Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[Matthew Shea]

Well, maybe I can just touch really quickly on the accountability. I've heard mention a couple of times of accountability and detailed budget plans. I just want to be clear that the debates commission, like any department, will have to come forward with a departmental plan, which gets tabled in Parliament. It has to go forward to main estimates, which get tabled in Parliament, and in both—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

No, I understand. That's all financial accountability. I'm just talking about putting on a program that Canadians will want to watch and be engaged in. In all the debates I've witnessed, since black and white television and just banging rocks together, we've never, in fact, come up with a format that has really seemed to work. In some cases, it's a big cat fight between the various candidates. In others, you have journalists operating from their echo chambers trying to suppose what's interesting to the public.

Have we actually received any leadership or inclination from the public about what they would like to see covered and how they would like to see it covered?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I think your question gets to the point of why we've put forward a debates commission in the first place, because over the past decades, and particularly in recent history, it's been a political exercise, a partisan exercise, or a strictly journalistic exercise. The key point here that I think is important in his mandate is that they are to be done in the public interest.

I think Mr. Johnston is uniquely positioned to be able to draw on experts in broadcasting, academia and civil society to really ensure that the product that will be delivered is one that speaks to Canadians. That's one of the things we heard time and time again through our round tables and conversations across the country, to do exactly what you're talking about—put together a product that will be interesting for Canadians, that Canadians will want to engage with, but also one that can be used freely, which I think is really the most important part of it. The feed should be made available to whoever wants to use it, because then they can share it on diverse platforms or use different parts. I'm just speculating here, but let's say there's a group that's interested in the environment and climate change. If there's a question on the environment and climate change, that's something they can focus on.

I'm a bit of a political geek myself, but I think this is really exciting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

David, you have a short question.

[David Christopherson]

Thanks, Chair. I appreciate that.

The Chief Electoral Officer has.... There's a technical term and I don't know it. What it means is that his budget is unlimited. Once he gets into running an election, he can access the funding he needs. Would the debates commissioner have the same thing, given the fact that there's an artificial number? If he runs into a wall in terms of expenses, what happens?

[Matthew Shea]

It is a set amount, approved by Parliament. If the debates commissioner were to run into a wall—and they've given no indication—there would be a process as with any department, whereby the debates commissioner would put in a funding request to the minister and it would go from there. Again, there has been no indication that they feel they don't have enough money, but if they did, there are mechanisms.

[David Christopherson]

It could happen quickly, just a paper thing.

[Matthew Shea]

Absolutely. I'll finish what I started to say earlier. The reason I was mentioning the departmental plan and main estimates is that when they're tabled, this committee has the opportunity to call the debates commissioner. Unlike PCO, where we're limited in what we can say, he could go into details about exactly how he plans to spend, if he has enough money—all those questions that I think you're asking.

[David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, for your indulgence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Mrs. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Bittle touched on raking over the coals. I'm not sure that's what we ended up doing, and I certainly don't feel that's what we ended up doing for the Canadian public with Bill C-76. I'm hearing from you and the government that you want to make a real commitment to protecting Canadians and our electoral processes from foreign interference and influence. But all we got out of Bill C-76 was an interference process where there's a tap on the hand if there is foreign funding. Again, we tried as Conservatives to legislate amendments that would make it impossible for this to happen, with segregated bank accounts and doing more than the tap on the hand.

In addition, with the platforms, all we ended up with was some lame registries. It concerns me very much. In addition, frankly, when you go to the mainstream media, Minister.... When you went on The West Block, you said that you expect social media platforms to do more to protect the 2019 federal election from foreign interference, and you asked them to take lessons learned from around the world and apply them in Canada. It is very disturbing to me that you are asking corporations, of their own goodwill, to try to protect Canadians and our electoral processes, rather than taking responsibility yourself, both as the minister and the government.

Given the weak outcomes of Bill C-76 and your comments in the media, can you please provide any more assurance to the committee here today and to all Canadians that the 2019 election will have the most assurances possible to be kept safe from foreign influence?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I actually think that Bill C-76 was a good example of taking suggestions from all the different political parties represented around the table, particularly with regard to the ad registry and many of the items relating to third parties. Several of the suggestions and recommendations taken were put forward by the Conservatives and the NDP. Actually, a number of them were put forward by all of the political parties. That's really a testament to parliamentary democracy.

I would encourage this committee to do a study of the role of social media and democracy, if that's something you think is interesting, to hold the social media companies to account. I would welcome suggestions and feedback in terms of how to appropriately regulate or legislate that behaviour. One of the biggest challenges—and you can see this around the world—is that the path forward is not clear. This is something Canadians would certainly appreciate.

Maybe it was Mr. Bittle who mentioned.... Actually, no, there was a study that came out today saying that six in 10 Canadians don't feel good about Facebook and the upcoming election. This is another example of where we can work together, put partisanship aside and come up with the appropriate path forward. We want to ensure that we are providing the important public space that social media provides for people to express themselves, but also mitigating some of the negative impacts that can arise through social media. This would be something very interesting for the committee to work on, if you chose to do that. I'm also happy to speak with any of you individually about ideas or thoughts that you have.

The program that we put forward on January 30 with regard to protecting our democracy is quite comprehensive and tries to tackle the issue from many different sides to provide Canadians with the assurance that the government is taking this seriously. We're looking at it from both a hard and a soft angle.

Ultimately, we have to work together as Canadians. The ultimate target for our democracy is the Canadian voter, because Canadian voters are the ones who hold the power in terms of the votes they cast. What we need to do—both I and the government but also parliamentarians—is to ensure that Canadians have the information they need to make informed choices.

[Stephanie Kusie]

Thank you, Minister.

As a former foreign service officer and security officer, I would just counsel you to get as much information as you can from your counterparts. As a member of this committee, I hope that you would share it with us.

Thank you.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mrs. Kusie.

We'll now go to vote 1b under the Leaders' Debates Commission in supplementary estimates (B).

LEADERS' DEBATES COMMISSION

Vote 1b—Program expenditures..........$257,949

(Vote 1b agreed to on division)

Shall vote 1 under the Leaders' Debates Commission in the interim estimates carry?

LEADERS' DEBATES COMMISSION

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$2,260,388

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the votes in supplementary estimates (B) and the interim estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Minister and your colleagues, for coming.

There is another committee coming here, but just before we break, I have two quick things. Maybe I'll read this. We're doing the two-House study, and normally the clerk tweets out something. Basically it says:

The Committee is studying whether it would be advantageous for the House of Commons to establish a parallel debating chamber. Parallel debating chambers can serve as additional forums for debate on certain kinds of parliamentary business and have been used by the Parliaments of Australia and the United Kingdom since the 1990s.

Is there any problem with that? Okay.

Thursday is our lunch. Hopefully you can all make it.

Next Tuesday, Bruce Stanton will be here from 11:00 to 12:00. From 12:00 to 1:00, we had the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure, but we talked about also doing the report on the privilege motion. In that hour, too, we'll discuss the final report, and the researcher will send that out.

[Stephanie Kusie]

What day is that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

That is next Tuesday.

Is everyone okay with that?

The meeting is adjourned.