Evidence of meeting #17 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debate.
A video is available from Parliament.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Do you mean debates? There were three: 2019, 2021 and 2025.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Okay, but each debate has actually had two—an English one and a French one—so it's six.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Yes.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
You've done six things in seven years. Is that correct?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
We've organized six debates in seven years.
Conservative
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Pardon me?
Conservative
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
What do I do on a given day? We have weekly meetings. We have a small staff. We have a full-time person, who does accounting, finances, administration and a lot of other stuff. I'm part-time, and we have another part-time employee who actually helps us on an hourly basis.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
What's your salary range that's been established by the order in council?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
What is the salary range?
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Well, you can offer your specific one, but I know that the range is what's publicly available.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
I don't know the full range of it. I know what I'm paid.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Are you open to sharing that with the committee?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
I don't know if that's privileged information from human resources. I actually don't know.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
When you were appointed, as I understand it, the range that the order in council stipulated was $160,000 to $190,000. Does the salary for your part-time job fall within that range?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Yes, but I'm not paid the full amount. I'm paid for two days per week.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
Your commission hosts a meeting per week. What else do you do?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
After each debate, we actually do consultations. We just published a report that is required by our mandate. We prepare for the next debates and we review the participation criteria—in this case, also the media accreditation policy. We hold consultations on some of these questions, and we prepare the contracting. The contracting for the next debates is always a complicated and arduous task because we go through PSPC rules. There's enough for us to be busy enough.
As I said, for the last three cycles, we've been in minority government situations where we had to be on call in case there was an election.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
If there had been a majority government or a situation, as in the case after 2021, where there was a de facto majority government for a period of time, you would have had four years. At one meeting a week, you would have achieved about 200 meetings. That's something, but what else would you have done in that four-year period, especially the three years between the election and the year before the following election?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
If it were a majority government situation, the government could very possibly decide that the debates commission would be suspended for one or two years. Actually, that happened after the 2019 election, but then we had to be called back quite quickly because we went to a minority government situation and the government could have fallen any day. Of course, if there's a majority government, I think you could revisit that part of it.
Conservative
Andrew Lawton Conservative Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON
I'm just having trouble understanding what exactly you do, because if the Leaders' Debates Commission were to go away right now—there was no commission in 2015—it wouldn't mean we would have no debates. In 2015, there was a Maclean's debate and a Globe and Mail debate. We had no shortage of debates.
I believe at another committee meeting, this committee heard testimony by Paul Wells, who was involved with the Maclean's debate. I believe he said they could have run 60 of their debates for the price of the one debate your organization held.
Why is it necessary, and why is it necessary even between elections, to have this commission?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Well, maybe you should put that question to the government. We execute the mandate we're given with the resources we're given. I think the debates commission has brought stability to the environment.
I was in the 2015 debates organization, which was quite disorganized, if you like. We didn't know if we would have debates or not until the very end, and it involved a lot of negotiations with the parties.
Conservative
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Those were lesser. I think if you want debates that have the kind of viewership we can deliver, you need the big networks to be involved and you need to widen the distribution, as we've done. We also reach communities that feel disenfranchised by politics, whether they're indigenous communities, other minority language communities or other groups that don't feel part of the system.
Through some of the new emerging media that stream our debates—because it's a free signal—I think we have an impact that debates organized by private organizations cannot have in the same sense, because their debates are proprietary and belong to news organizations. That's a big difference.
Whether all of this is necessary, I think that's open for political debate.