Evidence of meeting #97 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
The key thing for me is historical record. Just because it's there now, somebody may say that we need to get rid of it later. I think it's important to have it there over a long period of time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you.
Mr. Shipley or Mr. Diotte, if you don't have anything to add, we'll go to Mr. Whalen.
Okay, Mr. Whalen.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
With respect to the framework on advertising and the announcement at the same time by the government, through Treasury Board, of its policy on communications, both of those go together. In your analysis for today, were you taking into account the requirements of the communications policy regarding non-partisanship and the other elements of the directive, or were you focusing solely on the advertising directive?
Some of the recommendations you've made seem to overlap with existing requirements in the communications policy that Treasury Board published on the same day. I just want to make sure that if we move forward with some of your recommendations we'll know whether you've taken that into account.
Prof. Jonathan Rose
Absolutely. My comments were directly pulled from the changes in the policy on communications and federal identity. I will be happy to provide written comments which will make that clearer.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
I have made some comments that involve elections, and to some extent that would be outside the Government of Canada's communications policy in respect of the actual public service and how it's communicating things. Notwithstanding that particular distinction, yes, I'm somebody who pays attention to this, definitely.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Okay, that's great.
With respect to this view of whether or not we have a negative definition on partisanship to determine what's acceptable advertising, or have a more purposive definition on only allowing advertising or government communications generally if they meet some type of a public interest or purpose test, if you take that latter approach, what is the harm to the public that would arise if the government was allowed to continue to communicate with the public during a writ period? It would be inherently only for a general public purpose, and it would be devoid of partisanship, and it just simply wouldn't be allowed.
I'm just trying to balance this in my mind. Why stop government doing the legitimate things that it does during a writ period, like hiring normal staff, issuing tenders for certain types of procurement, advising of a health warning, continuing to advertise the fact that the census is ongoing, and various things like that? These things do not interfere with the ongoing politics and don't interfere in the political debate. If government advertising was restricted in that way, why ban it at all in respect of elections, because it's orthogonal to elections?
Prof. Jonathan Rose
That's an excellent point. I think it's important to remember that the ban on government advertising excludes those things you mentioned. It excludes advertisements for jobs, tenders, health matters, and emergencies.
The point you raise is a really tough and really important one, and that is, if a definition of advertising were positive, and the government fulfilled that, where's the harm? That's your question. I think the answer to it has to do with the blurring of lines that other committee members have discussed, in particular, Mr. Peterson's observation that it really is about state resources being used for something that political parties should be spending money on.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Would you believe that it's impossible to have a purposive definition that captures this? If MPs aren't involved in the communications, they're factual, and they meet the other requirements of the communications policy, aside from the definition of what advertising is and the definition of what partisanship is, there seems to be a purposive set of criteria to even allow the communication at all. It seems to go to the heart of what you're saying. Again, I'm trying to see where the harm is. I'm just trying to see exactly what the problem is.
Prof. Jonathan Rose
You've touched on two things. One is the harm principle sort of thing, which, you're right, absolves the government of the harm principle, and it says that governments meet the test, and in fact are positive, so that's a check mark. But there's also the financial implications and the blurring of lines between what will be discussed in a political campaign and what should be spent by political parties as opposed to governments.
Political parties in the campaign are in the business of persuading people to vote for them. Why should governments do that on a party's behalf?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
I would add to that. Maybe a good way to think about it is the word “policy”. If you think about something like a health pandemic, getting information out to Canadians through advertising such as, “Here's what we're going to do, and this is what you need to do”, is not really about debating policy; whereas other types of government advertising are possibly about informing Canadians about policy, something that was a political decision. Maybe policy might be a good way to kind of act as a bit of a litmus test.
September 28th, 2017 / 12:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
I'm afraid we're out of time, but we do have one last intervention, and we'll go to Mr. Weir for three minutes.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Thanks very much.
We've been talking about government advertising as a bit of a monolith, and perhaps that's legitimate, given the central control that exists within the federal government. I know that Professor Marland has written about that. I am wondering whether we should have different standards or different rules for advertising from different government entities. Would we draw some kind of distinction between departments versus crown corporations that may be more commercial in their orientation versus central agencies like the Privy Council Office?
Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
I can speak to that very quickly. Yes, you're definitely on the right track. Crown corporations, obviously, are acting in a competitive marketplace. It would be kind of foolhardy to suggest that they have to oblige in the same manner as perhaps some other units of government.
The thing that comes to mind for me right away is that the Canada Revenue Agency has been held up as a high standard. Some work by the late Peter Aucoin identified the Canada Revenue Agency as sort of this gold standard, although some of that kind of evolved a little bit in the latter years of the previous government.
My comment would simply be, yes, you are absolutely right that there needs to be different distinctions between categories of elements and arms of government.
Prof. Jonathan Rose
To that I would add that government advertising serves a number of purposes, and I would carve that up in a slightly different way. I would say there were contentious and non-contentious issues. The vast majority of advertising is on non-contentious issues, and people don't have a problem with it. They fall within the realm of acceptable information.
What we are concerned about is the tip of the iceberg that is contentious. There may not even be a large amount of money spent on it, but it goes to the heart of what is being discussed in civil society, and that's the appropriate place that members of Parliament and others should have in persuading citizens about the benefits or drawbacks of those policies, not government.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
We focused a lot, I think, on preventing partisanship, and legitimately so. I'm wondering if I could ask both of you, other than partisanship, what do you see as being the biggest problem with, or the biggest challenge for, government advertising?
Conservative
Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
I think for me the big challenge—and it's not something that's easily solved—is, if all we do is we have vanilla advertising because we have all this regulation, it's going to be terrible advertising. We just have to balance that sense of having to be able to communicate with people and cut through the clutter, yet sometimes that requires something that's a bit more provocative and simple.
Prof. Jonathan Rose
I think I would summarize it with two words, and they are “independence” and “transparency”, and those are the goals that any advertising policy should strive for.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Professor Marland and Professor Rose, thank you so much for being here. Your comments and your observations were both informative and extremely helpful to this committee. If you have, however, any additional information, or if you have a commentary that you wish to provide following this appearance, please feel free to do so by contacting our clerk directly, and you can submit them at any time.
I know that our deliberations on this study will take place over the course of the next few months. Your contributions have been very helpful. Thank you both for being here.
Colleagues, the meeting is adjourned.
