Sent to the whole

At the conclusion of regular business this evening, the House of Commons will set aside the mace and move into a committee of the whole to question Peter MacKay and Julian Fantino. Each May, the leader of the opposition is entitled to request that the estimates for two departments be referred to committee of the whole. The responsible ministers are then required to submit themselves to an interrogation lasting up to four hours.

The discussion needn’t be restricted to the spending plans of the given department. Here, for instance, is the 2010 session with Peter MacKay, which opened with questions about the handling of Afghan detainees.