Hon. Peter Harder: Honourable senators, my comments will be brief.

I want to draw to your attention the report from the Rules Committee. Everyone will remember that, on June 4, we adopted a motion asking the committee to examine whether the ministerial Question Period should be incorporated into the rules of this chamber. It is a practice that members will have become familiar with over the last 10 years.

The committee undertook this study in the course of the last month and has reported to the chamber with this report that it does believe that the rules should be amended to reflect ministerial Question Period in this chamber. That was the overwhelming recommendation, although not unanimous, from the committee.

The committee would also like to make additional points, the first of which is that we should leave to a sessional order the details regarding the conduct, timing and other measures related to the execution of that rule, in line with what we’ve put into practice for the last number of years, but in deference to the conversations that leaders must have to incorporate in the sessional order and provide guidance to this chamber.

As a committee, we also undertook to provide some guidance to the leaders’ discussions on how the sessional order should be constructed and also how the list of ministers and the decisions relating to the comportment of the Question Period should go. That is a list for your consideration and for the consideration of leaders as we move forward.

But the crux of the report — the important thing — is to entrench in the rules of this place the practice of ministerial Question Period in the chamber.