Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 10th, 2023

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to take my final seconds to say merci to my colleague Mr. Villemure for allowing me to expand on that and not feel rushed. It's less combative when I can work through it without having to beat the clock.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

That concludes our first round of questioning.

We are now going to our five-minute rounds. We will go to Ms. Ferreri.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for letting me sit in on the ethics committee today.

Hello, Ms. Alvaro. Thanks for joining us.

To start out, I want to read into the record that last night the committee did receive documents of the scope of your work, Ms. Alvaro, the work that you provided. Based on your testimony today, we're clearly missing a lot of documents. I just want to read that to start off.

The next thing I would ask, Ms. Alvaro, is, how many other companies offer the work that you do?

[Amanda Alvaro]

Well, I think that there are probably a handful, maybe less, of companies that offer both communications support and also have a political lens or have a knowledge of government work, given my background, but I think that there are many firms that offer communications support.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you.

Would you say dozens? Are there quite a few in terms of choice?

[Amanda Alvaro]

There are dozens, yes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Do you do crisis intervention, crisis communications?

[Amanda Alvaro]

Yes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

In your professional opinion, what would be your recommendation of media communication to the minister on this unethical breach that she has done?

[Amanda Alvaro]

I don't think I understand your question.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

If you were providing crisis communication training to the minister and she's been found in an unethical violation and breach—a conflict of interest in hiring a friend—what would be your professional opinion of how she should handle that?

[Amanda Alvaro]

My opinion would be that she should comply with the Ethics Commissioner fully, which she did, and that she should acknowledge the findings of the Ethics Commissioner, because the Ethics Commissioner took a thoughtful time over a matter of months to look into this situation.

The Ethics Commissioner found that there wasn't any fault with the work and there wasn't any fault with the need for the work or the contract itself, but that it was a matter of recusal. I think that my advice would be to the minister to acknowledge that, to acknowledge that there is an issue here.

The member I just spoke with spoke about remedies that could be put in place. I think that's a valuable outcome of a meeting like this, so I would encourage both additional training for staff and also to be an advocate for some of those remedies that could be put in place to make sure that something like this, from a recusal standpoint, doesn't happen again.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thanks, Ms. Alvaro.

You've said there are many other companies that offer this service. You are her friend. Would you not have suggested perhaps that she use someone else?

There are other companies that offer this service. You've mentioned multiple times how important it was to get the work out despite there being 104 public servants who offer communications services and who are already paid by the government. You said that you didn't need the money and you said that you're a $5-million business, so wouldn't it have been better advice to say, “Maybe you could use one of the many other companies that provide this work that is so important”?

[Amanda Alvaro]

I think two things.

One, everyone who was involved believed that they were fulfilling and complying with obligations, and we did comply with all of our obligations. That's one.

Two—and I said this in my opening remarks and I feel pretty strongly about it—when you're faced with a crisis of this magnitude that nobody has ever faced before, a crisis that is totally unprecedented, I think it's absolutely natural that you would reach out to someone you know, someone you respect, someone you trust and someone you believe unequivocally will get the job done right.

That being said, if I had known—and I didn't—that there was an issue from a recusal standpoint, I would certainly have suggested that she work with another firm, as she has in the past. She's worked with other firms, which the Ethics Commissioner looked at, from a media training standpoint. I think that I absolutely would have done that, but I understand why she reached out to someone she trusted and respected to give her good advice and good work during this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

That's all the time you have, Ms. Ferreri.

Ms. Hepfner, you have five minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Alvaro, for being with us here today.

In the last hour, I have been speaking with the minister about how difficult it is to be natural and forthcoming and also to convey really detailed, important information to the public on camera. I'm a former broadcaster, and I wasn't good at it for a lot of years. For most people, it's not natural.

Can you kind of take us through how you train someone to deal with those situations?

[Amanda Alvaro]

Yes.

There was a lot of media training of C-level executives during that time in the pandemic, because I think for many it was the first time they would be forced to deliver information of such a significant nature to the media.

Since the minister was one of just a few ministers who were tapped to deliver really important supports to Canadian businesses, I know her intention was to make sure she did that clearly and that she used every tool available to her, whether people were receiving information through Instagram Live or traditional media, so a number of products were created, which we detailed. There was also training around how to provide information to media and also how to deliver information in video format and through Instagram Live.

One of the things we produced was a seven-minute video with cut-downs. We took what we thought would be the most popular questions, the most urgent questions that Canadian businesses might have. We asked her to answer those questions, and we did a lot of training through that: Answer those questions simply and succinctly. Give Canadian businesses the information they need without all of the governmental jargon. Tell them how they can apply. Tell them what the eligibility is. Tell them what supports are available from the emergency wage subsidy to the loans. In seven minutes, she was able to do that. There was a full-scale video, but there were also cut-downs that she could use, and by that I mean small formats that she could use over social media to disseminate that information really quickly and clearly. I think that work was important work.

We also did some graphic downloadable one-pagers, which were available so that people could easily get the top 10 or the top seven things you need to know in order to access these supports. In some cases, since I am a small business owner who was interested in these supports, I knew the questions I wanted answered. I was working with other small businesses and I knew the questions they wanted answered, and I didn't want them to have to go to ministry web pages to try to decipher contents of press releases.

I think government is really good at a lot of things, but those things don't necessarily include using the digital channels and social channels that are available to them and delivering simple communications. I think there is a time and a place to use outside professional support, and, in my professional opinion, the middle of a global pandemic, an unprecedented crisis of this nature, was one of those times.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Would you say that the pandemic changed the way public figures had to communicate to the public? Did it change communications in the way that the government speaks to people?

[Amanda Alvaro]

I think that it opened up for some ministers. I don't think all ministers took the opportunity to use the digital tools that are available to them, but I think we're seeing more and more government departments and ministers use those tools.

I think that fundamentally businesses changed how they communicated because they recognized that traditional media are just one output and that people are having conversations and dialogue on digital and social channels. That's a way to really quickly reach people, but it's also a shorter format, so you have to be able to succinctly deliver that message in a way that's compelling and persuasive and allows people to digest the information in an easy-to-understand way.

I do think that in some ways it really did change the way people communicate, and I think in some ways for the better. It allowed people to access the types of tools that maybe they hadn't accessed before.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I think that's my time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

That is. Thank you, Ms. Hepfner.

Mr. Villemure, you now have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to give my time to my colleague Matthew Green again.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you once again, Mr. Villemure.

Mr. Green, I recall that Canadian iconic show, The Red Green Show. Well, today, it's the Matt Green show.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Oh, no—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have five minutes, sir.