It was agreed, — That the order pertaining to the rounds of questioning of witnesses, adopted by the Committee on Thursday, February 4, 2016, be rescinded and replaced with the following:

That, at the discretion of the Chair, the witnesses from any one organization be allowed ten (10) minutes to make their opening statement and that the order and time allotted for the questioning of witnesses in the first round be as follows: Conservative Party – five (5) minutes, Liberal Party – five (5) minutes, New Democratic Party – five (5) minutes, Liberal Party – five (5) minutes; that the order and time allotted for the questioning of witnesses in the second round be as follows: Liberal Party – five (5) minutes, Conservative Party – five (5) minutes, Liberal Party – five (5) minutes, Conservative Party – five (5) minutes, New Democratic Party – three (3) minutes, Liberal Party – five (5) minutes; and that, if time permits, further rounds shall repeat the pattern of the first two rounds at the discretion of the Chair.

It was agreed, — That a Member of Parliament who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee and who seeks the right to speak during the questioning of witnesses ask a Committee member beforehand to share that member’s speaking time, and that the Committee member inform the chair before witnesses are questioned that they intend to share their time with the member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee; and that the Chair write to the Members of Parliament who are not members of a caucus represented on the Committee to inform them of this process.

It was agreed, — That the Subcommittee on agenda and procedure be composed of five (5) members including the chair, the two (2) vice-chairs and two (2) members of the government; quorum of the Subcommittee shall consist of at least three (3) members, one (1) of whom shall be from the government and one (1) from the opposition; each member of the Subcommittee shall be permitted to have one (1) assistant attend any meeting of the Subcommittee; and in addition, each party shall be permitted to have one (1) officer of a House Officer attend any meeting.

It was agreed, — That, notwithstanding the motion adopted on March 8, 2016, the deadline for written submission for the pre-study of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) be pushed back to June 30, 2016, 23:59 EDT;

That the limit on words for written submission be withdrawn, that written submissions longer than 10 pages must be accompanied by a summary of no more than 1,500 words and that the Committee may decide to translate and distribute or publish only the summary;

That the Chair publish a news release on the Committee’s website, informing Canadians of the new deadline and criteria to submit a written submission.

At 9:49 a.m., the sitting was suspended.

At 9:52 a.m., the sitting resumed in public.

Richard Garneau, André Tremblay and Gaston Poitras made statements and answered questions.