Government Operations Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, welcome to the 97th meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. I have a few comments before we get into our presentations.

We have two witnesses with us today, and we have two hours allocated. We will continue with the questions as long as there are questions from any member of either the government or the opposition. Following the exhaustion of questions, if we have no other business, we will adjourn at that time. We'll see how far this takes us.

First, I'd like to welcome the witnesses who are with us today.

In person is Mr. Jonathan Rose, associate professor in the department of political studies at Queen's. Thank you, Mr. Rose, for being with us.

By video conference we have Mr. Alex Marland, who is a professor of political science at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Welcome, Mr. Marland. Can you hear us?

[Dr. Alex Marland, Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual]

Yes, I can, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, with that brief introduction, we'll start our presentations. My understanding is that both of our witnesses have approximately 10 minutes each for their opening statements.

Mr. Marland, we will start with you. The floor is yours.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

Thank you very much. I can't tell you how excited I am. This is really.... [Inaudible—Editor] Thank you very much for asking me.

I think it's helpful, just before I—

[Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Professor, we'll take a time out. We're having some technical issues. We'll see whether we can rectify them, and once we do that, we'll get you to restart.

Okay. I think we're fine now so, sir, if you wouldn't mind, perhaps you could start your presentation once again. Hopefully we'll be uninterrupted by technical difficulties.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

All right. Communications, eh?

The main thing I wanted to start by saying is how excited I am to be doing this. Thank you very much for asking me.

I think it's helpful to understand where I'm coming from as somebody who studies government and political communication.

The first thing you should know about my approach is that we should think about communications much as we think about ethics. By this I mean that a situation is rarely black and white; it's not as though somebody is always necessarily wrong or always necessarily right. Situations are constantly in a state of evolution, and we should think of a lot of it as a matter of opinion.

What I often say when I'm interviewed by journalists is that much is in the eye of the beholder. When journalists ask me something, I'll say, “Well, you may think that, but somebody else might think something different.”

It's also helpful to understand that the academics who study in this area sometimes are very critical and sometimes very political. I myself—very much, I would argue, like Dr. Rose—try to eliminate biases in the research I do, to identify information, and to present suggestions for reform that people would say are non-partisan and pragmatic.

I would suggest that the default position of government, no matter which political party happens to be in government or whether we're talking at the provincial-territorial level, should be transparency. More than that, the default should also be proactive disclosure, so that information is available before people even ask for it.

I also think that, just as a general principle, we should recognize that in the political game there are different opinions based on whether a party at any given time happens to be in government or in opposition. We should accept the fact that many public servants are risk averse; they're secretive, they're worried, and they are increasingly operating in a frenetic, online public sphere.

Journalists often have unrealistic demands. They're doing an important job, but at the same time their timelines are shrinking. They make demands on what must be available and when it must be available, and it can be very difficult to be able to provide that information to them in a timely manner.

Last, I think we should accept that people have different political agendas. We can't live in a world in which we just say that everything should be available all the time, because the reality is that sometimes information may cause actual harm. The question is one of trying to figure out when that might happen.

To focus my suggestions about the kinds of things that might be done, I wrote a book called Brand Command. This particular book is the one I'm going to refer to in a moment.

On pages 369 to 377 there is a list of suggestions. The first suggestion, the one I'm actually excited to mention, is to have Parliament regularly update the Government of Canada's communications policy. I'm really pleased to see that we're even having this conversation.

The second suggestion—whether or not Parliament would be able to do this is another matter, but I recommend it—is that there should be a political communication code of ethics. In the book I get into the reason I think that would be helpful.

Here is something which I think Parliament may want to consider doing. In my opinion, there should not be public taxpayers' or any donor funding provided for what we would call “de-branding”—often people refer to it as “negative advertising”—without people's specific, explicit knowledge that money is going in that direction. Some of this is explained in the book.

The fourth thing I recommend is that political parties should not be using the official colours of the Government of Canada. That's a very non-partisan statement, but it is important to me that there not be confusion between a political party and an operation of the government.

I think Mr. Whalen is on your committee, from Newfoundland and Labrador. He would know that here in Newfoundland and Labrador it's very common for the licence plates to change colour. If you're in Newfoundland and Labrador and you see that the licence plate is blue, it's usually because of what political party is in power at the time. If the licence plate is red, it's because....

Yes, he's nodding his head.

These are the kinds of things that happen quite a bit, and to me they're a source of concern.

Next, in my view there should be annual reports about money that is spent on what we would call photo ops, or what is often called in academia “pseudo events”. We have annual reports for advertising and public opinion research. I think it's magnificent that they do those, but I would suggest that reports are actually needed on spending related to photo ops. Photo ops involve an awful lot of time and effort and can be seen as an alternative to advertising. It seems to me it would be useful to have such reports.

The last thing is—again, whether or not it were Parliament doing this—it would be helpful for society if we were to have a form of checklist to assess government advertising. When I do interviews with journalists, they're often trying to understand whether or not government advertising is acceptable or whether it's seen as partisan. There's nothing I can ever say to them. I can't say, “Look at this list; this is the list of things that exists.” Dr. Rose knows that in Ontario, for example, there is a bit of a list that can be drawn upon, but the lack of any form of guidance for journalists can be quite difficult.

I have two further suggestions to bring to the committee's consideration.

Since I prepared Brand Command, I've conducted some research using access to information for both the Government of Canada and the provinces and territories. A further suggestion I have is that, in my view, communications planning templates should by default be available online. What I mean by planning templates is anything that I would call or academics might call “below-the-line documents”, such as planning documents for media inquiry processing. Templates don't have to be filled out, but they would provide the structure of things.

Think about a briefing note. The structure of what is in a briefing note is often publicly available. Certainly for a cabinet paper we would see what the structure is. What we don't see, however, is the structure of communications planning templates, such as for event planning, for rollout plans, for calendars, all these things that, to me, should by default be available online.

The last comment I would offer is that a little more recently—I haven't researched this, so I have to preface my comment with that—I'm coming to the opinion that it would be helpful to have proactive disclosure of social media campaigns. I absolutely understand why the government is heading in a direction in which, in lieu of television advertising, for example, or print advertising, much of the advertising is going online: it's very targeted; it's efficient.... There are many other reasons that it's useful. It's good value for money, obviously. The challenge is that only certain people might see that information, and a government, in my view, should make sure that everybody has the opportunity to see information that it makes available. This is especially the case for those who don't happen to be on social media.

I would argue that it would be useful to have a depository in which anything that involves social media could be seen by people easily and they wouldn't have to search anything out. Again the default, in my view, should be proactive disclosure rather than reactive disclosure, as a general working principle.

I've managed to stay within 10 minutes. I hope that's okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Professor.

Next we have Professor Rose.

You have 10 minutes, if needed, sir.

[Professor Jonathan Rose, Associate Professor, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual]

I also want to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak. Like Alex, I've been researching and thinking about this topic for many years. I wrote the first book on government advertising and I was involved in the 2002 Auditor General's inquiry on advertising, sponsorship, and public opinion. More recently, I co-wrote a report for Elections Nova Scotia about how government should limit advertising before an election. For 10 years I have been on the provincial Auditor General's committee in Ontario that reviews government advertising.

My comments really are informed by that experience. Coming before this committee, a committee that is studying the subject, I now know what it's like to be a Trekkie at a Star Trek convention. Thank you for giving me that opportunity.

I'll cut to the chase. The changes that are made are, on the whole, welcome amendments. I agree with Professor Marland that there are various ways of seeing the same issue, but on the whole, they are on balance going, I think, in the right direction. What they attempt to do is curtail the impulse of governments of all political stripes to use taxpayers' money to buy voters' favour. They also place adjudication of advertising in the hands of a third party, which I think ensures legitimacy.

Having said that, I think there are some areas that can be improved. In the time I have, I want to talk about three areas: first, the definition of partisanship; second, the very narrow definition of advertising; and third, some issues around the 90-day ban.

Let me preface this by saying that it should be the goal of all governments to limit or prohibit partisan government communications. The Government of Canada has come a long way since Clifford Sifton, the minister of the interior in Wilfrid Laurier's government, advertised Canada throughout Europe and described the winters in Canada as “bracing” and “invigorating”—a nose-stretcher, to be sure. After that, prior to the Quebec referendum, the federal government spent massive amounts of money on the Canadian Unity Information Office extolling the virtues of federalism.

I say this because it's not a surprise that for years the Government of Canada has been one of the top 10 spenders among advertisers in the country, and Canada historically has spent more per capita on advertising than any other democratic country. Thankfully, in the last 10 years, post-Gomery, this has changed. I think the governments of both political parties have taken great steps to improve the situation.

Let me move to partisanship. I think the most significant change is around banning partisanship.

In the policy, non-partisan communication is defined as information that is “objective, factual and explanatory”; that is “free from political party slogans, images, identifiers...”; that does not use a colour “associated with the governing party”; and that doesn't include a voice, name, or face of an MP.

These are all things on which I think reasonable people can agree. What is noteworthy is that with one exception—the “objective, factual and explanatory” one—partisanship is defined as something in the absence of things: you can't have party slogans; you can't have party colours; you can't have an MP. Perhaps this negative definition is a result of the inability to clearly define what is partisan. It brings to mind U.S. Justice Potter Stewart's famous line, “I know it when I see it.”

I would have liked to see the policy state positive standards to which government advertising must adhere and give greater latitude to the independent review body, the Advertising Standards Council. I think they should be given greater discretion in that the discretion they have is pretty limited.

The gold standard, in my opinion, is the Government of Ontario's Government Advertising Act of 2004. In its original version, prior to its being amended in 2015, the act placed the burden on the government to defend its use of advertising. In other words, all ads had to inform the public of policies or services, inform about rights, or encourage or discourage social behaviour in the public interest. These explicit goals placed the obligation on the government to demonstrate the need for an ad campaign in addition to demonstrating that it wasn't partisan.

More crucially, a required standard was that it “must not be a primary objective of the [ad] to foster a positive impression of the governing party or a negative impression of a person or entity who is critical of the government”. “Feel good” ads that serve no obvious public policy purpose, such, I would argue, as the Canada 150 ads or the economic action plan ads, would fall under that category.

The determination of whether an ad was partisan fell to the advertising review group, as I said, a group of which I was a part.

Prior to its being amended in 2015, the act allowed the Auditor General to determine the context of the ad or advertising campaign, and I want to suggest that context matters enormously. Sometimes a perfectly appropriate government ad can be supplemented by a political party ad that communicates the same thing. In those cases, the government ad is a thinly disguised attempt to leverage party advertising through government advertising.

This was exactly the case with the Ontario retirement pension plan of the Ontario Liberals. This campaign, which ran in 2015, met the standards and was broadcast by a very similar policy of the Liberal Party. Unfortunately, changes to the act in 2015 allowed this, and assessment based on context was no longer permitted.

I should say, then, that this kind of advertising, in which party advertising piggybacks on government advertising, would be allowed under your changes. That's something you may want to think about.

The second thing is the scope of advertising. Louise Baird, who spoke before this committee on June 15, said that a “video that is produced and put on our departmental website” is “not considered advertising under the policy”, and of course, Ms. Baird is right. The issue is made clear by the policy on communications and federal identity, which states that government advertising “is defined as any message...paid for by the government for placement in media”. Well, what exactly is “placement”? Without being able to scrutinize government websites, there is a potential for content that is laudatory but that provides no information, not unlike the 24-7 campaign from a previous PMO.

The principle here is simple. There need to be rules in place so that if and when a government's good judgment lapses, that government can be held to account. Internet advertising by government has grown 126% from 2012 to 2015, the last year for which data are available. Virtually all ads in the traditional media of radio, print, and TV feature links to the Internet. If those websites are not covered under the changes, the reviewed ad that the ASC is looking at can simply serve as a way to drive traffic to a government website that does not adhere to the criterion.

In Ontario, the Auditor General reached an agreement with the provincial government that recognized that the link was actually an extension of the ad. We reviewed what we called the “first click”: if the ad took you to a landing page, the first click after that was also reviewable. That was important, because it prevented innocuous government ads from being teasers for non-reviewable partisan ads.

The last thing I want to talk about is the 90-day ban. This is an important improvement on past practice, but the research I've done has shown that governments spend more money in the year preceding an election rather than in the 90 days before it. The 90-day ban may thus have little effect. Moreover, the 90-day ban prior to the general election would not stop governments from advertising during by-elections. If we follow the same principle that advertising is undue influence during an election, surely the same logic must hold true in a by-election.

There are two provinces that have legislation limiting government advertising, and their practice might be instructive for the committee.

Manitoba also has a 90-day rule, but with prohibition during by-elections.

Saskatchewan is more nuanced. Advertising is banned during the election period, which is fixed at 27 days, and for 30 days prior to the election period. In the 90 days prior to the election period, however, the province limits what governments can advertise: only advertisements that inform the public about programs and services are allowed. Moreover, in the 120 days before the election period in Saskatchewan, the government is not allowed to spend more money than it did in the same time frame in the previous year, and as in Manitoba, advertising is banned.

I would urge the committee, therefore, to think about banning advertising during by-elections. With the average campaign in Canada being about 50 days long, this means that the present ban is only for 40 days, on average, before an election. If the next campaign were as long as the last one was, it would only be for about two weeks. That gives a lot of leeway to prime the electorate with government ads.

I think I've used up all my time. I'm happy to take questions on that or anything else. Thanks for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Professor.

We'll start with our normal round of questioning, which will be a seven-minute round. We'll begin with Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you both for coming today and assisting us with our study on advertising policy. I'm glad to see, Dr. Marland, that we've at least hit your first recommendation. It's good to know.

Can you explain a little more about “negative branding” money? Certainly the opposition, being all members of a party, has access to a certain amount of resources that don't fall explicitly into the advertising category but serve some of the purposes Dr. Rose talks about: they're communications regarding our positions. From the opposition's perspective—and many parties have an opportunity to be there—it's inherently negative.

Can you describe what you mean concerning negative brand money and how it influences in a different way?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

Sure. I should probably preface it by saying that negative information isn't necessarily inherently bad. It is actually useful for Canadians to hear things, even if they're not always positive. The thing that concerns me is the fact that you can spend advertising dollars during an election campaign, and a fair bit of that money is essentially subsidized by taxpayers, either through the fact that donations to political parties are tax deductible, or because a portion of the spending is returned after the fact if you meet certain thresholds.

Effectively, what that means is if very negative information is occurring, the public is subsidizing that negative information. The question for me is where we draw the line. How do we even define what is negative or beyond the pale? I haven't seen any research about this, but I have to assume most Canadians would not want their taxpayer dollars going to support blatantly negative advertising or other negative activities.

That's what that comment is about.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Another one of the suggestions—and I'm just trying to wrap my head around what it means, what it would entail, and how it compares to the existing standard—is proactive disclosure of social media campaigns. What currently exists, then, with respect to proactive disclosure on radio and television campaigns, and how do the two of them compare? Can you explain that to us?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

Sure. For me, the big difference is that social media is very efficient in that it allows you to focus on a certain cohort. You target people who will see the message, but some people will not see that message. The issue for me is that when you have television advertising, it's relatively open. A lot of people might be able to see it; journalists can report on it, and people who are not part of the government can raise concerns about it, if there are any.

The issue with social media is it's so narrow. Information can be made available to a small segment of Canadians and not to others to potentially take a look at, evaluate, and understand whether it's appropriate in their opinion.

It would be useful if we could find a way to say, “If you have a social media campaign, that information also needs to be deposited in some website clearing house that we can all consult.” We would know, at any given time, that these are the activities the government is undertaking insofar as communications activities are concerned, when it comes to social media.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Maybe you'll bring Dr. Rose in as well on this. A social media ad campaign could have a number of different versions of the same ad, and the links embedded in those versions could actually point different people to different places depending on their demographics. Maybe if a child clicks on an ad, they'll be sent to a child's version of the information on the website. If an older person clicks on the ad, they might be sent to a different spot on the website that answers questions more frequently asked by older people, or of a political persuasion. How does this juxtapose against Dr. Rose's suggestion that we should cover off the unpaid advertising that exists on government websites, and how does the interplay go?

I'm going to leave this open to both of you.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

I'll just make a quick comment.

We should look at the high-level principle, which is.... Yes, certain things you might click on might take you to different places. We should also consider that you can have two identical computers next to each other, and you're exposed to information on one that you're not on the other, even though you're on the exact same website, just because of your browsing history, for example.

Personally, I wouldn't be as worried about where you're getting directed quite as much as I would be about the message that's there. If there happens to be a banner advertisement sponsored by the Government of Canada, somebody like me would say it's important that all of us have a chance to see that banner advertisement, not only those of us who happen to be exposed to it through social media because of our particular demographics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Professor Rose.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

I would just like to answer the question you asked Professor Marland earlier about negative advertising. Interestingly enough, studies in the United States have shown there is more information found in negative advertising than in positive advertising. There are more lies in positive advertising than there are in negative. It has something to do with how we understand what is contentious. If you're going to make a contentious claim, you'd better have the evidence to back it up. I just wanted to add that before I answer your question.

On the question about how we archive or store them, I'd refer you to Professor Marland's idea from earlier, which I would endorse fully, that we need to maintain the principle of transparency. In Australia, for example, they not only have the advertising budgets on the website, but they actually have the companies that receive each campaign and the amount. The annual report of the government for advertising is useful, but it doesn't break it down in that much detail. Also, interestingly enough, in the interest of transparency, it comes out 10 months later. The 2016-17 report will come out in January 2018, 10 months later. It's very difficult for opposition members to hold the government to account if they're looking at a historical document.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Diotte, for seven minutes.

Mr. Diotte, welcome to our committee.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'm glad to be here. I just went through scrutiny of regulations, so this is far more entertaining.

This is for both professors.

According to the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, consumers may direct complaints about advertising that contravenes the code to Advertising Standards Canada, but on June 15, 2017, the committee learned from a representative of the ASC that if a complaint alleges that an ad is partisan, that's something the ASC would forward to the government to deal with.

Do you think it's wise that complaints about government ads being partisan should be forwarded to the government to be handled?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Professor Rose.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

I'm very glad you asked that.

The ASC is an excellent organization for monitoring and regulating commercial advertising, but if you look at the 14 criteria they monitor, many of them don't pertain to government advertising. Advertising about price discrimination, bait and switch, etc., aren't things you'd find in government advertising.

When I read that line in the testimony of the committee, I was surprised because it seems to me that if the external independent auditor is to have any teeth, it needs to hold government to account. Merely saying to the government, “You're in contravention of the standard”, is not really holding it to account, so that is a bit of a problem.

One other option that the committee may want to think about is the creation of an advertising commissioner, who would be an officer of Parliament who would be responsible to Parliament and provide data around all of these things that Professor Marland and I have talked about. That would make it transparent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Professor Marland.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

I would add that I find in some ways it's actually helpful for Canadians themselves to be able to arrive at these judgments.

As I mentioned, I often find it's journalists who struggle. If we think about journalists, they're often the ones who are telling stories of Canadians and acting as that fourth estate. When I talk with them, they really struggle to try to understand what might be seen as partisan, what might not be, what is appropriate, and what isn't.

If we were to generally come up with some parameters that are broad, yet sufficiently precise, and which are publicly available, then yes, we might have an arm's-length group taking a look at things, or it could be an officer of Parliament.

What's really important to me is that somebody like me, when asked something, can say, “Here is the information online and here are the principles. Why don't you make an informed judgment for yourself based on these principles?” We don't always have to rely on all these other agents to do it.

That would be my general view, that it is actually helpful for Canadians to have some guidelines themselves.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

The other point I want to make is that, since coming to power in 2015, the current government has spent $13.6 million on sponsored social media content. That was reported.... I think people have read that story in the media.

For the Advertising Standards Council to investigate whether an ad is partisan or not, the ad has to cost over $500,000.

What is the solution to that? We know Facebook campaigns are very cheap and effective. How can anybody investigate, or how should we go about monitoring those smaller spends? You can do a lot of indoctrinating with very little money.

Both of you, what's the solution to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Perhaps we'll start this time with Professor Marland.