Government Operations Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Dr. Alex Marland]

In some ways I would bring it back to my comment before, about how we need to also think about photo ops. To help get to an answer to your question, if you think about the fact that the government on a regular basis is putting all this time and money into preparing events for the cameras—events that are also ending up in the news—that is a level of monitoring that is really important. We can get hung up on dollar amounts because it's easy to see the dollar amounts for how much is being spent on social media. But we need to understand the dollar amounts and time that is involved in these photo ops because, in the end, the news coverage they generate.... I've read numbers over the years about how, for example, a news story is worth eight times the value of an advertisement. That's why those are a good use of money, but at the same time, a lot of effort goes into them.

Before I can even begin to try to understand how we deal with the small dollar amounts relating to something like Facebook, I would almost say I need to get a better handle on why we're not asking questions about the amount of money that's spent on photo ops.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Professor Rose.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

What you've asked is really an interesting juxtaposition between where the changes have gone. Based on traditional media, $500,000 is a very reasonable amount. The observation you made, however, and the point I raised about digital media increasing enormously and being much cheaper should raise some flags.

What is the solution? One is to try to develop a change in the culture of government departments—because right now the regulation says they can voluntarily request a permit under $500,000—to one where that is seen as the norm. The second solution is to rethink whether that $500,000 ceiling is adequate in an age of social media, where governments are continuing to spend more money.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We have time for a very brief question and answer.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

In general, for either of you, if you could wave a magic wand, what would be the one thing you'd want to see changed to make the situation better?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'd like a very brief answer from both of you.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

My answer is proactive disclosure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Professor Rose.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

The one thing I would see changed is an accountability of the external adviser to Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, both.

Mr. Weir, for seven minutes, please.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I'm very happy to have both of you here. I actually quoted an article by Professor Marland at a previous meeting, so it's great to have you here, not quite in person but by video conference.

One of the points you made was about the importance of preventing party colours from being used in government materials. One of the obvious challenges at the federal level in Canada is that our flag and many of our national symbols are red and that's also the colour of the Liberal Party.

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

Hear, hear!

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I wonder if you can propose a solution for that.

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

Change the flag?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

It's a good question.

When I was writing that recommendation in Brand Command, I really gave a lot of thought to all the research I had done, and a lot of it was under the previous government. I didn't want to come across as somehow conveying an opinion about a given political party. It's important to consider that this is something that also happens at the provincial level under different political parties.

The challenge is that under the previous government, there was this constant attempt to try to almost confuse—I don't know if it's confuse or simply combine—information in such a way that you couldn't tell the difference between what was party and what was the state, what was government and what was party. That became something a lot of people were concerned about.

The problem, I would suggest, is that with the current governing party, that's inherently part of it, just because of the nature of the colour schemes. If we can somehow remove ourselves from having opinions about whether we like one party or not, if we could just objectively look at it, to me that's the problem.

One of the recommendations I'd mentioned was that, in my opinion, the Government of Canada should be using red and white all the time. Those are the official government colours. They should be everywhere, and everybody should be able to recognize that. It's very sensible from a brand point of view that if you see red and white, you think Government of Canada. Of course, the trade-off to that is if any given political party happens to be using those colours, it becomes a problem.

This is where I go with my recommendation. I really just came to the conclusion that this is a problem we need to wrestle with. I'm not passing judgment on a party; it's just an issue we have to contend with.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Would political parties be restricted from using those Government of Canada colours? What would be the solution?

[Dr. Alex Marland]

I thought about that, too, because of course we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it's also really important to make sure that people can communicate things. We don't want too much regulation.

My suggestion has to do, again, with funding. If you go back to thinking about how money is returned to parties and to election campaigns from the government, then if there is a provision that says you're unable to receive this money if your colour scheme happens to be that of the government, for me that creates an incentive to say, “Well, gee, we have to try to figure this out for ourselves.”

I'm not suggesting political parties not use the maple leaf. The maple leaf is a very common symbol and it's very helpful for Canadians, but my concern is about any given party using colours identical to those of the government. Again, I want to emphasize my point that this also happens at the provincial level and with different political parties.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thanks.

To shift over to Mr. Rose, I really appreciated your point about the “first click” rule, because one of the challenges we face is that the government would argue that videos on department websites, such as Destination Canada, aren't advertising, but then they will spend money promoting that material on social media. I think you have actually suggested quite a useful solution.

I also want to ask you about the suggestion of restricting government advertising during by-elections. We have a number of federal by-elections coming up. I'm wondering if that restriction would be across the country, or whether it would be for some sort of local media market. If so, how would that local market be defined?

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

This is a question we wrestled with in the Nova Scotia committee that I was part of. One of the realities in modern communications, of course, is that it's not bound by electoral districts. To say you have to limit government advertising in the district and in the surrounding districts is kind of meaningless.

As you know, we have a ban on government advertising during an election, and the country doesn't seem to fall apart. I can see no reason why banning it during a by-election—of course, unless it was an emergency or a pressing matter—would be harmful to the public good. In fact, it would aid in ensuring full transparency.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

So your sense is that essentially the country could get by without the government advertising, but presumably you think government advertising is sometimes of value, or in the public interest.

[Prof. Jonathan Rose]

Yes, absolutely. Government ads can be very useful if they provide a lot of information, or if they're telling citizens about services that are available to them. Too often, government advertising is used to placate citizens and make them feel good about being a Canadian, and in an election campaign that kind of spillover might have an effect for one candidate over another. That's what we need to be leery of.

The conversation you and Professor Marland just had about colours is really a conversation about how we ensure that government advertising is seen as separate and distinct from party advertising. In an election campaign, there is lots of party advertising, so my solution would be to stop government advertising.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have just under a minute, Mr. Weir.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay, fair enough.

I have a quick question for Professor Marland. Maybe if we run out of time, you can come back to it.

You've really emphasized proactive disclosure, which I think everyone would agree is a good thing. There is currently a debate in Parliament about changes to access to information, a concept on which the government has really hung its hat. Some of us have tried to suggest that proactive disclosure isn't really a substitute, because access to information is about getting material and documents that the government doesn't want to disclose, proactively or otherwise.

Do you have any quick comment on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You''ll have to be very quick.

[Dr. Alex Marland]

You need both, right? I agree that proactive disclosure means that hopefully somebody like me or others would not need to use access to information, but I would still want to use access to information for all sorts of things that I'm looking at, asking, “Well, how do I know everything they're presenting to me is exactly the entirety of it?” They're not the same, but it's definitely an important concept.