The reason I said five instead of seven is because if it were seven minutes the first time around, there wouldn't be enough time in the whole to divide any time afterwards among the parties. I did a calculation on this last time, an analysis--I wish I had brought it today. It ended up that a significant amount of time was given to the NDP member at the last sitting, and many of the people--even Bloc members, and Conservatives for certain--didn't receive an opportunity to ask any relevant questions.
I'm not stuck on five minutes or seven minutes. That does not matter to me. If you want to discuss it, I'm prepared to accept a friendly amendment on that. My point is that each person present at the committee should have the same amount of time to start, so they can ask at least one or two questions to the witnesses. That is, seven minutes, five minutes....