Evidence of meeting #74 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nations.
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NDP
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I would like the member to at least stop now and bring us closer to what would be the appropriate time. That means that the time has not even been divided equally between the opposition and the government.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
I hear your point, Madam Bennett. You know the rules and we have those rules installed so that we each have seven minutes, and this is the round that is installed in this committee.
The more time we take now, the less time you will have for your questions, so I suggest we continue.
Is there any—
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
We did assume there would be time on both sides when we agreed to divide it equally.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
We can look in the blues. What I said is that we would extend our meetings 15 minutes and divide the time in half between the witnesses. That brings us to 12:30.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
At no time did we think that the government should have more time than the opposition.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
It is about the time we gave to this committee to hear those witnesses.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
But Madam Chair, we expect you to impose some fairness on this committee and to make that crystal clear before you give the government more time than the opposition. The purpose of committee is to hold the government and the government bill to account, not to have cheerleading from the other side.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
I hear what you're saying, and I'm in the hands of the committee. We have some rules. If we want to change those rules, we need a motion and we need a vote on it. I haven't heard a motion yet. Is it a point of order from this side?
Conservative
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to point out to the member opposite, Ms. Bennett, that the official opposition in this committee is actually the NDP. Representation by the questions that we have in this committee is based on the number of members at this committee. Right now, as you can see, the government has more members. As you pointed out very clearly on our original guidelines for this committee, this is the rotation.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Sorry, Madam James. You can continue.
I hear no point of order so far. If you have a point of order, come to it please.
Conservative
Roxanne James Conservative Scarborough Centre, ON
I was helping clarify your point as well that the guidelines for this committee were set at the start of this committee, and I respect that the member is not actually a member of this committee.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Madam James. I need no help in clarifying my decision.
Is there any other point of order?
Madam Crowder, go ahead.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Perhaps it's too late at this stage, but I want to support Ms. Bennett's statement.
Normally, committees look for a balance in the questioning of witnesses. Perhaps we naively assumed that there would be some fairness. This is not a criticism of the chair. When we were dividing the time half and half, half the questions would go to the government and half the questions would go to the opposition. Yes, we are the official opposition, but it's important that the opposition has two turns in questioning the witnesses.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
What I can do from your point of order is to see if I have the unanimity of the committee to extend the seven-minute round of Madam Bennett, which will cut seven minutes from our other witness group.
Do I have the unanimous consent of the committee?
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
I see that I don't have the unanimous consent of the committee, so I cannot change the rules that are in front of us.
Is that another point of order, Madam Crowder?
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Yes, Madam Chair.
I wonder if the committee would entertain, at least in the next round, that we reduce the questioning round to five minutes so that there are opportunities for two members of the opposition to get on the record for questions.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
I hear that we try to come to an agreement to have more fairness, to make sure we hear each party for this period of time. To make sure we hear everyone, do I have unanimous consent to have a five-minute question round for the next round? If we still have time, we can maybe go back to the government for the time left.
Is that an agreement we can come to?
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
No, we're not changing times half way through this thing. I would make a motion that we return to the witnesses.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
You cannot have a motion. I'm just looking for unanimity right now.
Conservative
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
There's no unanimity so far to change the timeline and the time for the turns. I'm sorry about that.
We will now go back to Madam James. You still have 45 seconds.