Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary made mention during his remarks that he welcomed other suggestions to reform question period.
One thing that I think would increase the relevancy of questions and answers during question period would be to do away with the 35-second rule.
Many members who were more recently elected may be surprised to find out that the 35-second rule came in after the 1997 election when there were five parties in Parliament. The five recognized parties in the House each wanted a slice of question period to ask their questions, and so the length of time was shortened from about a minute or a minute and a half to 35 seconds to ask and to answer questions.
One of the things the House should also consider to make question period more relevant is to lengthen the amount of time given to ask and to answer questions now that there are only three recognized parties in the House.