion I'm proposing.
I could actually read out the motion and make it a little clearer. It's moved that the order of the questions for the first round of the questioning shall be as follows: Conservative, NDP, Conservative, Liberal. Questioning during the second round shall alternate between the government members and the opposition members in the following fashion: NDP, Conservative, NDP, Conservative, NDP, Conservative, based on the principle that each committee member should have a full opportunity to question the witnesses. If time permits, further rounds shall repeat the pattern of the first two at the discretion of the chair.
That way, it gives all of our members an opportunity to ask a question.
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Everyone in committee will have asked a question...in the opposition.
6:10 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
On the third round, the last part, Ms. Hoeppner, if you get through the first two rounds, what happens after that? Do you go back to the first round?
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
So in the three-round discussion, the Liberal Party would get seven minutes out of a total of 68?
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Seventy minutes? How long are these meetings going to last? Most meetings are an hour long. There are two-hour meetings on occasion, but generally speaking, like you say, we have the two rounds.
Go ahead.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
But if we do go three rounds, the Liberal Party gets one question in those three rounds. That's seven minutes divided by--if my calculations are correct--68 minutes. What percentage is that?
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
It's 11.67% and you have 11.04% representation in the House.
6:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!