Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The reason I am introducing this motion is that I think it is problematic to cut a two-hour meeting by 15 minutes. I feel it is important for us to listen to our witnesses and to have time to ask questions until the end of the meeting. If we shorten it by 15 minutes, the first witnesses will have one hour, including the 10 minutes for presentations, but we will not have as much time to ask other witnesses questions.
Travel time was brought up as an argument, but I really don’t think it is a good one. Actually, there are about a dozen other committees that meet at the same time, either on Mondays or Wednesdays. In some cases, the meetings are held in buildings that are much farther away than ours, such as the Wellington Building. Getting there takes a lot longer than getting here. In our case, we are at most five minutes away from Parliament. In a word, I don’t think it is a good argument.
We meet in the morning and we all have our BlackBerrys if we have any last-minute information to send to each other. Communication is very easy. The reason why we get those devices for work is precisely to be able to get in touch quickly. I find it very disrespectful that we do not take the time we need to ask questions of witnesses who travel to come here and who want to share their knowledge with us.
I would also like to add that, for some time now, there has been a tendency to call several witnesses to appear at the same time. Mr. Chair, before you came to the committee, we used to receive two witnesses. So each witness had one hour. That gave us enough time to ask the appropriate questions. Right now, we have to choose. It was your decision to conduct the meetings in this way and, one way or another, it is your choice, I suppose. But I see that there are some questions we cannot ask.
In terms of the time allocated for questions, based on the established speaking order, there is a final round of questions during which the NDP, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have five minutes each. And yet we rarely get to that point. On a number of occasions since I have been here, I have wanted to ask my questions and I have been told that there was not enough time left. I did not get my full five minutes.
If the Conservatives do not want to ask any questions, I will gladly take their place. At any rate, I think the work that we do in committee is important and I believe in the process. That is why I feel that, by devoting less attention to our work, we are botching it.
The reason for my motion is that I would like us to reconsider the new formula that you are proposing. First, I would like us to vote on it. Second, as I said, adopting the formula is like saying that we do not believe in the process. I for one do believe in it and I would like us to have the full two hours. All the other committees on the Hill do. I do not see why our committee would not follow the same rules.
