Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2021

[Kelly Acton]

Those reviews were conducted in accordance with the third party oversight mechanism that we have in place. Those reviews are done by—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I apologize, but with respect, that's not the question I asked.

How many of those reviews were conducted by people who are not compensated by the federal government?

[Kelly Acton]

I would just add that the contracting with Ad Standards Canada is done through an open process in which other organizations have the opportunity to put themselves forward. Ad Standards Canada, responsible for the Canadian advertising code, remains the organization that reviews within this publicly elaborated oversight process.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Okay. We had three out of 1,800 that were subsequently changed. We don't have any independent review of this. Do we not see a problem with this?

[Peter Wallace]

To try to be helpful here, Ad Standards is contracted by the Government of Canada, but Ad Standards is intended to be an independent review. They implement the review criteria, but they're intended to implement that in an independent way, and the individuals are not directly, of course, as you understand, employees of the Government of Canada.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I suspect that if I were looking for a non-partisan, I might have a different view of what that is from Matthew Green, from Greg Fergus or from other members.

What confidence do we have that the people reviewing this don't have any bias?

[Peter Wallace]

I think you raise an extraordinarily good point, and that is that to some extent the issue of partisanship in advertising may be in the eye of the beholder. That is, I think, why there is a third party independent approach against established criteria, and we ask the contractor to participate in those reviews against the established criteria.

Then, of course, there is, as a fail-safe, and as a result of this audit and I think a step forward is that there is a public complaints review process available as well.

You raise an extraordinarily good point that the determination is quite challenging, and it's not an easy task for the reviewers to undertake.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I very much appreciate that recognition. Thank you.

I have a couple of questions for the deputy auditor general.

With respect to the lowering of the $500,000 to $250,000, that wasn't what you recommended. You recommended a risk-based approach and the department has done otherwise. Do you not still see it as a risk? With these campaigns, there's not often a tight end and start. It could be quite easy—not that the government would ever do this—for them to say that it's not a million-dollar contract; it's four contracts of $249,999. Wouldn't you see that as a substantial issue?

[Andrew Hayes]

Thank you for the question.

In response to our recommendation, the secretariat of the Treasury Board has described the change to the approach that they have put in place. Again, it's based entirely on the cost of the campaigns. From our view, other considerations, such as the subject matter of the advertisement campaign or the timing or audience reach, are important to consider in terms of the risk that partisanship might be present in advertising.

The question you raised about the ability of departments to break campaigns into smaller pieces, for example, could in fact bring those campaigns below the $250,000 threshold. That is exactly why we were recommending a risk-based approach to the external review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Hayes.

We will now move to our second questioner, Mr. Fergus.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I believe I will be speaking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

All right. We will move to Ms. Yip.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all the witnesses. I would like to thank the deputy auditor general and his team for reviewing 23 files. That's quite a number of files to review.

Mr. Wallace, can you outline some of the key changes over a period of time, or in recent years, that have resulted in a significant change in how an ad is reviewed? I think it would be good to understand how we got here.

Did we lose Mr. Wallace?

[Peter Wallace]

My apologies. My Internet has briefly become unstable and I missed the question. If the member could please repeat the question, I'd very much appreciate that.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Can you outline some of the key changes over a period of time, in recent years, that have resulted in a significant change to how an ad is reviewed? I think it would be good to know how we got to this place.

[Peter Wallace]

The policies have been consistent for some period of time. The core question is the application of a different threshold.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, we undertook a thorough review and did reach the conclusion that at this point spend remains the best and most reliable indicator of factors such as reach. These are factors that were identified by the Auditor General, and it's potentially important.

Simply, that spend level is a reliable indicator of the potential impact and risks associated with the advertising campaign, but the policy and criteria have been consistent over a period of years.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Looking at the $250,000 threshold, I see this is designed to capture 80% of the budget, but what about the remaining 20%?

[Peter Wallace]

The remaining 20% is still subject to review. The originating departments are still required to meet professional standards and to make sure the advertising is non-partisan. It's just that the amounts are relatively small, and consistent with a risk-based approach and making sure there's no misuse of public money for partisan advertising, we focused on literally an 80:20 rule on catching the largest campaigns. That's an ordinary risk-based approach to determining outcomes. In this case, just to be very clear, though, the same criteria apply. It should be applied by the departments as well. They're just not subject to external review.

If an ad were to be judged by a member of the public to be partisan in nature, there would remain, of course, as we discussed earlier, the public complaint process available to the public as well.

[Bill Matthews]

Madam Chair, could I add to that response, if that's okay with the member?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Yes.

[Bill Matthews]

As Mr. Wallace indicated, the deputy head of the advertising department has responsibility for content in terms of policy and legislation compliance. Where it does come in under that threshold, at their discretion they can request that it be reviewed as well, so that discretion exists for the deputy head placing the advertising.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I think it doesn't matter what the amount is, you can still be partisan, so I'm glad to hear there's still that review.

Mr. Wallace, you were talking about the public process of reviewing complaints. How is that going?

[Peter Wallace]

I'll ask Ms. Acton to answer that question.

[Kelly Acton]

Thank you very much for the question.

In April 2020, we did put in place a pilot, having surveyed what other jurisdictions were doing and actually not finding any other examples of public processes for that non-partisan task. There is a form you can fill out which is available on Canada.ca, and it's quite straightforward in terms of any campaign that might be of concern to Canadians. We monitor that.

I can report that since the inception of that reporting form, we have yet to receive any complaints about non-partisanship for Government of Canada advertising.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Has this hotline been widely known, so to speak?