I would like to open the session of the committee of the whole on Bill C-89 by making a short statement regarding the proceedings.
Pursuant to an order made earlier this evening, not more than one hour shall be allotted to the consideration of the committee of the whole stage. Any division requested in the committee shall be deferred until the end of the committee's consideration of the bill. At the expiry of this period, any proceedings before the committee of the whole shall be interrupted and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the stage under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.
During the consideration of the bill during committee of the whole the general rules of debate are as follows. Members shall speak for not more than 20 minutes at a time and are not permitted to split their time without unanimous consent. While there is no formal period for questions and comments, members may use their time to either speak or ask questions and the responses will be counted in the time allotted to that member.
Finally, members may speak more than once and need not be in their seats to be recognized.
The committee will now proceed with the clause-by-clause study of the bill pursuant to Standing Order 75(1). The study of clause 1 is postponed. I therefore will proceed with debate on Clause 2.