Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 16th, 2019

[Matthew Shea]

The main reason is that the debates commissioner, from day one, made clear to me that he wanted to spend as little money as possible, to be as efficient as possible. We looked at existing space, existing material. He asked for very few changes to the office to try to make it as cost effective as possible. I know that for our spending, it's been much less than anticipated.

I have no reason to believe that they won't be able to live within the amount they have here.

I can't get into certain things for privacy reasons, but some of the members of the advisory committee, even though they're entitled to collect per diems, have chosen not to do that. The debates commissioner himself has already indicated that he will donate the money he receives to charity.

Ultimately, there are many ways they are trying to reduce costs, so we have no reason to believe that this will not be enough. In fact, it's likely overstated.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That's good to hear.

The commissioner, the secretariat and the advisers were offered salaries comparable to what other commissioners would have.

[Matthew Shea]

Absolutely. There is a cost for personnel; please don't misunderstand. I'll make it clear that the debates commissioner himself is being paid but is donating that money to charity. There was no way for him to just not be paid, because of the type of position he's in. There are other staff. They have about five FTEs this fiscal year. We do anticipate that they will be spending on salary. These people are entitled to salary for the hard work they're doing. I'm more saying that the debates commissioner has gone out of his way to try to minimize those costs.

One of the reasons they outsourced their administrative support to us was that they didn't want to create their own corporate services shop when we do this for independent organizations all the time. We gave him a menu of the type of stuff we can do. We're doing almost all of that back-office support for him. My anticipation is that we will spend much less than we anticipated at PCO as well.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I just want to switch gears a little bit. We've gone through the debates commissioner quite a bit, we had him before us recently, and there's not so much that you can say because of the arm's-length relationship.

Madame Lapointe pointed out a question about Facebook. Earlier this week, Facebook put up a new edition to their user agreement about making sure that those who boost posts or have job posts don't discriminate by gender or by any other ways as to who their advertising targets are. Do you have any similar thoughts as to what can be done through Facebook and other social media platforms when it comes to political advertising or the micro-targeting that has been occurring in campaigns, local or national, so that the electorate isn't excluded from what parties are putting out in their platforms and other communications?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I think the ad registry that this committee brought forward in Bill C-76 will play a very important role in that. Facebook has stated that it will have an ad registry for the pre-writ and writ period. I think that's a really important measure, because Canadians will be able to see all of the advertisements that political actors are putting forward during that period. I think that is very important.

I also think you raise an interesting point with regard to micro-targeting. It's an ongoing conversation we're having. It's one that I imagine will also come up during the grand committee event that will happen in a couple of weeks about what that means in terms of different political actors using that and not having a full picture. One of the interesting things I always think about is that if you're advertising through more traditional means, whether it's on the radio, on TV or in newspapers, you are going to see all of the different political ads, because that's the one venue you have to look at it. On social media, you may see only one party's ads, for example, because maybe you're not part of the target demographic. That's certainly something that I think we need to reflect on further in terms of whether or not that fits within the spirit of our elections legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Nater.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and guests, for joining us this afternoon.

I want to follow up very briefly on a response that was given to Ms. Sahota. It was mentioned that five FTEs are part of the commission. Are these indeterminate employees of the Government of Canada or are they on contract?

[Matthew Shea]

Just to clarify, it's a separate organization within the government, so they're all technically government employees from that perspective. The majority of them are there on short-term contracts or term employment arrangements. I believe that one they've hired is on secondment from a government department. It's a mix. There are some part-time employees who are part of that as well.

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

Generally when will that employment cease?

[Matthew Shea]

I don't have the exact date, but it will be post-election, obviously.

[A voice]

March 20, 2020.

[Matthew Shea]

Okay: March 20.

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

Great. Thank you for that clarification.

I was reviewing the request for proposal that was submitted earlier this week. Paragraph 4.1(c) states: “An evaluation team composed of representatives of Canada will evaluate the bids.” Who will be those representatives?

[Matthew Shea]

That is the debates commission entirely. I'll maybe comment really quickly on the RFP. Beyond that would be inappropriate, given that there's an active RFP.

The debates commission did an information request to potential applicants for this procurement before actually posting it. Part of the reason...and I wanted it to round back when there was some talk that it would be a media consortium that wins it. Part of the goal was actually to give an opportunity for potential bidders to ask questions to try to clarify the contract to make it so that it was as accessible as possible.

The request for proposal is currently out. It doesn't close until May 30, and that's why I think it's inappropriate for me to comment further, other than to say that I know the goal is to have multiple bidders. That's always the goal when we do these types of things, because it gives us the most choices and it is the most efficient way of doing it. The actual choice, to go back to the question that's come up a few times, is entirely delegated to the debates commissioner and his team. If they ask us for advice on process, we're happy to do that, but even in the case of this contract, they have worked directly with Public Works, and not through us, for some of these steps.

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

So, PCO had no input on the RFP that went out early this week.

[Matthew Shea]

Absolutely not.

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

This was entirely through Public Works.

Section M.2, which lists some of the requirements for the media consortium or whatever we want to call it—

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

The bidder.

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

—for the proposed bidder, is rather extensive and does tend to appear, at least, to skew towards the three large media companies: CTV, CBC and Global.

I'm looking for an opinion, Minister. Would you be concerned if the only successful bidder was the consortium of CBC, CTV and Global?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I don't think that it would be appropriate for me to comment on the bidding process at this time.

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

Okay.

Would you have concerns if newer media or smaller media entities like APTN, print journalists, HuffPost Canada, CPAC and Maclean's were not part of the process?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Again, I don't think it would be appropriate to comment, as there is an ongoing and existing RFP, but the intent, as I have stated before, is to make this as inclusive and successful as possible.

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

I'm going to rephrase this. Would you be disappointed if this actually just became a media consortium debate as we've seen in previous elections?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Because there's an ongoing RFP at the moment and because this is an independent process, I wouldn't want to make a comment that would prejudice either decision.

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

I see that I have about a minute left. I'm just going to make a brief comment and then provide Ms. Kusie with a chance to ask a final question.

I would be concerned if we were in a situation where we spent a significant amount of money creating this commission and then saw a diversity of media opinions being left out of the actual debate process. Right or wrong, there were five debates last time—a variety of groups. There was some controversy—I'm not going to deny that—but there was a variety of debates, and I'd be exceptionally disappointed if newer media and diversity of media were not part of this process.

I have 34 seconds left, so I'll throw it to Ms. Kusie.