We will proceed with the House in committee of the whole on all votes under Department of National Defence in the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018.
I am going to start with a brief preamble for tonight's committee of the whole. Tonight's debate is a general one on the votes under the Department of National Defence. The first round will begin with the official opposition, followed by the government, and then the New Democratic Party. After that, we will follow the usual proportional rotation.
Each member will be allocated 15 minutes at a time, which may be used for both debate or for posing questions. Members wishing to use this time to make a speech have a maximum of 10 minutes, which leaves at least 5 minutes for questions to the minister.
When a member is recognized, he or she should indicate to the Chair how the 15-minute period will be used, in other words, how much time will be spent on the speech and how much time will be used for questions and answers. Members should also note that they will need the unanimous consent of the committee to split their time with another member. When the time is to be used for questions and comments, the Chair will expect that the minister's response will reflect approximately the time taken by the question, as that time counts toward the time allocated to the party.
I also wish to indicate that, in committee of the whole, comments should be addressed to the Chair. I will ask members to recognize this issue because in committee of the whole the chair occupant does not have the occasion of being on the fauteuil behind me. Otherwise, we would normally stand up to terminate the member's time. It will be difficult for members to see when their time is up, so I would ask members to direct their attention to the Chair when they are posing questions and responding. In this way, it is easier for me to indicate when their time is up. Normally, when a member's time is coming close, I will give a time indication and give the member a few seconds to wrap up. After that, the member's microphone will be cut off, and we will go back to the other question or response, as the case may be.
I ask for everyone's co-operation in upholding all the established standards of decorum, parliamentary language, and behaviour.
We will now begin tonight's session.