Evidence of meeting #25 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 journalists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
It's because when there's an election year, that's when most of the money is spent. Otherwise, the operating budget is around $700,000 for all those years. In 2022-23, for example, it was $699,000.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
I understand the total in terms of spending, but in terms of what's allocated in the main estimates, it's $3.5 million, $3.5 million, and $3 million, yet the way the funds are categorized is very different, as I say.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Information is at $1.8 million, and that's the debates. That's the cost of producing the debates.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
Okay, so why would professional and special services go from $2.5 million in 2024-25 to $750,000 in 2025-26?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
It's because we have to hire additional staff for the debates to run the press room and manage relationships with some stakeholders. That's the difference, and the commission staff also works full time during that period, once the election is called, to prepare for the debates.
That increases the professional services costs, and there are miscellaneous costs for printing the press passes for the journalists and mundane stuff like that. That is tagged on to the cost of the debates.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
I understand that, but I still don't really understand why the numbers flip between professional services and special services in the estimates. I'm not talking about the actual costs during the year.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
I can check that and get back to you. It's kind of granular for me right now.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
Okay.
You said that in terms of staff in years when there's not an election, it's just one and a half. It's basically one full-time person and one part-time person.
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Yes, plus on a needs basis, we do hire—
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
Right. There's that, and then the questions I have are these: First, how do you determine that's sufficient, and second, how many people does it then grow to during an election year?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
It grows to three people, plus three or four people who are hired; we hired them last time from the press gallery to run the press room, but they're not on staff for the whole year.
We hire somebody: When we get closer to the debates and we negotiate the contracts with the producers to make sure that the technical aspects are followed, we hire that person, who also helps with communications. That's also a part-time job.
Usually, the core staff, when there's no election, consists of myself and a full-time person. I'm part time, and for the past two years I've also taken on the role of the acting commissioner at no further cost.
When a new commissioner is named, that person will also get a salary, but that's also a part-time job, usually one day a week. That's the difference.
Liberal
Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver—Capilano, BC
Can you just walk us through the main chunks of work that are done in years between elections?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
First, after the election, we have to produce a final report on the debates, which is quite extensive, because we do extensive consultations with stakeholders. We consult the parties, the producers and some experts in the media on issues of media management and accreditation.
We also have a survey done by the Canadian Election Study. These are public opinion polls plus focus groups with citizens on what they got out of the debates. We peruse all that and produce a report with recommendations on how to increase the quality of the debates, or all aspects of them.
Then, of course, there's the regular administrative relationship with the government departments, whether it's Treasury Board, Finance or other departments, and democratic institutions. We have to produce reports. We have to produce budgets. There's a whole reporting that is quite extensive. That takes part of the work.
We also have to be mindful of developments in terms of the democratic environment. For example, what are the security concerns in terms of cybersecurity for the next election, with the development of artificial intelligence? That is a very present problem that we have to address.
Then, of course, we produce the report, and then we have to act on, in this case, recommendations or conclusions. Do we have to make changes to the participation criteria? Do we have to make changes to other policy aspects like press accreditation? On that question, we do consult extensively with people, not just here but also abroad, to see what the best practices are elsewhere. That's kind of the gist of it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Thank you so much.
Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Cormier, for being with us again.
I'd just like to make sure of one thing.
In one of your recommendations, you propose that the Leaders' Debates Commission no longer be responsible for organizing press conferences.
However, if I understand correctly, you still want the commission to be responsible for accrediting journalists.
Is that correct?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Yes, that's exactly it. We will continue to accredit journalists.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
That does raise a few questions.
As I recall, what led to the problems we encountered last time with the press conference was that the commission authorized five journalists from Rebel News to take part. That was, in a way, the trigger for the security-related issues.
If the commission is responsible for accrediting journalists, some of them, such as those five journalists from Rebel News, could then legitimately request access to a press conference. That conference would be organized by someone else, and security will be handled by someone else.
Isn't that an indirect way of shifting the burden onto someone else?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
Political parties have to deal with this during every election campaign. They receive accreditation requests for journalists, which are granted or denied based on criteria established by the political parties themselves. This creates an issue that falls outside the commission's scope of authority and raises the question of what constitutes a journalist.
According to two Federal Court rulings, we don't have the authority to decide this. As a result, we have had to adopt a very broad definition of the term “journalist”, which leaves the door open to many new forms of journalism.
As I mentioned, during the last election, this created a problematic work environment for most journalists. It also meant that press conferences were counterproductive, if you will. They didn't result in productive press conferences for anyone.
This is what we are doing, but we take no pleasure in doing so. Personally, I was a journalist for a large part of my career. It's not that we don't want journalists to have access to the party leaders. However, we believe that access to party leaders will be of better quality if campaign managers take responsibility for organizing the subsequent press conferences. They will be able to accredit the journalists they want. As for us, we are required to let in just about anyone who claims to be a journalist and who works on public-interest issues.
The definition is very broad, and it leaves the door open to all kinds of actors who are not necessarily journalists in the traditional sense. That causes tension and situations that are not optimal for the debates.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
I'd like some things to be clarified, because there are parts I'm not quite following.
During election campaigns, politicians accredit journalists themselves and choose who travels them on the buses. Based on the answers you gave my colleague Mr. Wilkinson, I understand that there is money involved when it comes to accreditation, press credentials and so on.
If journalists then don't have access to the party leaders under your authority, what's the added value of accrediting journalists who will only be able to watch the debates like anyone else at home?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
That's the nature of the event, of the debates.
What we're saying is that political parties simply need to organize press conferences the same way they do for all the other events during an election campaign.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
If I may, at that point they would be able to accredit journalists themselves.
What is the added value for the commission of accrediting journalists if they don't have access to press scrums organized by the commission following the debates?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
There are many journalists who don't follow election campaigns and who still want to attend the debates.
We had 60 media organizations last time, including 200 journalists. So there's a great deal of interest in attending the debates, in any case.
We give journalists the opportunity to obtain clips from the debates, to record them, to broadcast information and to have access to a working media room, as at other political events.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Again, I'm missing something.
With accreditation, what more do journalists on site have access to than someone who watches the debates on television?
Executive Director and Acting Commissioner, Leaders' Debates Commission
People who watch the debates on television don't have physical access to the debates. They can't—
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
What is the added value of having physical access to the debates?