Government Operations committee  That's right.

Government Operations committee  What I'm suggesting would be as a replacement to Advertising Standards Canada.

Government Operations committee  While I think there's a lot to be desired about Advertising Standards Canada, one of the big problems is that there doesn't seem to be a clear accountability to Parliament or an appropriate lever with which they can enforce their mechanisms. I think that having it reside within P

Government Operations committee  Under the proposed changes, Advertising Standards Canada has the ability to say, in this hypothetical example, that the ad cannot be broadcast. I presume they give the ad a number, and that number is the only thing that can be used before it goes to the agency of record and is pu

Government Operations committee  There is an opportunity, as you know, for departments to pre-screen it, so my guess is that, if a department thought an ad campaign might violate one of the principles, they would give it to ASC to pre-screen it, and ASC would provide them advice. If they didn't make the requisi

Government Operations committee  It should be done through an advertising commissioner, because that way it would be a centralized place for citizens and political parties to lodge complaints or raise questions, and there would be a clear accountability to Parliament. To me, that line of accountability is very c

Government Operations committee  Well, I was in Ontario. The Foodland Ontario ad, I think we have to understand, is also directed to farmers, who want to see that their work is being supported by the government. In all ads we should really think about to which audience they're directed. For that one, I thought t

Government Operations committee  Given the nature of technology and the way we access our information, it doesn't really work in terms of geographic location, so it would have to be a blank advertisement. None of the three jurisdictions I cited—Nova Scotia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan—have experienced adverse eff

Government Operations committee  It goes to the two competing impulses that have been identified and that we've talked about. That is, you as legislators can use the instrument of a piece of legislation or regulation, or you can count on discretion and judgment. I think you've opted for a bit of both. You have s

Government Operations committee  You're talking about the chronology, and the chronology does matter. For example, in the case that you mentioned, it would be appropriate for a party to later piggyback on a government initiative, but it wouldn't be appropriate for a government to then continue with that same po

Government Operations committee  Yes. As you may or may not know, Advertising Standards Canada's code of standards' 14 criteria don't even apply to party advertising. The reality, literal and metaphoric, is that you can say anything on party advertising. Truth, veracity, or anything else is irrelevant. There's

Government Operations committee  I think the important point that Professor Marland just raised is the shorthand cue. What we want to avoid, or what we want to limit, is the idea of citizens making shorthand judgments about policies based on something that's extraneous to those policies. In the end, the role of

Government Operations committee  Well, the data is available from other studies done on the influence of advertising in an election—party advertising—so we can infer what government advertising would be. That is, it's largely short term and it is largely around confirming as opposed to negating existing beliefs.

Government Operations committee  I think what you've identified is absolutely right. There are these two competing impulses of being bombarded with more social media and not paying attention to the media, but also wanting more information. It gets back to a previous question that was asked. It is this seeming c

Government Operations committee  That's right.