Government Operations Committee on June 11th, 2018

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

You require consent to extend. Have you asked the committee if they consent to extend the time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I have not, only because the chair can suspend or extend at his or her desire. Since this has to be reported back today, I would love to deal with it, if we could, expeditiously.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Chair, if we don't vote on it, it's deemed approved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We have until midnight until that occurs.

Madam Ratansi, I know what you're saying, quite frankly. I'm not enamoured of the thought of sitting here until midnight but from a procedural standpoint, that's where we are.

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Do we have another point of order?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Could we look at the Standing Orders to see if we need majority consent to sit past the scheduled time, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Certainly.

Ms. Ratansi, there's really nothing in the Standing Orders that prevents us from continuing.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. You can continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I believe I was just at the point in my remarks where I was going to share with the committee some of the possible ways in which one might go about spending $750,000 to support a new process for a federal election leaders debate.

One of the things that this government has done often and is a fan of and in principle is a very good thing is consultation. Of course, there are a number of different ways, even just under the rubric of consultation, that one could choose to consult Canadians on a new process for federal election leaders debates. Just think of social media, Mr. Chair. I'm sure you've seen a number of times in this Parliament already that the government has framed itself as a proponent of social media consultation and has done a number of consultations on social media. Therefore, one can imagine that if what's conceived or if the ultimate plan for the consultation for this particular initiative is a Twitter consultation, which we have seen before, then as an MP, I think I have not just every right, but, frankly, a duty, to ask why it is we would have a $750,000 budget for a Twitter consultation. The minister has a number of staff already. There's staff in the PCO. Presumably, some of those staff are adept at Twitter or social media, and they wouldn't have to bring in a consultant for $750,000 in order to implement a Twitter consultation.

That's one way they could do it. Even within that, I think at that point the amount of money that we're talking about would be obscene. Even within the very idea of a Twitter consultation, Mr. Chair, I think you'd find there might be some controversy as to how exactly you evaluate the feedback you're getting from Canadians. Is it re-tweets? Is it likes? Are 240 characters really sufficient in order to get a good sense of where Canadians are with respect to something that is quite important?

Of course, we know from the last election there was some controversy about the way in which federal leadership debates unfolded. It had to do with whether or not some leaders, in the eyes of the public and their political opponents, were accepting enough invitations to participate in debates.

Now, I'm not saying that this is a good idea, but one way that one can imagine the government might end up deciding that they want to support this process is by legislative changes that would then require party leaders to attend a minimum number of debates which are organized in a certain fashion. We'll come to that I'm sure over the course of this debate. Say that was the upshot—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Sorry to interrupt, but just for the information of all colleagues around the table, Mr. Blaikie used the term “debate”, and that's quite correct. We are currently debating amendment 169 under vote 40. I'm assembling a speakers list. I have a few people who have indicated they wish to speak. That's where we are. If you do wish to speak, please indicate by raising your hand, and we'll put you on the list.

Sorry, Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much for that clarification, Mr. Chair. That's helpful.

If it were the case that the mechanism the government decided to use in order to support a more robust leadership debate process in federal elections was legislative, then again I think we're at the point where we could ask why the government needs an additional $750,000 to support a legislative process that's already well supported within the existing resources. Arguably, due to the relatively small quantity of legislation this Parliament has seen compared to others, the legislative branch might actually be over-resourced for this particular government. Certainly, if it's a legislative fix, I think we can say that a $750,000 supplement to the existing resources is probably not appropriate. That's part of the crux of the matter of what we've been trying to get at with respect to this initiative, but also many other initiatives, to the extent to which parliamentarians can make a judgment about the amount that's appropriate for a particular item in the absence of having departments appear and be able to answer those questions. It's not that they're not answering those questions because they don't want to, or they're being deliberately evasive. It's because they can't, in principle, answer questions about programs that they haven't developed yet. That's been a recurring theme.

Twitter consultations, legislative changes.... Even under the rubric of social media consultation, I think many members around the table will know Twitter is not the only way to consult Canadians with respect to social media. You might be able to do a slightly more in-depth consultation if you used the medium of Facebook as opposed to Twitter. Facebook Live enables people to interact in real time with the host of the seminar. That would actually be a real back and forth with Canadians. Presumably, of course, if they wanted to do it more on the political side, and do some political branding at the same time, they might have the Minister of Democratic Institutions conduct such a consultation so that she can interact directly, but we've also seen instances where parliamentary—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Once again I'm sorry to interrupt but I do have to excuse myself just for a few moments.

Madam Ratansi, perhaps you wouldn't mind taking the chair and proceeding.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I was just mentioning that Facebook is another way in which government can consult Canadians on social media. Facebook Live is a particularly interesting tool that I know some members of government have used because it allows for some real-time interaction, with questions and answers and whatnot. The government might consider doing that.

Just to bring it back to the amendment at hand, the question then would be, again, why would you require $750,000 to do a consultation like that? Access to Facebook is free for most uses, including doing something on Facebook Live. That would enable government to be able to consult a cross-section of Canadians quite directly and save on the expensive travel. Of course, sometimes travel is an expense that comes in the course of consultation, whether that's government consultation or, as we know quite well, committee consultation. This committee has travelled before. I recall sitting in, before I was a permanent member of this committee, when the committee was in Winnipeg on the Canada Post issue. Of course, that kind of travel isn't free, but part of the point is that we don't know whether travel is foreseen as an item in the $750,000 being asked for here.

Instagram, of course, is another social media platform. I'll leave it to experts to determine whether or not that's a good consultation tool. I'm more familiar with Twitter and Facebook. It seems to me they're more interactive in the appropriate way with respect to consultation. It's difficult to get a clear sense of what Canadians might want for a federal election debate process simply through images, although some Canadians are pretty adept at creating memes. One can imagine that there might be some insightful and humorous communication by a number of those Canadians through an Instagram consultation. I'll leave it to minds smarter than mine to envision exactly what that might look like.

You might actually need to have some funds in order to develop the concept of an Instagram consultation. I'm not sure of the cost, but surely not $750,000, or at least I hope not; if it did cost that much, I would think that would be far too much to spend on a social media experiment. Canadians shouldn't be required to pay that bill when at some point, I would think, if Instagram consultation does have a promising future, we'll see members of the private sector develop that in order to realize its potential.

As well—

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I'm just wondering how relevant what Mr. Blaikie is saying is to vote 40.

I don't know where you are going on this, Mr. Blaikie.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Unfortunately, you may have made an intervention, but Mr. Blaikie still has the floor. He's well within his procedural rights to continue.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I presume it at least has to be in relation to the subject we're discussing. This stops us from voting on vote 40, so perhaps he could explain.

He's going on to social media and Instagram. I have no idea where he's going.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Actually, the rules of relevance do not apply here. You will notice, if you've paid attention in the House, that even Speaker Regan from time to time has said that he is constrained. While many people even in question period would like to see ministers answer questions that are perhaps relevant to the question asked, the ministers are under no compulsion to do so.

Similarly, as long as Mr. Blaikie does not become repetitive, which I'm paying close attention to, and as long as he does not refuse to answer or speak to the motion before us, relevance does not have any purpose here for this discussion.

Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I hope members will feel that I'm being relevant. I thank Mr. Massé for making my point, in part, which is that the problem with the money requested for this particular initiative is that we don't actually know what it's for.

[Rémi Massé, Liberal, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Well, no, we didn't, not from the Privy Council Office. I recognize that the member is not a permanent member of this committee. If he were, he would know that when the Privy Council Office appeared to speak to their allocation under vote 40, they said very clearly that they couldn't tell us what the money was for; the program hadn't been developed yet.

Now, that leaves the door pretty wide open. What I'm trying to provide in my remarks is some speculation as to what a possible program looks like that would support a new process for federal election debates. My point was quite relevant to costing. I was trying to suggest that if it ends up being the case...and we don't know, because we actually have no guidance whatsoever from the PCO on what it is they're planning to do with this money. They've been very clear.