Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid, you have about a minute on this section before the minister—

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Yes, unfortunately I don't know how to speak to this and ask the minister a question unless you want to adopt the Simms rule codicil for witnesses on the fly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

If it's okay with the minister, go ahead.

You have less than a minute now. Ask her a question.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

All right.

It's simply this. How did you get this incredible mess-up where one thing is being told to the public on your website and one thing in your order in council? Are we to assume—it certainly seems plausible—that there was a draft version on the website, and you adjusted it? What's the basis for that? Will you report back to us on how this mess occurred?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We will certainly look into it.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Will you report back to us?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We'll report back.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

You'll send a written report?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Sure.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Fantastic.

Thank you very much.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

It's human error, probably.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Can I go on to the rest of the question?

Do you want to let her go?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I don't think it's—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Basically, our time for the minister is up.

Maybe we'll suspend and then come back.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

All right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We'll suspend for a minute or so here.

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid has the floor on the motion.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The motion moved by Mr. Christopherson was “That the Committee immediately begin reviewing the government's announced leaders debate commission and make any necessary recommendations in a timely report to Parliament”.

Mr. Chair, this is a motion that I support. I support it because now we have a chance to do one of the fundamental things that parliamentary committees ought to do, and this committee in particular, which is to review the proposals from government and to suggest any necessary changes.

In the case of this debate commission, it seems to me entirely appropriate simply because the commission, while structurally it does bear some resemblance to that which was proposed by the committee in a majority report—in which my party did not concur, but nonetheless a majority of the committee—had put forward, a closer examination reveals that it is in fact not the same thing as was proposed. For example, it is not a fully independent commission. The commissioner is almost certainly not a fully independent individual, by any stretch of the imagination, once one examines the nature of the appointment. My colleague, Mr. Nater, will be speaking to that point, when the floor goes to him.

I think it is of fundamental importance to point out that this body and its decision-making power is structured in such a way that it has a great deal of discretionary authority. This was something that was specifically spoken against by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, who said it is vital that this body, both the commissioner and the commission, be set up in such a way that they are subject to charter challenge, which is something that has been denied by setting it up through an order in council. This means that the commission could make decisions that have the effect of trampling on one or more of the rights protected in the charter.

From my perspective, the most obvious one would be section three, the right of citizens to vote, which if interpreted broadly and purposively, which is the way in which the Supreme Court normally recommends we treat charter provisions—giving it what was known in the old days as a large and liberal interpretation, with “large and liberal” being a synonym for purpose of interpretation—includes the right to do so in an environment in which the party in power is not setting the rules, not privileging itself and not stripping away the powers of others.

I note that, under the criteria laid out here, the party that I joined in 1990, the Reform Party, would not have been eligible to have a participant in the leaders debates, since it didn't meet all the criteria.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

It would not have met two of the three.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I understand that. We would not have met two of the three criteria.

At the time, it was considering whether it would run candidates across the country. In 1993, it did make that decision. It had one member of Parliament elected in a by-election under its banner, but had Deborah Grey not successfully contested that by-election four years in advance of the general election in which I ran, the party would have had a problem.

This is something that appears to follow a pattern I have seen here since I was a staffer in the 1990s, and in those days, as Reformers, we used to say, “Liberal, Tory, same old story”. It is the efforts of the incumbent parties to try to freeze out their competitors, new parties that were competing against them.

We've all faced challenges from new parties. The NDP came out of the CCF, but the CCF was an insurgent party that came in. For the Reform Party, subsequently the Canadian Alliance under whose banner I was elected, it is a similar story, and for the Bloc Québécois, a similar story.

I note that under the criteria laid out here, although the Bloc Québécois can participate in leaders debates forever and ever as long as they elect one member of Parliament, they could not have contested and had a candidate in the 1993 leaders debates—where they became the official opposition—because of the fact that they had nobody elected under the party banner in the previous election.

There was a by-election. One member, Gilles Duceppe, had been elected as an independent and, therefore, not under the party's banner, so even though they had someone who had successfully run for them, they still wouldn't have qualified because they didn't meet the criterion of the number of seats and they did not have somebody who had been elected in the previous election. They would not have had two of the three criteria, yet they became the official opposition, and in that election, they got 13.5% of the vote. Now they're down to 4.6% of the vote, while Ms. May is down to 3.7% of the vote, but they're in for eternity in leaders debates.

This is clearly very problematic indeed and deserves the review of the committee whose recommendations were not taken, although there was a pro forma effort at making it look as though they had been taken by the government. The government's actions in this regard are disappointing, and quite frankly, self-serving. It's perhaps not unexpected.

Anyway, on that basis, there is a strong argument to do so. I note that Mr. Christopherson, in his motion, says we would report back in a timely report to Parliament. I heartily agree with that. In my view, our report to the House of Commons should happen before Christmas. That's a reasonable thing. The evidence is now in front of us and we can move quickly. That allows us to do so in a manner that does not in any way prevent a commission that meets more accurately with the recommendations made by this committee. Of course, my party didn't concur, but Mr. Christopherson did concur in those recommendations, and his party did. That just seems at least more consensual than what was done with this particular order in council.

I'll stop there and thank you for your generosity in accommodating this debate when we had scheduled something else.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Reid.

We'll go on to Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I, too, am in support of this motion. I think there are just too many unanswered questions in terms of how this commission and the position of the debates commissioner came to be, which I believe we outlined to some extent this morning when the minister was here. I certainly brought some of those to light, and they included the lack of transparency regarding the process to determine the appointment of the commissioner.

I think we all felt very strongly that Mr. Johnston is indeed a very strong candidate, certainly not only given his professional background and his background as an official of the state. I think we'd be hard pressed as Conservatives to find any fault with his experience and his background, as well as the fact that he was appointed by our previous leader and Prime Minister.

It was more in regard to how we feel as though we were...and you know, we're not alone in this feeling. It's also been indicated by our colleagues from other parties that we were not provided the opportunity to submit names. I did not submit a name. In fact, I didn't even get any consideration because I wasn't asked to give it consideration. In addition to that, we did not receive a short list to do a comparative analysis and decide if one candidate might have qualities over another that might serve the Canadian public well in the role of debates commissioner.

This role does require a special individual with special talents. It's very important that we take the time to evaluate those, in this case even in a comparative analysis, as I said, but we weren't provided with that opportunity to do such an analysis—not at all. In fact, it was a morning, not a cold morning like this morning, but a morning, where I received a phone call from the minister. I was looking out over Ottawa and thinking, “What a great day.” She had news that Mr. Johnston had been chosen as the candidate.

Again, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it was Mr. Johnston. As I indicated, we have no qualms, to use a popular phrase, in regard to Mr. Johnston. It is, again, the way it was determined that is a concern. In fact, we don't even know how it was determined. We will never know the other candidates the government considered. We'll probably never know the other names that ended up deleted, refused or sent back. Those will always be a mystery to us most probably, having been left with this one single candidate.

Moving on, I was very relieved to see the minister express regret that there was no further exploration of other people in other capacities in an attempt to do this.

The second point I brought up to the minister was that this appointment was not brought through the House of Commons, which would have allowed adequate debate and a vote. We here in the opposition are no strangers to having debate shut down, I'll tell you that. Many of my days, many of my mornings, to talk about mornings again, have been absolutely ruined by time allocations. The list of things I had planned and the things I was going to accomplish just all never came to pass because of time-allocation votes.

Here's yet another situation where a fulsome debate in the House has not been allowed. Never mind a vote, even debate, but a vote as well, because isn't that really why we are all here, to vote and to express the will of our constituents, and of Canadians?

That is certainly something the minister talked a lot about this morning, doing this for Canadians. Are we really expressing the will of Canadians if we, as their representatives, did not have the opportunity to vote on their behalf, not even on a list of candidates but a candidate? This did not happen.

On debate, my goodness, there was just so much to debate here in regard to the process: the composition of the commission, the number of debates, the language format of the debates, and the information regarding the broadcasting. I think we could have spent literally hundreds of hours on debate, or certainly dozens of hours on debate. This is something that truly affects Canadians so directly and so consequentially.

As I have stated from the beginning, the debate format is how Canadians get to know the individual who will be the leader of their nation. This is a very integral part of that. Certainly they'll read articles online, they may catch clips on TV, and all leaders during the election will be out and about, pressing their platforms in all parts of the nation, attempting to meet people and to sell their ideas. But this debate format is integral to allowing Canadians to make decisions. What could be more important than that?

The fact that we were not able to debate that within the House and bring it to a vote is just incredibly unfortunate, and really, in my humble opinion, can't be called democratic.

We talked about this term “independent commission”. Now, independent commission itself is not a paradox, but if I were to say, “government” independent commission, that is a paradox right there. They're two words that just don't belong beside each other. “Independent government” commission, I guess I should invert those two words so it's actually probably more appropriate in terms of how we might express it.

As I indicated this morning, how can this possibly be independent when, in fact, it is funded by the Liberal government?

The minister did make me think a bit when she said we could say that about all entities. Yes, I guess we could, but yesterday, for example, when we had the fall economic statement, it's clearly defined as the government's fall economic statement. It wasn't the independent fall economic statement. It was the federal government's fall economic statement, yet this is claiming to be independent. The two are actually very different.

As I said, it was created by the Liberal government. Those are my favourite games where I get to make up the rules. I really like those games a lot. It was created by the Liberal government, and the criteria, which we've seen, which my colleague Mr. Reid has shown, is in fact conflictual. It's conflictual within its own context and within its presentation, as we are finding out in the differences between the order in council and what is on the website. We can't even determine with certainty what they intend the criteria to be, much less what the interpretation of the criteria is. We're at a loss in both those senses, which really begs the necessity for this further review, without question.

Especially this third one to determine success in the next election. My goodness, what do we use? A magic eight ball, a crystal ball, who knows? What data predicts the...? I guess we can look to past data in an effort to predict the future, but it's never really perfect, is it? I think in fact we've seen that with polls more and more in recent history, as we have seen some surprising outcomes from elections. As I was indicating, the criteria are not clear.

I was very disturbed to hear that one of the advisory positions, as I understand it, goes to a PCO member. If that doesn't scream “not independent”, I really don't know what does. Maybe if the Prime Minister were to sit, is that independent? Probably not. It's sort of getting there, though, if someone from the PCO is a member of this advisory commission without question.

I indicated to the minister that many of the leading industry participants, top journalists.... I mentioned Chantal Hébert, Marie Vastel and Andrew Coyne. I really like Andrew Coyne. He's always right on the money. There is Chris Selley and Colby Cosh. I feel like I grew up with that guy. When I read his column, it seems we've always been in the same place at the same time.

My point is that all of these top journalists are coming out against this idea of this debate commission, and that is an indicator of the necessity for this study. Really, yes, this is supposed to be for Canadians, as the minister indicated. However, who better to guide us in terms of the information Canadians want to have and need to know—a term we hear a lot in our society—in an effort to make their decision, possibly one of the most important decisions they can make?

All of these top journalists and all of these top people in their field have, in fact, come out against this idea. It really warrants review when those who have historically played this role are saying this is a bad idea. That should be like a flashing red light, and certainly an amber light—if nothing else—to be like, “Whoa, slow down. Let's re-evaluate this. Let's see what we're doing here, really.” Those things are all very important to consider.

Unfortunately, this debate commissioner comes at a time when we are questioning democracy in terms of some of the actions we have seen within this government. Many of the ideas in Bill C-76 have been discussed at length and ad nauseam, including our perspective on spending limits, something very concerning. There is also the fact that five third parties could outspend a registered party. That's very concerning.

We've seen a lot of concern in regard to the voter cards, and making sure there is legitimacy of the electorate. That's very important. The non-residential requirements are very concerning.

With regard to foreign interference, we were told in this bill that this is bad or don't do that. However, were the mechanisms legislated to specifically prohibit this from ever happening? No, they were not. Therefore, they are still in play. Then, of course, there is the aspect of foreign influence, which the bill did not touch at all. As time goes on, I am seeing this more and more also as a defence issue, and not just as a democratic institutions issue. It certainly has an effect on our democratic institutions when this type of activity occurs, so we need to be ready for it.

I was just in Silicon Valley over the weekend. I had the incredible opportunity to watch a panel with the vice-president of communications at Facebook, Mr. Elliot Schrage. He, in fact, was dealing with a serious external breach the day before. It just takes an example like that to show you how effectual this type of activity can be. It's one of those things you think is never going to happen, and then, lo and behold, it happens. We can't just hide our heads in the sand and pretend this isn't going to occur. We have to take real measures to absolutely make sure this doesn't come to pass.

I was really lucky. I had a real education in Silicon Valley in regard to these types of security breaches, which could be part of our review as we go on to evaluate the possibility of a review. I'm going to go over just a few of them, which I thought were so fascinating: Saudi Aramco, the product of the Iranian government; DarkSeoul, out of North Korea; Sands Casino, again out of Iran. This one was really interesting: Sony Pictures, again by North Korea, on November 24, 2014. My goodness, the possibility for evil-doing is just infinite. They gave us the example—although certainly it's not an election example—that any foreign actor could hack into, say, a military database and change all the blood types. That would really throw our defence forces for a loop, heaven forbid, if something should happen.

My point, again, is that these are things that were perhaps not evaluated effectively within Bill C-76, despite all of our amendments and our forced-into amendments. It really is incredible how quickly something like that could happen.

We had that there. When we evaluate Bill C-76, in addition to this debates commission, it unfortunately makes us really start to question the objectives of this government and these actions. “We the people”—we've heard that throughout time. “For the people”—that's something we've heard a lot more lately. What do people really think when they hear “we the people” or “for the people”? Even “for the people”—how did people think about that phrase a year ago compared to now? I argue that it has a really different context now from a year ago.

My point is that a government can say it's really doing this for Canadians, but the only way to truly know that is to evaluate the action and then make the determination whether that is truly what is happening. If we evaluate policies and proposals and actions, and we see that they're not actually serving the people but are serving the entity—in this case the government itself—then, unfortunately, it's hard for us to have confidence. That's all the more reason for having this review.

I'm sure the government would welcome the opportunity to have these tests of democracy checked and challenged because, if they truly felt confident in their capacity as democratic instruments, then they would not hesitate at all in an effort to have them put to each of their own individual tests.

I dare say, some of the stuff you read in the media in terms of the accusations that fly around in regard to third parties is very rich. In fact, we, the Conservatives, put forward amendments that would have eliminated the possibility of many of these problems. They were rejected time after time after time. In fact, it was 194 times, to be precise. One hundred and ninety-four—that's a pretty big number, I have to say.

We have Bill C-76, and then we have this debate commission, with the uncertain processes for candidates, not having gone through the House—again—trying hard to prove its independence, and questioning the journalists who have come forth opposing it. Then yesterday, lo and behold, what do we see again in the fall economic statement but this announcement of $595 million for the media.

This is really crazy stuff, seeing this type of money put towards what is supposed to be an independent media. Actually, now that I evaluate that, I really don't know what $595 million gets you in terms of production value. With Facebook, you could—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Ms. Kusie, could you try to stay more on the motion?

[Stephanie Kusie]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm just talking out the reasons for the necessity for the review, which are many, as I'm determining more and more.

This $595 million is very concerning in terms of the independent media. I struggle to think, and I don't understand yet.... Maybe it wasn't clear in the fall economic statement and I'll have to follow up further in terms of the actual distribution and the funding tied to that. Certainly this must relate back to the debates commissioner in some way or in some capacity. I would imagine that some of the $595 million goes to members of the advisory commission who would be on this debates commission, and thus, would they be compromised? That's a really fair question as we consider this $595 million that was announced yesterday for media.

It's the same: independent commission, independent media. You know what? I don't know what they're saying, but I'd be curious to hear the comments of the journalists in response to this. Actually, they must be quite torn in terms of having a sense of capital, but then also with the strings that are attached. There are always strings attached, it would seem.

I would look to these individuals who commented on the debates commission—Marie Vastel, Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne, Chris Selley and Colby Cosh—to see if they will have articles on this media funding as well. Then again, they might stay silent. This is a conflict that occurs when you are given money. It's hard to speak poorly of someone who is giving you something. They must, in fact, feel very conflicted. As I said, it does affect the debates commission, because potentially they could serve as members of this advisory group.

Again, could they be compromised? If we knew, for example, if one of their members' salary was directly paid by this $595 million from the federal government, could we say that they are truly independent in terms of advising on the rules? Probably not.

I guess it also brings a question in regard to the debates commission. We talk about how they will be free. We might argue we just paid $595 million for these debates, so maybe they aren't free. I've been pretty good at math, historically. That's close to $300 million a debate. That's not a cheap debate. That's definitely a lot of money for a debate, if we're to think of it in those terms. Certainly there are reasons that we need to review this announcement—for all of these reasons that I have indicated.

I was thinking earlier about the mandate of the people. The minister did speak quite extensively in regard to the research that was done. She talked about online and she talked about cross-country consultations. I guess that is comforting.

I've never actually read the summary of the consultations. I'm wondering if it was as well received and integrated as was our—

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I don't want to interrupt my colleague for too long. I'm just wondering if it's....

You know what? I'm good. I was just clearing my throat. Thanks, Chair.