Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2020

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Do you think we're spending too much on preparedness for the pandemic?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

No. I believe you're spending a lot of money. The $4.6 million could be spent better than producing a flashy debate where questionable results, I think, on the production value.... If you look back to the English debate and how many moderators we had on stage, you see it was a somewhat questionable outcome.

Along those lines—and I realize I'm running out of time here—I go to Mr. Sutherland—

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Make sure you leave me enough time to answer your questions, of course.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Did the WE Charity receive any dollars in the 2019 commission?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, I just want it to be very clear because a false connection was attempted to be made there. Whatever spending is appropriate to have a fair and independent credible debates commission in an election will in no way limit the government's very important responsibility to spend what is necessary for the health and safety of Canadians in a pandemic.

That is a false choice to pretend that, because we've decided to set up an independent, fair and robust debates commission, somehow it's going to take away from other investments necessary for the provinces and territories—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

But it wasn't independent. I'll go back to the question to Mr. Sutherland—

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

[Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Perhaps I could just pause everybody for a moment. We still have issues with sound.

Your sound, Minister LeBlanc, is going in and out. It comes right back, but it fades as well when you're speaking.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

On a point of order, Madam Chair. I think the issue is not with the minister's mike. Given the fact that it's being repeated with different speakers, I have a feeling it is the system itself where audio keeps fading and coming back. The same thing happened to Mr. Blaikie.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, that's right. I was going to say that it didn't happen to anybody else, though.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Let's try Mr. Sutherland to answer the question. Then we'll hopefully get the tech people, in the meantime, fixing it.

Mr. Sutherland, did the WE Charity receive any dollars from the 2019 debates commission?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

You have 10 to 20 seconds.

[Allen Sutherland]

In the 2019 debates commission, Mr. Kielburger was a member of the advisory committee.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

The charity itself did not receive any dollars.

[Allen Sutherland]

Not to my knowledge....

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Could you table the charities that did receive dollars?

What was the amount that Marc Kielburger was paid per diem?

[Allen Sutherland]

I don't know that offhand, but I could find out.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Could you table that, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's all the time we have.

I have paused at times, as well, to allow you more than the six minutes because of the points of order and the interruptions.

Next we have Mr. Turnbull for five minutes, please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister and your colleagues, for being here, which I'm finding very helpful.

I just wanted to follow up on the main estimates. Basically what you've told us, I think, just to clarify, is that the budgeted amount for the previous leaders' debate function was actually not spent. This means that we've been able to carry over unspent funds to cover the sufficient permanent infrastructure to help us prepare in a minority situation. Is that correct?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Yes, that's my understanding.

I understand there was $800,000 unspent, which is what we're proposing as the amount to give the commission in some preparatory capacity in advance of the election. Is that correct, Al?

[Allen Sutherland]

Yes. The money that had been allocated for last year is being used for current operations. Then, as you said in your opening remarks, the $4.6 million is the frozen allotment for the year of the debate.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

We haven't actually increased the amount. We've accounted for the carry-over, and we've allowed that to actually help fulfill one of the debate commissioner's recommendations, which I believe is recommendation 9, which is to have sufficient capacity in a minority situation to be able to prepare for a leaders' debate at any time. Is that right?

[Allen Sutherland]

I think that's a fair assessment. Part of what the commission will be doing now is making preparations so that it's ready, should an election be called, with national debates. There are other parts of it. You could look at recommendation 10, where they look at research capacity to ensure the best practices are put in place for the next debate. You could argue that the money being spent now could be applied to that as well.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay. That's wonderful. It sounds very prudent, if you ask me.

Just moving on to another topic that is important to me, I know that in the last election quite a number of concerns were expressed about the disinformation and specifically that on social media. I think those concerns are particularly relevant, especially given the COVID-19 context, where people might be isolated. If a snap election is called, certainly people will be using online sources to influence and inform their decisions on who to place their confidence in. I think this elevates it to a level of importance that, in a COVID context, is pretty significant.

Minister, could you outline how you intend to increase citizen resilience and combat social media disinformation, which we know is all too prevalent today?