Evidence of meeting #152 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 commissioner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Control over the product itself, once the debate is held, who gets a copy of it and that sort of that thing?
Who gets to stream it?
12:30 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
In fairness, we haven't totally sorted out copyright. We're seeking legal advice on that. My own view offhand, without having considered it, is that the copyright would remain with the consortium that produces and disseminates the debate. Any breach of copyright infractions would be handled in that route. They're not totally satisfactory because usually you can't deal with breach of copyright until the breach has occurred and the horse is out of the barn so to speak.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
I realize that.
Just for the record, it's not you who would be enforcing the copyright or going after any copyright infringement. It would be the consortium itself.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Thank you, and thank you once again for the contribution to the Rideau Hall Foundation, Scott.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Sorry, I'm just trying to decide how to address you here. There are so many options.
I would like to turn, if I could, please, to the advisory board members. How are these individuals selected to be on the advisory board, please?
12:30 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
They were chosen by us, with my ultimate responsibility, taking advice from the secretariat, and we were guided by the references that are in our mandate. I can refer that to you, if you wish. It does indicate that one should select some members of the advisory board who have had active engagement in political matters.
We put together a very long list of candidates that, one, had had appropriate political experience and, two, had significant media experience with respect to the production and dissemination of debates, and then there was a broader area of people who had experience in things like public interest and citizen engagement, who would be very helpful in our mandate to extend the reach as far as possible and to see the debates as something that would be quite central in our election process and of high quality.
Three of our members are John Manley—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
I'm aware of the membership, sir. Thank you so much.
What you're saying is that it wasn't an open application process.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
All right.
Was there any correspondence or discussion with you and the Office of the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office or the Minister of Democratic Institutions regarding the selection of these advisory board members?
12:30 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
No, that was entirely handled by ourselves.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Okay.
Can you remind us, please, who is on the secretariat that you refer to.
12:30 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
The secretariat, not the advisory board—is that your question? It's led by Michel Cormier who is a retired senior executive of Radio-Canada. Michel's experience, I think, is probably two decades or more of actually organizing the debate and negotiating the consortium.
He's supported by Jess Milton. Jess is a former CBC person whose responsibility, among other things, was being the producer and director of the Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean. My colleague, Jill Clark, just behind me, is our communication expert; she came to us from the Rideau Hall Foundation—a foundation I chair—to handle communications. On my left is Bradley Eddison, who's our research analyst and a person who has been involved in the debates for several years, one, within the Privy Council of Canada, two, within Elections Canada and, more generally, understanding the outreach, particularly social media. We have a coordinator and office manager—
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
That's great. Thank you, sir.
What, then, is the principal role of the advisory board in relation to organizing the 2019 leaders debates, please?
12:35 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Very simply, it's to provide advice to the commission with respect to the narrow mandate of carrying off two national debates, in official languages, and engaging with us and assisting in the appropriate awareness of the debates, the publicity in and around them, the citizen engagement that goes with that and preparing our final report and, of course, assisting us on appropriate issue discussion.
In fact, we had an hour and a half meeting this morning with the seven members of the advisory board by telephone. We intersperse those with face-to-face meeting and typically put before them three or four issues that we're working on in a particular month.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
When they come to decisions, do they use consensus or do they vote on the issues?
12:35 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
We haven't come to any fast rules on that. I would say consensus, but the seven-person advisory board is adviser to me, the commissioner, so I would take responsibility for how that advice is received and acted upon.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
Can any decisions that come out of the advisory board be overturned by anyone, including you, if deemed necessary?
12:35 p.m.
Debates Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
I guess if they were to be overturned, they would be overturned by me, overturning myself. They are an advisory board. The input comes in. Of course, if you do that very often with an advisory board, it somewhat tarnishes the kind of advice you get, so we would work in a way to talk a particular difficult issue through and probably come to some kind of consensus, but ultimately the commissioner has the final responsibility to make a decision and take the heat for it.
May 2nd, 2019 / 12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB
As for the decisions that come out of the advisory board, will they be advising the producer directly, or will these decisions go through you first?
