Rules of Debate / Process of Debate
Committees of the Whole: speaking time
Debates, p. 5416
Context
On May 14, 2014, Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley) used a point of order during consideration of the Main Estimates in Committee of the Whole to object that Joe Oliver (Minister of Finance) was being granted more time to respond to questions than the opposition Members were being granted to pose them. In his view, questions and answers were meant to be of approximately equivalent length.
Resolution
The Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole (Barry Devolin) ruled immediately. He acknowledged that there was a degree to which overly lengthy answers to brief questions were inappropriate but ruled that the answers being given by the Minister were within acceptable limits and that the notion of equivalency should not be applied too strictly.
Decision of the Chair
The Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole: The Chair certainly appreciates the reminder from the hon. Member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley in terms of how to manage this process. I looked at the clock for the past several questions. The hon. Member’s question took 30 seconds and the answer was 46 seconds. The question was 26 seconds and the answer again was 46 seconds. The next question was 15 seconds followed by an answer of 40 seconds.
If the Member thinks that the Chair should take a strict legalistic approach to this, very often a question can be asked in 10 or 15 seconds. I think all hon. Members would agree that it is difficult to give an answer to that question in that period of time. Certainly the Chair has on many occasions reminded Members when they are giving very lengthy answers and appear to be just trying to use up the clock that it is inappropriate to do that, but when a question is 20 or 30 seconds and the answer is 30 or 40 seconds, that certainly is within acceptable limits.