Evidence of meeting #79 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 political.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Allen Sutherland  Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government, Privy Council Office

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

Sure, in—

12:40 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

I was included—

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

—the debates context.

12:40 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

I planned to be in the 2015 women's debate, and the Green Party was scheduled—for those people who didn't know this—for the English language leaders' debate, which was to take place on the Thursday before the Thanksgiving weekend, until it was cancelled. Although I was disappointed not to have a women's debate, I was very disappointed not to have an English-language televised debate among the leaders at all.

That brings me to this question: how would one compel the leader of a party to show up, particularly if it's the prime minister?

Certainly the committee will study this question. The only thing I can think of that would be an effective sanction would be around rebates for expenditures during the election. I got this idea based on Kennedy Stewart's private member's bill—which I thought was excellent—on how to encourage parties to have women on their slates. Any party that fell below gender parity would experience less of the reimbursement that the people of Canada now give all the large parties, or all the parties. Any party that qualifies gets back most of what they spent on the election campaign.

I wonder how you'd react to the idea that if a leader of a party that was expecting the largesse from the people of Canada to pay back their expenses in an election campaign chose to shun one of the key ways in which Canadians can engage with an election campaign by not showing up, or threatening not to show up, and derailing the debates.

Would it be appropriate to look at amending the Elections Act to include a financial sanction to their party for a leader who didn't show up?

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Be very brief, Minister, because the time is up.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

I'm not sure about the practicalities of compelling a leader to participate. I would hope that the punishment for not participating would be at the ballot box, because I think Canadians expect their political leaders to participate.

12:40 p.m.

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Thank you again to this extraordinary collection of human beings, saints in politician form.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Go ahead, Mr. Garrison.

12:40 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

I feel very lucky to be here today when this topic is in front of us. Like all MPs, at this point there's a danger of reverting to being a recovering political scientist or a recovering lawyer. I don't really want to go there today.

I want to thank the minister for laying out some clear principles that I think are worthy of support in this endeavour. My concern is that the perfect not be the enemy of the good.

We need something to avoid the problems we had in the last election. I was interested to hear you talk about a possible interim solution as an innovative way. Could you say a bit more about that in terms of timing and how that might work? It's really only about 18 months before the next campaign probably begins.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

Thank you.

I would agree with you. I don't want perfect to become the enemy of the good either in this case. I do think it's really important.

I guess one of the challenges with the legislative option is having enough time to get it through the whole process. That said, there may be an element, such as a small legislative tweak, that may be made with a bit more flexibility in what the commission or commissioner would look like.

From a nascent point of view, I would be thinking about establishing some kind of grants and contributions policy that would lay out the criteria for a commission or a commissioner to establish some of the basic requirements for participation in a debate and who we would encourage to engage with in broadcasting. One of the models that I think is interesting, whether it's CPAC or not, is having a broadcaster tasked with hosting the debate and then providing transmission to any interested stakeholder or party, whether that's a broadcaster, social media, political party, citizens' interest group, or whatever it may be, but providing that transmission so it can be shown wherever.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

I think it's important that we get somewhere before the campaign begins, because all the co-operation you see in this room today tends to disappear very quickly once you get closer to an election date.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

That's a very good point. There needs to be something at least a year in advance of an election.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

That's exactly the question I was going to ask you.

Ms. May and I are good neighbours, but by the time we get to the campaign, one of us may or may not have gone door to door in the other one's riding during the election, and the goodwill tends to go away at that point.

I guess my other very specific question is, do you believe there's sufficient time for a legislative option? I am beginning to doubt there is, even without foot-dragging by anybody here in Parliament. I have trouble seeing how we get a legislative option in place a year in advance.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

I think it would depend on the outcome of the committee and the outcome of my engagement and the input that I'm seeking. If there is significant general consensus, there may have been a lot of work already done before we get to a legislative option in terms of being able to move it more quickly through the House. I think it would really depend on how robust that legislative option may be or not.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Do you feel, as the minister, that you have the resources available if we reach that kind of consensus? Do you have the resources available, as a minister, to put this in high gear and get that legislative option in place? Sometimes there is a crunch of resources.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

I always hope I have the resources available, but it's certainly a priority for me to get this done, because I think it is very important.

The other part is that it depends on the kind of funding structure. I think I'm certainly open to a role for federal funding for this. It just depends on what we're looking at. In the past, the consortium has been responsible for funding, but mind you, they've put aside their differences and said this is a public good and that they're going to work on this together.

What that funding would look like depends on the kind of model. If it depends on how much it is, I'll have to consider that as well.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

I have to say that I did not share my question list with the minister. She keeps anticipating my questions and answering them in advance. I was concerned about the question of funding, which I think would be necessary to make this move expeditiously.

I think we're in a peculiar situation now, which gives us an opportunity to do this in a political environment that's less complex. In other words, because we're not proceeding with proportional representation, it's probably a good opportunity for us to get this commission established, because proportional representation will complicate this issue of debates in the future.

While I'm not in the business of thanking the government for abandoning that promise—certainly not—I do think it means that if we don't get this done now, and if we later move to proportional representation, it becomes much harder to do this in a proportional representation environment.

I wonder if you have any thoughts on that.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

I think we have a moment right now to do it. I'm particularly grateful to the committee for taking an interest and studying this issue. I think that this is a good example of how we can work together, hopefully in a way that's going to produce a democratic institution that benefits all Canadians, regardless of partisan politics or party politics.

I'm very hopeful that we're going to get some really robust feedback from this process and also from the consultations I'll be conducting as well.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

I understand from the chair that there are only 30 seconds left, so I think I'll close at that point, unless you've had your other thought come back.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

Not yet, but if it does, I'll let you know.

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC

Thank you very much.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

Thank you.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell

Thank you very much, Mr. Garrison.

Now we'll go on to Mr. Richards.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

You've mentioned in your five criteria that one of them is this idea of entrenching leaders' debates as part of federal elections. That wasn't quite the language you used, but that's essentially what you were suggesting.

You mentioned in your opening remarks, I think, that the first televised debate for a federal election was in the 1960s. I would assume there hasn't been an election since then when one didn't occur.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON

Yes, there was, in 1980.