Government Operations Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Dr. Alex Marland]

Sure. I think I'll provide an example. Before I was in academia I worked in communications in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. I can distinctly remember editors of small community papers sometimes phoning and saying they'd noticed we'd taken out advertising in these places, and why we were not advertising in theirs. It helped me understand that if we think about government as doing good things for the community, somewhere in all of this we have to balance the need for communications experts to focus directly on targeted messages with, at the same time, making sure our government is spreading public monies. To me, there is that issue.

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

Thank you.

Professor Rose, you're talking about the ASC not having enough teeth and you want an oversight body. We thought the Auditor General would be the ideal body, but unfortunately the Auditor General doesn't want to take on that responsibility. Instead of creating another bureaucracy, what more effective system would you suggest?

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

The institution of the ASC could easily be transplanted in a small officer of Parliament office that is responsible to Parliament. It doesn't have to be a big bureaucracy. I understand the apprehension of the Auditor General, and I think that was felt in Ontario, but they quickly adapted.

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

Do you have any thoughts, Professor Marland?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

No, it's good.

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

No? Okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to our five-minute rounds of questioning.

Is it Mr. Shipley or Mr. Diotte?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I just want to follow up on one.

It was interesting talking about this 90-day ban, and then we got into the discussion about by-elections, and fixed-date elections. One thing we haven't talked about, which happens likely about as much in this country as fixed dates, is minority governments. When you have a minority government, obviously, I think what we all understand is that this really comes at the call of the opposition parties when they will call non-confidence in the government. What you might want to think about is how that is going to take different directives in terms of dealing with these different scenarios of by-elections and in minority governments, which Canada has often governed under.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

One of the realities of a Westminster tradition, of course, is this idea of confidence. Within the Westminster tradition is the caretaker convention, which suggests that government would suspend all activities until they have the confidence in the House. Presumably during the election that rule would hold, but the same problem about how you would go back from 90 days from the general election holds for an election in a minority Parliament.

The other question I have is, I don't understand how it's enforceable. While it is a good goal, it's not enforceable because it's happened already.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Marland.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

I'll just get back to my point that I know the focus is on advertising, but I would simply repeat that in my view, we need to think more broadly than that, and we need to think about other forms of communication. Let's say there are rules which say that you're not able to advertise, but in the meantime the prime minister and others are able to use government resources to get their message out through the news media because they're using government employees to help them do that, for example. That's still occurring. I would simply suggest that looking only at advertising is only one element of a bigger picture.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I do appreciate bringing up the concern at the time of having an officer of Parliament as the oversight, because that can.... Whether it does or not, it can often be perceived as being that way. There's nothing perfect, but I think there's likely some combination of some thoughts in terms of this policy.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to leave it at that.

Thank you very much to both of you, Mr. Rose and Mr. Marland.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Peterson, for five minutes, please.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's interesting. I think we're going to use our full two hours with you two, so we appreciate your time. This is great information. It begs more questions as we go along and ask other questions, and I think that's an effective part of this process.

I want to follow up a bit, Professor Rose, on your comments about extending the ban on advertising leading up to elections. I think you suggested that even during by-elections there should be some mechanism to ban that. Are you suggesting that any by-election ban would be national in scope, or is there a way to fine-tune it to perhaps the area where the by-election may be happening?

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

Given the fact that much communication transcends geographic boundaries, I think the only way to make it enforceable is if you agreed with the principle, and I think the principle is pretty difficult to refute. During election campaigns we all agree that we shouldn't advertise because it represents some kind of improper communication. A by-election is the same kind of thing: it is an election. It's an election for a small group of people, but it's an election. How do you impose that same principle on a smaller group? The only way to do it is to ban all government advertising outright during by-elections. I actually don't think the costs would be great, but I also take heed and listen to Professor Marland's point about the costs and the benefits of doing so.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

As a practical matter, we've had how many by-elections just in this session of Parliament? It's at least six or eight. If we extend the period of banning, there could be, practically speaking, an effective ban on government advertising for the whole four years. I think we have to be careful and fine-tune the details.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

We may also find that if such an instrument were imposed, it would change the behaviour of the government. They might cluster by-elections to avoid that.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

That's a good point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Is there a comment you wanted to add to Professor Rose's observations?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

Yes, I would like to build on that. I don't really understand how it is that we would need to ban all sorts of government advertising, much of which potentially is innocuous, but in the meantime, the governing party and the cabinet can go in and make all these announcements and say they're going to be spending all this money. I don't understand how one harm is still occurring and the other isn't. I think that if you were to go that route, the first step would be to ask whether government ministers and others should get to use public funds to travel in their ridings during the campaign.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It seems to me, if I can characterize this, the evil that ought to be addressed by any advertising regime is the government's using state resources for political gains. That's really what this is meant to address. It's more than just advertising. Is that fair to say?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

Yes, it's more than advertising. Exactly.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

The governing party of the day shouldn't have levers where they can access state resources to promote a political agenda.

Well, this only took us an hour and forty-six minutes—we're slow learners here. I think most people would share that sentiment, no matter on what side of the House of Commons they sit. I appreciate that summary.

I want to follow up on something you said earlier on the repository of advertising. I think that was you, Professor Marland. I take it that would be accessible at all times on the web somewhere. For all advertising, whether or not it's caught by social media, television, radio, there would be some central source that any Canadian could access.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

I think that would be a wonderful resource. I'll give you one good example: people like Professor Rose and me could then use it in the classroom. That's not the real reason, though. I think it's about transparency.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I don't disagree with you, and I wouldn't see why there would be any push-back on that, except for maybe some practical reasons. If you put the advertising out there, the advertiser would want it to be viewed as often as possible, one would assume.