Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the Right Honourable David Johnston for being with us today and to the other members of your team at the Leaders' Debates Commission for being here. We really appreciate your time and all the work you do.
It's clear from your opening remarks that you delivered on the vast majority of your mandate, although certainly we can all recognize that there are some improvements that can be made. I appreciated your report and your opening remarks because you've been quite candid about the areas where there's been some feedback about where the debate could be improved significantly.
You made it very clear that the areas are the format and the moderation, and you've provided a list of suggested solutions. For me and many others, we viewed or even called this particular debate—I'm referring to the English debate in the last election—as more of a journalists' showdown. I think that's how it felt for people.
Minister LeBlanc, when he was here earlier, said it's really about what informs the public discourse the best. What information does the public really want to get out of the leaders' debate?
We all know that it's a high-intensity moment. It's a high-pressure moment for a general election, and there's a lot riding on it, so I think it's really important that we work to get it right.
I wondered if anybody had worked back from what the public.... If we took the average citizen and asked what they really wanted to get out of the debate, how do we preserve that within the format? Certainly the format really impacts on what they get out of it.
I've heard stories of people who turned the channel; they didn't watch the debate. They started to watch it and were turned off quite quickly. That was very disappointing to me as someone running in the election, of course.
I'll pose that question through you, Madam Chair. I would welcome any remarks you have.