Order, please. House in committee of the whole on all votes under Justice in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2004.
I would like to make a brief statement before we begin this evening's proceedings. Earlier, slightly late this afternoon, a motion was put and agreed to by unanimous consent and I wish to share it with those who are here this evening participating. It is somewhat different than the regulations by which we were guided in the last debate of this nature a few weeks ago on the subject of Health. It is an exact duplicate of what the orders of business were on June 4, 2002. Let me share this with you in case some of us have not had an opportunity to be made aware of this agreement made earlier, as I say, less than two hours ago.
The motion reads:
That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice, when the House is in Committee of the Whole later today pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a), time be allotted to the recognized parties in the House in periods of 20 minutes as follows:
(a) the first period to the Liberal Party, the second, to the Canadian Alliance, the third, to the Bloc Quebecois, the fourth, to the Progressive Conservative Party, and the fifth, to the New Democratic Party, and subsequent periods shall be allocated to the parties in proportion to their representation in the House; and
(b) within each 20-minute period, each party may allocate time to one or more of its members for speeches or for questions and answers, provided that, in the case of questions and answers, the minister's answer does not exceed the time taken by the question, and provided that, in the case of speeches, members of the party to which the period is allocated may speak one after the other.
This is what the Chair will be guided by this evening. Again, as a matter of information, just a very short period ago I received correspondence from our Speaker on the subject of the rotation for these proceedings. The matter has been referred to the modernization committee, which I chair, but for this evening I have laid out for you what the procedure will be.
Without any further ado, let me proceed to the first round which is allocated to the governing party. I look to the hon. Minister of Justice.