Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2006

[James Robertson, Committee Researcher]

There are two rooms in this building that are set up for televising by the House of Commons and provided to CPAC, which broadcasts them. They're are also provided to members of the parliamentary press gallery.

In 2000, the predecessor of this committee set up guidelines for the electronic media and the members of the parliamentary press gallery to give notice to film other public meetings. I think the original draft provided for a longer notice period. After negotiations with members of the parliamentary press gallery, the decision was that it was not to specify a specific period of time to provide notice. The thinking at the time was that witnesses sometimes changed at the last minute, the notices of meetings often go out late in the afternoon, and therefore the media do not always know who will be appearing. Also, they don't always know what other demands will be made on their camera crews, so they need some flexibility to give notice up until a short time before the meeting.

The purpose of the letter is to solicit input from all members of the House. The committee has previously decided to call representatives of the press gallery and representatives of the table officers. If there's a concern over the notice period or the lack of television facilities provided by the House, one of the ideas would be that these are things that could be addressed before these guidelines are made permanent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I think that makes sense. Are you comfortable with that, Mr. Hill?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I'm just reading through it.

I guess perhaps all this time I was working under a mistaken premise, if I can put it that way, because it looks to me as if they are allowed under certain conditions: they have to be immobilized in the sense that they have to remain stationary during the proceedings, and they're not allowed to do close-ups. Like the cameras in the House of Commons, they're supposed to be focused only on the individual who's speaking, either the chair or the witness or the individual committee member who's asking a question.

I was under the understanding--well, maybe it had to do with the notice--that other committees that I was involved in where they attempted to--“they” being one network, whether it was CBC or CTV or Global, or whatever it was--would come in, and there was some high-profile witness or whatever, and they would come in and want to film the proceedings, and they were always not allowed, any committee I was ever involved in. So I was a little surprised to see television network cameras here, as opposed to the televised rooms, where my understanding is it's CPAC that broadcasts those proceedings the same as they do in the House of Commons.

But I guess under these guidelines this is allowed with sufficient notice, and provided they follow the rules exactly, and are restricted to certain--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Just to add to those rules, Mr. Hill, the cameras are only allowed to film gavel to gavel, and the still-camera shots have to leave once the meeting starts. It appears to me that all the guidelines were followed. But your suggestions are worth noting, and perhaps in future meetings, when we discuss this matter about making it permanent, we may want to discuss that at greater length.

Mr. Godin and then Mrs. Redman, please.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, as I clearly recall, we've already had all of these discussions. However, since this is a new Parliament, we can go over this one more time. No doubt James Robertson remembers that in the past we have held televised meetings in this room, in particular meetings of the procedure and house affairs committee. The CBC, CTV and Radio-Canada have all televised our proceedings. However, certain rules applied. We discussed time allocation and the fact that the witness list is subject to change at the last minute. We have absolutely nothing to hide. These are public, not in camera, meetings. Our goal in having the meetings televised was to make them more accessible to the public. I don't have a problem with reviewing the guidelines again, but we've already looked into this. We tried it out here and it worked very well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Redman.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

My comments aren't particularly substantively different from Yvon's, only to say that on environment, health, and finance, on many occasions it was CBC and CTV that did come in. So I would say this is very consistent with how things have been since 1997, in my experience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Hill.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Yes, I appreciate that.

First of all, don't misinterpret that I'm saying I'm opposed to it. I was just wondering about the consistency of the application of the guidelines or rules or regulations, whatever they are. And I see where it may have arisen. Under one guideline here it says:

The electronic media will not be permitted to film those committee meetings that are being filmed by the House of Commons Broadcasting Service as they will continue to have access to the feed from the House.

I think that's probably where I was mixing apples and oranges, because if you're in one of those other rooms, that's when the chairman would ask a mobile camera to leave because it's about to be televised by the stationary House of Commons camera. So that's my mistake, I guess, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for clearing that up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

My pleasure.

Thank you very much for all your comments.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to remind you, if there are no further discussions on that issue, that the next meeting is Thursday, May 11, when we will in fact discuss the main estimates of the House of Commons.

Since there is no further business, this meeting is adjourned.