Evidence of meeting #130 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Hon. David Johnston  Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual
Linda Lapointe  Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Lib.
Stephanie Kusie  Calgary Midnapore, CPC
David Christopherson  Hamilton Centre, NDP

11:20 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

11:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Mr. Christopherson.

11:20 a.m.

David Christopherson Hamilton Centre, NDP

It's interesting that you gave that instruction just before I spoke. It was noted.

11:20 a.m.

An hon. member

It's just a coincidence.

11:20 a.m.

Hamilton Centre, NDP

David Christopherson

It's Mr. Reid's fault.

Thank you, Chair.

Your Excellency, thank you so much for being here.

I don't know if you're aware, but there are some of us who have some problems with the process and we'll be addressing that in due course.

If I may, in my view, we' have this a bit backwards. We've put the cart in front of the horse. We should be having the policy that the government was proposing first, nail that down, and get legitimacy and buy-in from at least two of the three parties—we've moved from unanimity to at least that as the bare minimum—and then proceed to who.

However, I'm quite prepared to leap ahead to the extent that if the government decides to try to legitimize this process—and I'm going to offer a suggestion in a moment as to who—I certainly would be not just comfortable, sir, with you being there but I think you would do us a great service and a great honour.

You are the gold standard of public service and I can't imagine any position for which you wouldn't be eminently qualified to represent Canadians and bring that fairness and values, and your integrity and your intelligence, your experience, to bear. I can't emphasize enough, sir, that any of my comments that are negative are addressed to the process, to the government, to everything except you.

I have the highest regard for you, as does my caucus, and if at the end of the day, you end up being the debates commissioner, we as a country would be well served.

Part of our difficulty, sir, is...and I'm mindful of what you said, Chair, so I'm going to do my very best to stay within the confines while recognizing the latitude that members have, especially on PROC.

Right from the get-go, sir, my worry...and I'm not smart enough to play hidden politics. I just put it right on the table. My concern is, number one, the whole idea that there needed to be a debates commissioner was because one of the major party leaders, who will remain nameless right now, played games and refused to commit to national debates which meant that we didn't have a fulsome, democratic process that included the kinds of debates Canadians need and should have. The idea was that we have to make sure that doesn't happen again.

It was always kind of a slapdash process, reinvented each time as to who made the call, who made the decision. It made a great deal of sense that we do this. Unfortunately, sir, the government has mismanaged every aspect of democratic reform to the point where now we're left with the government saying that they didn't have enough time to bring this in by way of legislation.

Sir, I just want you to know that's not our fault. We don't set the legislative agenda. The government does that. One of the first things that we recommended.... I'll tell you what's really annoying me, Chair. It's that the government keeps saying, “We just followed the policies. We just followed the policies of the committee.” No, they didn't.

One of the key recommendations we made was that there should be unanimity around the choice of the commissioner. Falling back on this idea that the government decides who the possibilities are and presents a final candidate and we get to say yes or a no, and the government tries to call that consultation is insulting in this day and age. That's exactly what happened.

The day before this policy was announced publicly, the minister met with Nathan Cullen and me. I won't divulge the actual discussion. That wouldn't be appropriate. However, it's fair to say the purpose of the meeting was to brief us on what it was going to be. It was an edict from on high. I will say this because I've said it before publicly. I said to the minister, “This should be a consultation not a briefing.” She said, “Once you hear who the candidate is, you'll be fine.” As I've explained, there's a complete separation between that and the legitimacy of this process.

First of all, there was supposed to be unanimous agreement on the commissioner. That was ignored. There were key aspects of questions of who got to participate in the debates. As my friend, Mr. Reid, has pointed out, it was very contentious and we couldn't come to an agreement and we didn't try to because we felt that decision ultimately should be made at arm's length from us. Right or wrong, that was our collective interpretation.

Chair, I want to emphasize, we spent a lot of time on this report. While it may not have had the unanimity of all the parties, there was a great deal of debate and discussion. Even when one of the parties said that I was offside on this, it would still participate to try to make it better. We had that collegiality—you continue to do an excellent job as the chair of this committee in bringing that out—and we did a lot of hard work. If anybody wants to say that this is some kind of a political hack job or a joke, or that it doesn't matter, speak up now. I remember how hard I worked, how hard Mr. Nater worked and how hard you worked, Chair. We put a lot of heart and soul into this.

Then the government comes along because of its own mismanagement of its files—it didn't have enough time to do it properly—and expects that somehow the debate process in Canada is decided by one party. That's effectively what's in front of us. Let me say this, because my time is going to run out soon. All the government is doing is playing into the hands of the very party that doesn't want this debate commission by not giving legitimacy to the process. The lack of thought and political thought and process into this is just mind-boggling given that the government's been in office for a number of years now.

My last point is this, Mr. Chair. I would strongly recommend to get this fixed. I don't need a headline, a quote or a clip because I'm not running again, but what I want is to fix our debates and to make our democracy as strong as possible. So, I'm going to throw a lifeline to the government. I'm going to ask it, through you, Mr. Chair, to please submit its proposal to PROC, to allow amendments, and to see if we can find the legitimacy that at least a majority vote representing two of the three recognized parties could emerge from this committee. That, Mr. Chair, would have some legitimacy. It won't be the document that we passed, and it won't be what the government had, but it would be our collective best interest in trying to make that happen. To me, that's one way to salvage what is just an abysmal embarrassment, as well as an insult, to Parliament: that the Liberal government believes that it alone, unilaterally, can decree how the debate process is going to work, how the rules are going to be set and who does it.

Sir, sorry I had to do that in front of you, but you can appreciate.... I saw you sit back. You've been around a long time, and you know how this works. I want to end, sir, by mentioning again the respect that I have for you. If you end up being our commissioner, I would be thrilled. In fact, if you end up in any role representing Canada and helping our democracy, we are better off for it.

Thank you for being here today, sir.

Thank you for the floor, Mr. Chair.

11:25 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

Let me say, Mr. Chair, thank you for those very touching personal comments. They do touch the heart and I'm very grateful. When I repeat some of them to my wife tonight, she'll have a different opinion, but that's okay—that's 54 years of marriage.

11:25 a.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

11:25 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

Thank you.

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Thank you.

I'm sure all the committee members agree as to the respect we all have for you, David.

We'll now go to Mr. Simms.

November 6th, 2018 / 11:25 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Your Excellency, it's nice to see you again. I've followed you over these many years, and I want to wish you the best of luck in this position. I know you'll do a hell of a fine job.

I'll give the rest of my time to Ms. May.

11:25 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

I will just respond to say that, Scott, we have a custom that we fine people $10 any time they use the old titles, and it's double for each subsequent offence, so continue to offend, please, because all that money goes to the Rideau Hall Foundation.

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL

Duly noted. I'll even add on to it for interest.

11:25 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

Thank you.

11:25 a.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Thank you to my colleague, Scott Simms.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have at this point?

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

You have six and a half minutes.

11:25 a.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Thank you.

I'm going to take a page out of David Christopherson's book because I love him, although he will not love what I have to say.

I'm going to quickly set out that I'm enormously grateful that the government has taken the bull by the horns and set a debates commission process with firm criteria in advance, because I think we're debating this.... There's no question that it would be much better if all parties.... I'd take out the words “all recognized parties” because the recognized parties, frankly, have been manipulating the debates process for years to exclude anyone but the recognized parties.

There's no ill intention toward you, darling, but honestly, the debates process is one that, viewed by any impartial observer, brings democracy into disrepute.

You have collusion and backroom dealings. The media consortium worked so hard, but not only did they have Mr. Harper threatening not to participate in debates, but the last time around both Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Harper got the English language leaders debate cancelled. So 11 million Canadians who watched the simultaneous English-language leaders debate in 2011 were deprived of that opportunity in 2015, and also the women's debate. Then we had this scattering of other debates, which I believe were put in place specifically to draw attention away from the fact that we'd just lost the nationally broadcast English-language leaders debate.

The problem is that we're looking at this process and saying it's flawed, and I won't say it's perfect, but in comparison to the status quo, it's a huge improvement. I'll give you two reasons why, and for supporting documentation one could look up the article that Tony Burman wrote. He had been chair of the consortium with CBC during the 2008 leaders debate and wrote about how fraught it was, how anti-democratic, how absurd it was to have all this behind closed doors with the threats from different leaders. Also, Andrew Coyne has written very brilliantly on the problem. Andrew Coyne's analogy is that it's like Chrysler, GM and Ford getting together with the TV networks and saying, “Okay, we all agree: no TV ads for Toyota.”

That's how unfair, indiscriminate and anti-democratic it has been until now. I do sense that there's a lot of effort to discredit this effort being made from the very same people who never wanted to see it broadened beyond the large parties.

So I wanted to be very, very up front in saying I welcome this effort. One of the key benefits is that, when the media consortium had the fairly thankless task—and I don't blame the media consortium for any of this.... But the problem is that, when the media news directors are making a key decision for democracy, their own reporters have a very difficult time reporting on what's going on. In fact, they can't.

My hope is that with an independent debates commission, with a qualified debates commissioner, with transparency, the news media won't be shut out from reporting on what's going on, because as far as I recall, there was never a news story in the 2015 election about how interesting it was that two federal party leaders—one of them the standing prime minister—had managed to get the debates cancelled.

Let me say that I welcome a predictable, transparent process on which the media can be informed to report on what's happening. I see the biggest risk here—before I move to your qualifications, sir—being a lack of sufficient buy-in from the larger parties and a lack of sufficient buy-in from the consortium members.

My advice, humbly, respectfully submitted, is that you have seven positions for an advisory board and you should fill them with CTV, CBC, Global, TVA and Radio-Canada—they ran the debates from the 1960s until now—and I would add TVO and CPAC. Let those be your advisers, because as soon as possible, we need their commitment that they will broadcast. There's no commitment now to broadcast the debates that the debate commission produces, and that needs to be very clear early on.

I welcome this. I say hallelujah to the criteria because they work for the Bloc Québécois; they work in fairness for parties like mine, and I think they'll probably end up working for Max Bernier and the People's Party, but we shall see.

I would ask you just one question, if you'd like to reflect on it. In your long and illustrious career, you haven't mentioned one particular role you had that I think has application to this, and that's when you were the founding chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy from 1988 to 1990, with lots of disparate groups and multi-stakeholder engagement. Do you think that has any application to the new role that I hope you will be assuming?

Thank you.

11:30 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

Thank you. I loved that role. It was a round table that brought stakeholders from different interests together and, guess what? We actually reached, for us, some important conclusions, and the inclusiveness was a very big part of that.

That round table lasted for about 20 years, which is very unusual. These things are usually for a particular term of a particular government, and then they disappear. I was delighted and, I must say, surprised that it had that durability. Then there were offshoots of the round table process for sustainable development, which became very much our culture during that process, but the round table process for other interesting activities and important questions before our body politic ensured the notion of having a broad range of ideas to come up with important solutions, and that will be a guiding factor.

I love the notion of the round table because you see everyone. You can look them in the eye and read the body language, and that's very Canadian. I live by the maxim that minds, like parachutes, work best when open, and you need all of the vehicles possible to keep them open.

Thank you also for your advice on some of the very specific questions that we'll have to address.

11:35 a.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Is there any time remaining, Mr. Chair?

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Yes, you have 10 seconds.

11:35 a.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Love to Sharon. You guys rock.

Thank you very much.

11:35 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

Thank you.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Thank you.

Just before we go to Mr. Nater, as we agreed, we'll go until five minutes before the vote, which would give us 55 minutes altogether, but the Liberals have also agreed to give up a slot so the opposition will get as much time as they would have in a full hour.

We'll go to Mr. Nater.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate those comments.

Thank you, sir, for joining us. In my riding of Perth—Wellington with the city of Stratford, we appreciate your efforts while you were president of the University of Waterloo to establish the Stratford campus in our community. It is much appreciated and reflects a lot of your background in digital technology, which leads me to my first question.

Given your academic background, I would note that on your coat of arms you have a binary code, which I think is appropriate given your background, and it leads me to my question.

I have to disagree a little bit with Ms. May in terms of having major broadcasters form the advisory panel. From my perspective as a millennial, I don't have cable at home. I don't have satellite. I don't rely on television as a source of news. More than half of my generation relies on digital communications and online platforms. I'd be curious, given your extensive academic background, how you would go about ensuring that my generation and those younger than I am.... At age 34, I almost feel old compared to new voters aged 18. Mr. Christopherson says, “Get used to it.”

How would you go about ensuring, using your background, that our generation and those younger than I am have the opportunity to engage in debates?

11:35 a.m.

Nominee for the position of Debates Commisioner, As an Individual

David Johnston

Reach out, reach out. My grandmother used to say, “You have two ears, two eyes and only one mouth for a reason. Listen, watch and then maybe speak.”

Sometimes people think it's trite, but it's very meaningful to me that all the important things in life I have learned from my children and now from my grandchildren. It's not that they provide all the content of what you know or what you're relearning, but they view life from a different angle. For me, that's been a very important mindset. I write about this kind of thing.

You mentioned a coat of arms that has pluses and minuses at the bottom. That was to indicate my interest in technology and learning, but there was some fun with the media when that was released. They thought it was a secret da Vinci code message, and we'll just leave that as an open question. Maybe people will try to find the hidden message there.

The first book I wrote as a young lawyer was Computers and Law. That was in 1967, a long time ago. I was very interested in how technology, which is a rapidly changing and advancing force, was impacting on very traditional norms and conventions of the law that tend to look backward, and how we deal with that tension. I continue to write books in that area, communication law, cyber-law and so on.

What has happened in my professional lifetime, thinking about this and trying to listen a lot and write a little bit, is that the acceleration has been geometrical. It's that kind of curve, and the capacity of the human intelligence to adapt to it and adjust to it is like that, and we're dealing with this huge gap. What do you do? You don't throw up your hands in disgust, but you try to learn and listen to new ways and be sure, as you find moorings and find your way, that you are not shutting yourself off from new ideas, especially those that aren't in your head because you're a generation or two older.

11:35 a.m.

Conservative

John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON

I was hoping you might have told us what the binary code means, that there is a da Vinci code, and maybe some day you'll have to write your memoirs and spill the beans on that one.