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

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Ryan, you're absolutely right.

Our colleague Karina Gould, when she was the minister responsible for democratic institutions, in advance of the 2019 election I think took some very significant steps, supported by the officials at the Privy Council, some of whom are here with me today, to help build citizen resilience, as you said, in the best way.

This is a global challenge. There is a huge threat to basic information caused by misinformation, but more particularly by disinformation. As colleagues will know, that's the deliberate dissemination of information designed to divide societies, designed to provoke reactions. Some of it, of course, reaches the level of hate speech as well.

It can be very corrosive to a functioning democracy. It's something that probably wasn't imagined 20, 30 or 40 years ago, but in every general election—and you can imagine it in global contexts—we have more and more worrying examples around the world, where democracies need to insulate themselves and protect themselves. The best way to do it is to build an ecosystem of citizen resilience, where citizens are able to distinguish misinformation from reliable information.

The social media platforms also have an important role to play. I think it's no secret that my colleague, the heritage minister, has talked about upcoming changes as well. We think there's a responsibility and, to be fair, a number of the social media platforms, in advance of the 2019 election, the last election—such as advertising registries, for example—increased their transparency in an effort to ensure that they would not become a source of irresponsible dissemination of information that has as its very objective to undermine and damage democracies.

Ryan, as you well know, Heritage Canada runs something called the “digital citizen initiative”, which supports social cohesion and democratic citizens groups to build greater resilience.

Madam Chair, I would just finish with this. If you and your colleagues on the committee have suggestions, have ideas, of how we can go further to build greater citizen resilience and to fight disinformation, perhaps we could look at the experience in the United States of the presidential election that just concluded there. I know that the U.K. election had some interesting circumstances as well.

If your committee would like a briefing from officials, including security and intelligence officials who follow these items for the Government of Canada, I would be more than happy to arrange those briefings, and I look forward to working with you on those issues and so many more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Actually, Minister LeBlanc, it's something that I am extremely interested in. I did attend your virtual talk a little while back on this issue. I definitely tuned in for that, because I think it's a big issue that democracies around the world are facing.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, as I say, I'm lucky enough to be briefed by some of the security and intelligence officials on these issues around disinformation and even foreign interference. Heretofore, Canada has been lucky—not immune, but lucky—in terms of damage to our democracy, but we need to remain vigilant. If in some future meeting you and your colleagues decide that you want a briefing on this, I would be happy to arrange whatever is appropriate that the committee would like to hear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you very much for that offer.

Mr. Therrien, you have two and half minutes.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Tochor kind of stole my question, and I didn't really understand the answers, so I'm going to come back to it.

In short, in 2015, the private sector was organizing the debates. There was no cost to the public treasury. Then it was decided that there should be a commission for the leaders' debates. This resulted in expenditures of $4.6 million.

Why was this commission created? Why was the idea that the government should spend money to do what the private sector used to do? Was there a problem?

Honestly, I don't understand. You may have explained it earlier, but I didn't understand.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I'll be pleased to explain the situation to you.

I'm not an expert on the subject, Mr. Therrien, but I've been interested in elections for a long time, as probably many of us have been. There are always moments you remember, for example, Mr. Mulroney in 1984. There are dramatic moments in these leaders' debates, there have been dramatic moments in previous elections, and that goes back a very long time.

I remember Mr. Bouchard's debates very well, and I always found it interesting to see that the day after the debates in English, for example, it was often Mr. Duceppe who was perceived as having won the debate in English. So, you can imagine that this made us smile a little bit.

The debates in English and in French were coordinated by a consortium of networks and accessible to everyone. I don't remember all the networks that organized them, whether it was CBC or CTV in English, but I felt that Radio-Canada and CBC in English had a key role with other partner networks. However, the signal was available on all the networks. So if people in your riding wanted to follow the debate in English or in French, they had very broad, if not complete, access to cable companies or other ways of getting their television signal. Now you can see it on the Internet. It's different.

In 2015, Mr. Harper began his election campaign by saying that he would not participate in the debates organized by the consortium, the device that has always been used. Mr. Harper chose certain debates, certain regional networks, certain university campuses. I don't understand the Conservatives' political strategy, but he wanted to decide or have the power to decide. If the Prime Minister of Canada doesn't participate in debates, the situation is different from when all the leaders of the major political parties are there. This is why we believed that we needed to bring at least a minimum platform of coherence, which does not take anything away from the leaders' choices.

In 2019, I was in the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital in Montreal. I watched the debate from my hospital bed, on TVA. Leaders may decide to go to other networks in other circumstances. However, with a commission that has the mandate to produce, in partnership with the networks, a debate that will be accessible to everyone, to all the networks, we don't find ourselves in situations where some regions can't watch it in the language of their choice. I'm not sure that all New Brunswickers had access to TVA, for example, to see the same debate I saw in Montreal during the last campaign. There, at least, we have a certain basic platform. The commission can offer that.

I think we should look at what happened in 2015. From memory, I know that there was some concern at the beginning of the campaign.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Okay.

I read—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have.

Mr. Blaikie, please go ahead.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I have what amounts to an accounting question, although I think it's an interesting one.

I note that $5.4 million is requested under the heading of the Leaders' Debates Commission, and an additional $800,000 for what you have indicated as preparatory work. That is under vote 5 of the Treasury Board submission in the supplementary estimates.

Why was the additional $800,000 not included in the request for the leaders' debate, and what difference does it make to have it in vote 5 as opposed to the Leaders' Debate Commission?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

That's a technical question, and I'll let Al Sutherland answer it.

Again, for any of these technical questions, Madam Chair, we'd be happy to provide, through you to the committee, any specific answers in writing that aren't sufficient for any of these questions on spending.

[Allen Sutherland]

The $800,000 is for current operations. What's different about the $4.6 million is that it's in the frozen allotment, which means it is held back by Treasury Board until such time as it's needed for the actual conduct of the debates. That's the difference between the two sources of funds.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

The money that's being requested under vote 5 under Treasury Board would flow now and the money that's being requested under the Leaders’ Debates Commission would be held over.

[Allen Sutherland]

Yes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I am interested to know what the allocation of $800,000 for preparatory work.... I know it's been suggested by some that the Leaders’ Debates Commission have a permanent infrastructure and continue to exist between elections. I'm wondering, Mr. Minister, if with this $800,000 the government is moving down the road towards that, if it has an opinion on that recommendation. If that's not what this is, how would you characterize it, if not in that way?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I know that Mr. Johnston, in his report, talked about creating a permanent ongoing structure. In my conversations with him, he generously indicated that he was not seeking to be that permanent ongoing commissioner but would help the country again in the next general election, if asked.

I'm offering you my own personal view. The cabinet hasn't made a decision on this. It would require legislative change. Again, these would properly be matters that your committee should look at, I would suggest, or reflect on and make recommendations to the government on in terms of changes to the Canada Elections Act. Personally, I would favour an ongoing permanent structure in legislation, which would provide that basic platform in general elections of an accessible, open and fair debate between leaders with a properly independent commission to make those decisions, obviously.

We would welcome that future conversation. Again, your committee's advice would be very helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Vecchio.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. LeBlanc, for being here. It is always wonderful to see you in the House of Commons.

I have a simple question to start. You've referred a lot back to 2015 versus 2019. Is it mandatory for leadership candidates to participate in this new format?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

That's a very good question, Ms. Vecchio. I hadn't thought of it that way.

I don't think we can, by an order in council, force some leader to show up on a stage at a certain time with a dark suit on and some makeup. I don't think that is.... It's a very good question.

But no, I think a leader would be perfectly able to decline to participate and to explain to his or her supporters—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Excellent. That's good to know, because we're talking about....

You very well said why, in 2015, you felt it was appropriate, but in 2019 we actually had six candidates take the floor, which we know was extremely busy. With five moderators, it even got a little crazier than that.

We're talking about the fact that we've gone from spending zero dollars—Paul Wells has said that with $6 million, Maclean's could have 60 debates.

It's coming out that a debate costs approximately $250 million to run. Why would the government have to run a debate if it weren't mandatory in the first place? You've said a number of times that was because that's what Harper did. Well, they're not mandatory and that doesn't matter. It's 2020 now. Why does the government still need to run these debates, then? If they're not mandatory, why does it need to be the government versus a private consortium?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, I don't want to be too technical. It's not the government that's running the debates. It would be an independent commission, obviously financed through the normal estimates process. That's what we're talking about today.

I'm a big fan of Paul Wells and Maclean’s magazine. If he would like to organize 60 debates.... The problem is that the Maclean’s magazine's debates wouldn't necessarily be in French, would they? That is one of the challenges.

My constituents are two-thirds francophone. They consume a significant portion of their information from French media platforms. Our view is that this offers a basic guarantee of structured, fair and accessible debate. Different networks can carry the signal for free.

But again, if Paul Wells wants to organize 59 more, we'll see if the leaders want to show up 59 times at his debates.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Oh, that's very fair.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Maybe in a pandemic election when people won't be able to travel as much—

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

They'll have nothing else to do.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

How could you come to the Atlantic bubble? This is the challenge.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Very true.

Thanks very much, Dominic. I really appreciate it.

I want to note something else. We heard about the chaos. I watched the debates. I'm just like you, Dominic. I've watched those debates. When we talk about Trudeau and Clark, I've watched those too. To me, it is really important to have those. They need to be non-chaotic. They need to be transparent. They need to be all of these things.

How are we going to move forward though? This commission is not a government agency but it is still not fully independent from the government because it is for the government of the day.

As I look at this, the government of the day chose the last time to put an order in council. I'm wondering if you will commit to not putting an order in council when it comes to who's allowed to participate in the 2020 or the 2021 leadership. Would the order in council be there, or the participation criteria? I'm just trying to find out where you are with those things.