HAFF Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 18, 1999

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting to order.

We're continuing our study of Bill C-2, the Canada Elections Act. We have with us today as a witness Mr. Peter Grant, who is the broadcasting arbitrator under the existing legislation.

The amending act we're dealing with contains provisions governing the broadcasting arbitrator's role and the process for allocating broadcast time. I assume, Mr. Grant, you've had an opportunity to read the new provisions. We look forward to your comments on the legislation.

Mr. Peter Grant (Broadcasting Arbitrator): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone.

As the chair mentioned, I fulfil the function of the broadcasting arbitrator under the current Elections Act. I've been fulfilling this role since June 1992, so I've been through a number of general elections. I should, I guess, preface my remarks by saying this is not my day job. This really involves a lot of work during the election itself and an annual mediation meeting. In my day job I'm a broadcasting lawyer: I head up the communications law group at McCarthy Tétrault. I've practised broadcast law for almost thirty years. So I'm interested in broadcasting generally.

In terms of the process I'm required to administer under the act, essentially I convene an annual meeting to which all the parties are invited. As you know, under the act all broadcast stations in Canada are required to offer 390 minutes to the parties over the election period at the lowest commercial rate, but the allocation of those 390 minutes among the parties is to be determined under the statute. I invite all the parties to a meeting, and of course if they were to agree on an allocation that would govern the matter. There has never been an agreement among all the parties in the history of this section of the act, so it always ends up being the role of the arbitrator to issue a decision.

I have basically issued decisions every year since 1992. The basic formula that I have found to be the best of possible options presented to me is a modification of the statutory formula in the act. In essence, I take one third of the 390 minutes and give it equally to all of the parties that are registered, small or large, so it brings them up to a certain minimum base. Then the other two thirds of the time I allocate according to the statutory factors that are currently in the act. These are the general popular vote in the last election, the number of seats won, and the number of candidates fielded.

Now, with the Reform Party judgment in the Alberta Court of Appeal, it did not strike down the allocation process, but it did do the important step of removing the cap. That is to say, even though I might allocate so many minutes to a particular party, that does not preclude them from buying more time from any station. However, they're not entitled to buy the time, and it's up to negotiations with the stations in regard to that excess time.

Bearing that in mind, the real implication of my allocation decision, when you think about it, is twofold. First, it does give all the parties an absolute entitlement to bump off or pre-empt regular commercial ads to the amount that's been allocated to them. So they have a higher entitlement to that time than regular commercial advertisers at the lowest rate.

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The second implication is that, as you know, under the act there is a free-time provision. The way the act works is that the networks that give free time have to give it pro rata to the allocation of the paid time. So for parties that are very small or underfinanced or do not typically buy advertising, their only reliance in the Elections Act is for free time, and that, since it's based on my allocation of the paid time, means it's an important feature for them.

Now, I did have some recommendations about the allocation system in my report that was part of the report of the Chief Electoral Officer to Parliament back in 1997. I'm not proposing to go through all those, but I thought I would focus on one matter that I have had occasion to look at more closely. In that report I had, among other matters....

[Technical difficulties—Editor]

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Mr. Rob Anders (Calgary West, Ref.): You mentioned how broadcasters are allowed to have 12 minutes per hour of advertising time and that the safety valve was to allow political ads as an addendum to that. Therefore, I assume it wouldn't be bumping anything that's in the current schedule of your broadcast time. Let me rephrase that: it's not bumping anything in your schedule as far as your paid ads. That would indicate to me, though, that it's bumping something.

If you could, I'm interested in the mechanics of that. For example, you have a half-hour TV show, and you know how many minutes you've got to play with on that: you have so many minutes—six minutes, one would assume—of paid advertising that you've already had slotted and set up. Then all of a sudden, wham, a writ is dropped, the election comes, and you've got to get that time out of there somewhere. It's added on to it.

How does it affect those shows? Do you truncate those things? Do you try to hodge-podge it and fit it into other places where you didn't have paid time slotted already? How do you deal with those things?

Mr. Peter Grant: Most television drama is cut to 22 minutes per half hour, so in fact there are eight minutes available before you get to 30. The commission only allows six for commercials, so there's a two-minute built-in factor there that they could use to put in political advertising.

I should just tell you how it works in practice. The day after the writ drops—in fact in some cases literally the day the writ drops—the major parties will file a media plan with the major stations seeking time. Under the act they're entitled to request time specified to the hour and day—not precisely to the program, but for example they may want a minute between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Tuesday of such and such a date. These written requests come into the stations. Under the act, the stations have two days to respond and try to get back to them and say that's acceptable or here's what we would offer you instead that we hope will give you the same bang for your dollar.

If the party and the station cannot agree, then it is a matter that can be referred to the broadcasting arbitrator. I will hear both sides over the phone. My general mandate is to side with the party, to be perfectly honest. I would be in those circumstances quite prepared to order the station, on the phone, to bump an ad and put the political ad in its place.

I can tell you that in my history I've never had to issue such an order. There have been cases where parties have come to me and said they're getting a hard time from a station; they want to get on this and they can't. All it takes is a phone call from me to the station to ask them to try to find something that would be a worthwhile time. Inevitably, the station is able to find some time that doesn't involve having to throw off the commercial advertiser. Because of this little steam valve, they do have some flexibility to make this work.

Mr. Rob Anders: The picture I have is that for every hour you have four minutes, is that right—

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: —of this steam valve time.

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: And normally you'd be filling that with...?

Mr. Peter Grant: Program promotions, station ID, some public service announcements, stuff of that kind.

Mr. Rob Anders: Have you ever had situations where political parties have asked for more than what that four minutes would allow for?

Mr. Peter Grant: If that's the case, it's never come to me as a problem. I'm assuming what will happen is if the station is genuinely sold out and two parties wanted the same program, they would just find a way to say “We really can't put you on Seinfeld, but will you take Melrose Place instead?”

And the agencies are looking for demographics; they're not looking for programs. So from their perspective, as long as they get the right kind of weight, there's lots of flexibility in which program that will be found.

Mr. Rob Anders: Right. Do you have a sense or a scope—and I realize that you're representative of a whole industry here—of how many political minutes would be added within a...? I'm trying to get a sense of the cost. If political parties had to pay for it, what would it amount to?

Mr. Peter Grant: That's a tough question.

Mr. Rob Anders: I realize that.

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Mr. Peter Grant: I guess you should start with the point that although the act says the 390 minutes must be offered, no station has ever had to sell 390 minutes, because most of the parties, the smaller parties, can't afford to buy any of these minutes, so they fall to the ground. And any major party will be very selective as to which stations it will go with. It may go with only one or two networks and ignore the rest, or it may focus on specific markets, with national selective or spot advertising focused on that market, and ignore other markets. And that's perfectly understandable. But it does mean that there are a lot of stations—I can think of a lot of radio stations—who never sell a single minute during the campaign, although they'd love to.

I should tell you the attitude of most broadcast stations to an election campaign is to basically rub their fists with glee because they now have a little more revenue in that period. They kind of hope the election will be in a soft period. But there's just no way a station working this system rationally would not make more money during an election campaign, because it should be possible to do it without having to bump any commercial advertisers.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madame Dalphond-Guiral.

[Translation]

Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): You may have noticed, Mr. Grant, that I wasn't here when you made your presentation. I had arrived on time for the meeting, but was called away to the House of Commons to resolve a small problem which seems to have resolved itself. I will content myself with reading the blues closely and maybe then I will have some questions. If so, I'll be in touch with you for some answers. Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

[English]

Mr. Gar Knutson (Elgin—Middlesex—London, Lib.): Thanks very much.

I just wonder if we could change the subject a little and talk about the requirement that when a broadcaster broadcasts the results of a poll, they also tack on the methodology. The usual one is that it's within four percentage points 19 times out of 20. Do you have any views on whether that should be a requirement?

Mr. Peter Grant: I'm sympathetic to the idea that there should be some methodological information provided to enable viewers or listeners to assess whether a poll is meaningful or significant. There's no question that from the perspective of a broadcaster, they don't spend a lot of time in news. A typical radio newscast on radio stations across this country is only three minutes long, and they may have four or five items on that newscast. So if they're going to include something about a poll, and you have a long list of details that have to be added, it would be a problem for broadcasters. From the perspective of broadcasting, as opposed to print media, where there's maybe a little room for details to be provided in writing, I think the broadcasters should be required to provide the bare minimum of this kind of methodological information essential for people to assess the value of the poll.

I haven't, to be perfectly honest, gone through the methodological requirements to assess that. I assume you will have heard from broadcasters on that point. I don't really think I have anything to add.

Mr. Gar Knutson: That was my only question.

The Chair: Okay, that's fine.

M. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les Patriotes, BQ): Following up on the comment just made by my colleague for Laval Centre, I too must admit that unfortunately I missed your presentation. I was also retained elsewhere on other business. I hurried to get here, but you were concluding your presentation just as I arrived. I apologize for being late. If I ask a question that you have already answered or that you cannot answer, I apologize for that as well.

Since the beginning of these hearings, the committee has heard from a number of stakeholders who have told it that the current method used to allocate free broadcast time to political parties was unfair in some respects, particularly toward small political parties, especially those not represented in the House.

I don't know if you have given any thought to this question. If you have, what do you suggest should be done to resolve this issue equitably and address this concern that a number of stakeholders seem to have about free broadcast time allocation?

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[English]

Mr. Peter Grant: Thank you.

The free time that is currently allocated under the act is given to the parties in proportion to my allocation of the paid time. So one follows upon the other. The question of whether that allocation is fair I suppose goes to the heart of what factors anyone thinks should be applied in allocating the time.

I came to the conclusion in 1993 that the statutory factors were unfair to the smaller parties. It ended up, when you ran those numbers, that a typical smaller party that had no seats in the House and had relatively little success in the previous election would get fewer than three minutes out of 390 minutes. Even if they wouldn't in fact have the money to buy the three minutes—so it might be seen as academic—some might. In any case, that triggered the free-time requirement.

My conclusion back in 1993, and this was actually at the insistence of a Reform Party submission to this effect, was that the system there should give more time to the smaller parties—a meaningful amount of time. Now, what is a meaningful amount of time? I came to the conclusion that something that gets into the double digits is meaningful. Once you're up over 10 minutes in a campaign.... A 10-minute campaign, if you have the money to finance it and you put it on all stations, would be a big campaign for a regular commercial advertiser. So I concluded that once we get into that level, it seems to me you've got a minimum level that might be fair. With that in mind, I instituted the system we now work under, which is to say a third of the time is given to all parties. Given that right now we have 13 registered parties, that gives them all 10 minutes. In addition, they will get the amount that's allocated to them under the statutory formula, so that takes them up to higher numbers.

It's not, frankly, the best system in the world. I was presented with many other allocation formulae by the parties. Many wanted to have actual equal time to all parties, regardless of size, scope, or number of members. Some people suggested we track public opinion polling from month to month and have it move around. Others suggested we should allocate the time on the basis of the number of paid-up members, but that turns out to be a roller-coaster effect around leadership conventions, so that didn't seem to work too well.

The problem is that this is a very volatile issue. You can't snapshot in time an equitable system. What we have now is, frankly, not a perfect system. If anybody can come up with a better system, I'd be pleased to accept it. I do have a role to receive ideas, and if any of the parties could convince me that the approach we're now using could be improved on, I'd be the first to adopt it.

The Chair: I will recognize Mr. Anders, but I just wanted to throw in a mathematical complicator here.

Some witnesses—not many, but at least one, maybe two, or certainly more than one—have suggested that the threshold to achieve registered party status be lowered. One witness, either directly or indirectly, suggested that two persons ought to constitute a party, and I gather some judge somewhere in an off moment had the temerity in obiter to make a similar suggestion that two people should be able to constitute a party. If the thresholds were to be lowered and if the number of registered parties were to say double, triple, or quadruple, would that unduly complicate the formula you use? Could it be that the formula you're using might become unworkable? I don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm just hypothetically looking at the contingency that if we had 10, 20, or 30 registered parties, what would that do to the process now in the statute?

Mr. Peter Grant: Well, if I were to apply my current formula in a scenario in which we had say 30 parties instead of 13, it would basically drop everybody's weight, and the smaller parties, instead of getting double-digit numbers, would be down to one or two minutes. It actually wouldn't be dissimilar to the situation I faced back in 1993 when I allocated all the no and yes time in the Charlottetown referendum.

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There was a lot of free time granted in that scenario. It was intended to be allocated by the arbitrator to all the no committees and all the yes committees. There turned out to be dozens of these committees, and they all asked me for some time. Like the current elections act, this was free time on CTV, CBC, and Prime.

We did run the numbers, by the way, and we're talking about $7 million worth of time that was handed out in terms of its worth in the commercial market. As I recall, we had 39 yes committees and 25 no committees that shared time. So many of them got only a minute.

Some of them were very smart about what minute they selected, because under that regime they were entitled to select the actual hour and day. Some of the smart committees decided to pick, I think, the middle of the World Series, between innings. So they got a pretty good bang for their buck. The problem was you literally had only one minute per party or per committee.

I agree with you that once you start getting into a scenario where there is a multiplicity of small parties with only two or three candidates being fielded, presumably to trigger this entitlement, the system will break down.

The Chair: I'll go to Mr. Anders and then Ms. Catterall.

Mr. Rob Anders: I ask this question just to get a scope of the numbers, but let's say I wanted to purchase a minute of time in the most expensive slot there was. What would that go for?

Mr. Peter Grant: I don't know if I can answer your question usefully in terms of a minute, but I will give you a sense that—

Mr. Rob Anders: Or thirty seconds, or fifteen seconds?

Mr. Peter Grant: No, the problem is that it is a demand variable that changes over time. I would say, though, that a typical, large-party election buy for a campaign that would be meaningful would be in excess of $2 million to get good television time in the right slots in the right markets, if you were doing a national campaign.

Mr. Rob Anders: When you say “party”, you're speaking about political parties.

Mr. Peter Grant: That's right.

I'm sorry, I'd have to get back to you about specific rates for specific stations.

Mr. Rob Anders: If I were a beer company—I'm just coming up with that example off the top of my head—if I were Molson or Labatt or something, what would be a fairly pricey commercial if I wanted to run something in the middle of the Stanley Cup, for example? What would a minute cost during something like that?

Mr. Peter Grant: Again, I'd have to get back to you on that. The kind of time that is typically bought now by a Molsons is not bought by the minute. It would be bought by the season or by the campaign. In fact, many major advertisers will place a 12-month order in the spring for the following season and get volume discounts as a result.

There's also a practice that has emerged in the advertising industry of conjunction buying, where many major advertisers will place all their orders through a single media-buying outlet. They aggregate all the orders, and then Global is presented with a request for practically a third of their schedule on the top 20 programs by a single buyer representing not only Molson, but Ford, Proctor and Gamble, and so on. That volume buy is then allocated back to the various advertisers in the requirements of their campaign. That's a practice that has developed in the last few years. That makes it extraordinarily difficult to price a minute, because you are talking about apples and oranges.

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The Chair: To continue using the paradigm of switching parties, I'm going to go to Ms. Catterall and then back to Mr. White.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): I was interested in your comments about the requirement to provide broadcasting not applying to a number of independents, some of whom actually operate as networks. I wonder if you could give me an idea of how much air time or what percentage of time is actually in the hands of those stations as opposed to the ones that are required to provide free time.

Mr. Peter Grant: I actually ran some numbers in my report that was filed two years ago. Unfortunately I don't have that in front of me, but my recollection is that if you took a look at the viewing share now of non-network stations compared with network stations in Canada—this is a phenomenon only in English Canada; all television stations in French Canada are in fact affiliated with networks, so there's not an issue with respect to French broadcasting. In English Canada, where you only have CBC and CTV as a network, you then exclude all the stations from CHUM, Global, Craig's, and WIC stations like ONTV Hamilton. The aggregate viewing time of those stations combined would be easily in excess of the CTV and CBC shares combined. So we're talking here of doubling the amount of viewing that would be available if you put those stations into the system.

As I say, it's an anomaly that applies only in English Canada, because the networks in French Canada, both TQS and TVA, are networks under the commission's definition, so they are all part of the system.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: You may not be able to answer this immediately, but you might be able to provide us with an answer. What additional requirements would we have to put on whom to capture, say, up to 75% or 80% of the viewing time that would be eligible for a free-time broadcast?

Mr. Peter Grant: What would be required is to change the free-time provisions so they do not apply simply to networks but would have a requirement for free time applicable to all private stations apart from, say, the educational services.

However, that then forces you to decide how much free time. Once you have more stations in the system, I don't think you should be requiring the amount of free time you are requiring of CTV and CBC television. I think in the order of 214 minutes are now required over the campaign for CBC English and French, 120 minutes for CBC AM and FM stations, and 62 minutes for TVA, Télévision Quatre Saisons, and RADIOMÉDIA. So that's the current level.

By the way, those numbers are nowhere to be found in the Canada Elections Act. They are referred to by simply saying they have to do what they did in the last election. Historically this is what they have done, and that's now been effectively grandfathered. So if you were to bring into the system new stations that have not previously given free time, you'd have to come up with a number.

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Ms. Marlene Catterall: For the person who would be responsible for arbitrating whatever is in the act, what kinds of practical problems would present themselves if this were expanded?

Mr. Peter Grant: The main problem would be that free time is more difficult for broadcast stations to administer than is paid time. More parties take it. As well, they're dealing with all kinds of problems, because many of the parties that benefit from free time are very small parties that often have great difficulty getting their ad out to the station in time. It has to be pre-screened for obscenity or profanity. The station is entitled to look at it from that perspective.

I certainly have found that the two mainline networks, who put somebody right on this task to handle free time, really have to go the extra mile to make it work for the smaller parties. They're not provided with professional tapes, and often they have to provide their studio facilities to make the tape for them. The CBC and CTV networks and the French ones are used to this now.

So they are going the extra mile for the smaller parties, but it's a lot of work.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Thank you.

Actually, what Ms. Catterall has just discussed with you leads nicely into a question that has arisen because of earlier things you'd said in terms of exploring the impact of technology on all of this.

It seems to me that in terms of the inequities you've identified with regard to free time—and only CTV and CBC are subjected to that—they may not have wanted to legally challenge that in the past, not wanting to bite the hand that feeds them. But now that there's this proliferation of other stations, with services being delivered over the Internet and more of them very soon, no doubt, with satellite services coming in where people pay for the service commercial-free, maybe there's a trend in that direction to move away from the commercial stations.

First of all, I wonder if you can tell us if you've thought of what the impact of that technology might be on all of this and whether or not you've heard rumblings that somebody somewhere is going to have a legal challenge to this whole provision at some point.

Mr. Peter Grant: Are you talking about a challenge to the free-time provision or a challenge to the allocation system generally?

Mr. Ted White: Free-time and/or allocation.

Mr. Peter Grant: In effect, the Reform Party case in the Alberta courts did attack or seek to bring down the whole allocation system, but the court refrained from doing that. They said, no, they didn't have a problem with the allocation system as long as there was no cap.

Frankly, from the perspective of the constitutional review, that to me makes sense, because free time, once you get into that, is really a matter that.... The theory behind it is that this is one of the obligations put on broadcast stations as part of their privilege of having the monopoly on that frequency.

As you get more and more stations into the mix and it becomes much more competitive, it is very important, if you're going to impose an obligation of that type, that it be fair across the board. I mean, you may come to consider that it's appropriate to remove the obligation. Those approaches are possible.

With regard to your comment about commercial-free services, we have seen, of course, an enormous expansion of pay television and specialty services. The specialty services are all advertising-supported, but there are a few pay services, mostly movie-driven—and Family Channel is another example, which is a Disney-type service—that have no commercials whatever.

For those types of services, I would not think you would want to impose any requirement, free-time or paid-time. There is none in the act, of course.

I think another good example of an issue would be whether you would impose free- or paid-time obligations on services where the niche is completely inappropriate for this. For example, should that be imposed on a sports service? It might be more appropriate to impose it on news and information services, because that's where people would expect to see political discussion.

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I can see putting it on as a requirement for Newsworld or CTV News or even Report on Business Television, which was just launched a month ago in Toronto, as being more appropriate for their genre of service than imposing it on a service dedicated to children's programming or sports or something in that order.

The Chair: Okay.

We'll wrap it up with Mr. Anders, after which I have one business item to speak to.

Perhaps you can keep it to just one question.

Mr. Rob Anders: Okay.

I wasn't involved in the Reform legal situation with regard to the Sun. I'm just trying to get a sense of this.

When you speak of 390 minutes, is that paid time?

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: Then there is free time. I heard a mention of 214 minutes, yes?

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: That is time-allocated over a 36-day writ.

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: Okay.

You mentioned Charlottetown. There isn't any distinction or difference in terms of those allotments vis-à-vis an election or a referendum, is that right?

Mr. Peter Grant: Well, free time under the Canada Elections Act for elections is, from a scheduling perspective, a much different concept than what it was for the Referendum Act. The Referendum Act said that any of the parties, no or yes, could ask for time in the way paid time is asked for, which means you're entitled to ask for 30 seconds or a minute in a particular hour and day.

That's not how free time is handled in this country. Free time is scheduled entirely by the broadcasters and in blocks they themselves determine. So they can say to a party, well, in our free-time period, I'm sorry, we don't take thirties and sixties; it's going to be five minutes. As well, we'll put you at 11 o'clock in the evening, not in the middle of the evening, in the middle of Seinfeld.

With regard to the whole theory of free time, certainly the CBC has very strong views that they want free time to be made of longer units, not the short thirties and sixties that are typical for paid time.

There's a very active debate about this around the world: If you're going to have free time, should you allow it to be thirties and sixties, which then means it's really made up of conventional commercials and you're just giving them for nothing, or do you think of free time as something a little different? By making it longer, that certainly suggests you're going to have a more detailed discussion of issues and so forth.

So the current act is quite different in terms of how it treats free time with regard to scheduling, and it's all very network-driven, whereas paid time, because the parties themselves can issue their orders and force their time on in exactly the units and hours they want, if it comes to that, gives a lot more flexibility.

Mr. Rob Anders: The allocations, though, in terms of 214 minutes of free time, were the same—

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes, pro rata.

Mr. Rob Anders: —in terms of the actual minutes themselves.

Mr. Peter Grant: That's right.

If, say, a middle-range party had 30 minutes of free time out of the 214 minutes, then at the beginning of the campaign, as part of my guidelines issued to the stations, I will tell CTV, all right, here's your 214 minutes, and you have to give 28 minutes to the Reform Party of Canada out of that 214. This, by the way, was the rule for the last election in 1997.

They then have to work up their own free-time schedule for the next three weeks. They'll have to work it out to the minute so that the Reform Party is offered exactly 28 minutes. Now, they might say, okay, we're going to organize this into five- and ten-minute blocks, and we'll give you this block here and that block there and so on, and work it out so it's exactly 28. But as I say, it's much less flexible for the parties because it's up to the network to decide how to do that.

Mr. Rob Anders: How much during Charlottetown was paid time? It was potentially 390 minutes, I take it. Do you know how much was taken up?

Mr. Peter Grant: It was actually less than 390. The number 300 stays in my mind, I think. So it was about 150 for the no committee and 150 for the yes, or perhaps slightly different.

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Mr. Rob Anders: Was it all bought?

Mr. Peter Grant: No, this was free.

Mr. Rob Anders: So that's the free time. The free time, instead of being 214, was 300 for Charlottetown.

Mr. Peter Grant: Yes.

Mr. Rob Anders: There was also a paid-time allotment.

Mr. Peter Grant: No, there was no paid time.

Mr. Rob Anders: Okay.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Anders.

I want to thank you, Mr. Grant, for your contribution here. You've made some good suggestions. I believe they're good suggestions; I didn't see too many heads shaking.

We'll certainly take your submissions under consideration. We thank you for them and for your continuing contribution under the statute as the broadcast arbitrator. You're very professional with regard to how you do it, and we haven't heard of too many complaints about what you're doing.

So thank you for being with us today. You may want to send Mr. Anders a bill for consulting services here.

Mr. Rob Anders: I'm just trying to get a good grasp of all this.

The Chair: Yes, all in the public interest.

Colleagues, we now want to take a look at the calendar and try to firm up the future business in the study of this bill. You have the calendar in front of you. It shows Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week.

The items there speak for themselves. The women's issues time slot has four parties making submissions. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the Chief Electoral Officer, will be back in the evening. That was the only time early in the week he was able to accommodate us.

The next day we have a half-dozen parties making submissions. They're listed there. It may just be five. These are individuals or groups who have convinced members that they should be heard, and we're happy to do that. That would allow us to conclude on Wednesday with the minister. If the committee wanted to see the minister again, the minister would return on Wednesday afternoon.

After that we would be in a position to begin clause-by-clause on Thursday. In order to do that, most committees ask their members if they would have their amendments in a couple of days before clause-by-clause begins. I know some of you have begun work on your amendments.

Perhaps the clerk has a comment on the timing of receipt of amendments in terms of trying to be fair to committee staff.

The Clerk of the Committee: If the committee wishes to commence clause-by-clause on Thursday, November 25, it would be appreciated if we could have, by 5 p.m., Tuesday, November 23, the proposed amendments members are considering putting forward at committee. That would give us the opportunity to go through them, make sure everything is in order, and group them according to where they fall in the bill. That way, when we arrive on Thursday, November 25, we will have complete packages of amendments for all members to work with.

The Chair: Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Mr. Chairman, taking into account the fact that we have a few well-informed people coming here on the Tuesday—and I'm taking this bill very seriously and have prepared a lot of amendments—I would really like the opportunity to hear what they have to say if it alters something I've prepared or gives me something additional to do.

I would ask that the committee consider moving the clause-by-clause so that it starts on November 29, which gives time, a couple of days anyway, for legal people to change things or to contribute and still get them in time for us to start clause-by-clause the following week.

Besides, that week is really rough. I mean, we're all getting tired from this exercise. To go right through five days solid like that is a bit much, I think.

The Chair: A number of members want to speak to this.

Mrs. Parrish.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga Centre, Lib.): First of all, I have great respect for Mr. White's request. I would like to start clause-by-clause as soon as possible, but I would like to have the proviso that if Mr. White does want to make some changes at the last minute, we will be more than pleased to accept those, based on what he's heard next week. I think it's a pretty reasonable group of people.

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But I'd like to get on with the business.

The Chair: Mr. Knutson, and then Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Gar Knutson: What I was going to suggest was we start on Thursday and maybe approve the clauses that are non-contentious, and then if somebody wants something stood down because they're anticipating bringing forward an amendment, we would agree now that we would stand down clauses until the following week. Your face says you don't like that idea apparently.

The Chair: No, no, the chair has no objection to standing down matters that members want to make further input on in terms of amendment, provided we don't stand the whole darn bill down.

By starting on Thursday we would get a general look at the quantity and quality of proposed amendments as a group, and areas of the bill that we might get to on Thursday that might be reasonably stood down because there's an amendment in the pipeline could be done.

Mr. Knutson is saying we should agree now to do that. If members want to agree now to do something on that date, we can agree, if members are so disposed.

I'd prefer to operate consensually and not really to deal with a motion in that respect, but I'm in the hands of members.

Mr. Gar Knutson: I don't need a motion. I'll take silence as consent.

The Chair: All right.

[Translation]

Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, could you possibly explain to me further Mr. Knutson's proposal. I'm not certain that I understood him.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Knutson.

Mr. Gar Knutson: So if we come to clause 20 and the Bloc requests that it be stood down, on behalf of the government side we would agree that it be stood down. If any other member asked for any particular clause to be stood down, for the Thursday meeting anyway—I don't know if we're going to meet Friday, but for the Thursday meeting, if anybody wants anything stood down, it would be the government's position, on the government side, that we would stand it down to the following week.

So if we could get clauses 1 to 10, for example, with no amendments, we might approve those and then we might jump to clause 30. There might be a whole list of things we get approved and then we come back and debate half a dozen or a dozen or 20, whatever it is—debate the clauses that are contentious the following week.

The Chair: The clause-by-clause process is fairly intensive. I think we would have two sessions on the Thursday. Ordinarily we'd be able to accommodate a substantial number of sections of the bill, but we certainly wouldn't get close to finishing it or even half of it. We'd make a dent in the first part of the bill and non-controversial sections in that part of the bill.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Just with further discussion of that, I don't know how much sympathy I'll get. We're the only two here who have to catch long flights to and from our riding. I don't know about Mr. Anders, but I certainly have commitments that weekend. I have to fly on Friday. For us in the west it takes six hours at this time of the year to fly.

The Chair: Are you raising the Friday meeting issue?

Mr. Ted White: Yes, I am.

The Chair: Well, you don't have to because your chair has already dealt with it. It's on the calendar. Mr. Solomon raised it with me as well. If the committee members are willing, we'll simply scratch it as a proposed meeting date.

Mr. Ted White: What you're proposing at this point is that Thursday would be the clauses that are not contentious. They're clauses—

The Chair: No, we would begin on Thursday, period, but if there were any clauses where members had amendments in the pipeline, we would stand down those clauses.

Mr. Ted White: Okay, I think that's reasonable. As I looked at it initially I could just see it going right through, and I knew I couldn't be here on the Friday anyway.

The Chair: Well, we're in luck.

Mr. Ted White: It would have made sense to move the whole exercise into the following week.

The Chair: I think some members at least and your chair like the thought of getting a good start on it on the Thursday, and we'll have at least a very good snapshot of the volume of work we have to do in the clause-by-clause study.

Mr. Bergeron.

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[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, I was simply wondering if amendments could be tabled on Wednesday for consideration on Thursday. However, judging from what Ms. Parrish and Mr. Knutson are saying, that's not possible. A number of relevant amendments can be tabled on Tuesday and if necessary, we can table additional amendments. However, on Thursday, we can always ask that a number of clauses which we may ultimately want to amend be allowed to stand. I think this compromise is acceptable to everyone and we will therefore be able to begin our work as early as next week.

[English]

The Chair: Under the rules there is no embargo on amendments coming in at any time. It's just that if they are to be properly put, properly translated and understood around the table, we've got to have a couple of days so the staff can get them in order.

So we're looking at Tuesday afternoon. If amendments come in on the Wednesday, the staff will make every effort to accommodate them, but please aim for a 5 o'clock Tuesday deadline.

Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: That's fine. I wonder, Mr. Chair, if you looked at maybe having a whole morning on Thursday, even to—I find it takes a while to get into it, and once you're into it everything takes less time, but there's a bit of groping around at first to see how we're coping with it.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: What do you mean by “whole morning”?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Well, nine to noon...no? All right. It's just a suggestion.

The Chair: I spoke to the clerk about this groping issue and—

A voice: Watch it now, Derek.

The Chair: Normally when a committee gets into clause-by-clause consideration they jump in with both feet. But could I just ask the clerk to comment on a typical clause-by-clause procedure? What kind of time commitment, what intensity?

The Clerk: The intensity is, as Ms. Catterall and the chair have said, basically you jump in with both feet at 9 a.m. and you just keep going until it's done. You break for Question Period, and if there are votes in the House, you break for those, but you tend to stay and just go through it.

There have been committees that have done it in an hour and a half. They have sat down and decided they will only sit for an hour and a half to do clause-by-clause and they will do their hour and a half clause-by-clause. If they don't finish, they come back at their next regular time and sit for an hour and a half. It's the committee's choice. But the bulk of committees do tend to sit down and charge through once they're on a roll.

The Chair: Well, this particular committee has the burden or the privilege of having party leadership in its membership. It may be that the party leadership is not available at all hours of the day for an intensive 9 to 5 exercise. So we have to pay some attention to that.

Let's talk now about what time of the day we're going to start and what time we're going to finish.

Mr. Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Could we agree on the following time slots for Thursday, namely from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 3:30 p.m. until adjournment. Are we agreed?

[English]

The Chair: That's not too bad. That's two healthy sessions.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Two hours hardly gets us started, though. If we're going to try to work through this in two-hour blocks, I think we're going to have trouble.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: That's three hours: 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. is three hours.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Three hours, okay.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: And another two.

[Translation]

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): Mr. Chairman, I'd prefer to start at 9 a.m., if that's possible. I don't know if Stéphane has another commitment at that time...

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: No. But we do have to prepare for Question Period.

[English]

The Chair: What about 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m.?

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Could we begin at 10 a.m.?

[English]

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: From 10 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.

The Chair: Yes, Mrs. Parrish—

Mrs. Eleni Bakopanos (Ahuntsic, Lib.): Can I suggest that the chair decide?

The Chair: The suggestion was...would you repeat that, Mrs. Parrish?

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Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: It was 10 a.m. to 1.30 p.m., and then 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., with lunch.

An hon. member: I think 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. would have been better, with lunch. The clerk does such a great job.

The Chair: We might need a break in the middle of the three and a half hours as well.

Ms. Catterall.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Wednesday the minister may be in or may not be, but assuming we have him back, it might be for about one hour. Is there any interest in carrying on Wednesday evening? I haven't checked to see if I'm available, but at least we could get started on it.

The Chair: Start Wednesday evening?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: It's not possible, Ted?

The Chair: To start clause-by-clause on Wednesday evening?

Ms. Marlene Catterall: If we're just going to do the ones we're agreed on.

The Chair: Let's go back. The suggestion from Ms. Catterall was that we begin on Wednesday evening. Is there a response to that suggestion?

Some hon. members: Yes.

The Chair: There are two yeas.

Mr. Ted White: No, that wasn't a yes.

An hon. member: Mine was.

The Chair: Your chair heard two yeas and I heard two nays.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Why are some members objecting, Mr. Chairman?

Mrs. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: It's their right to do so.

[English]

The Chair: Let's have a reasoned response. There seems to be a fair bit of support for a Wednesday evening commencement of clause-by-clause.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Again, it's on the same understanding that we only do things that everybody agrees on.

The Chair: Mr. White, do you want to speak on that?

Mr. Ted White: This goes beyond a reasonable understanding that we're only going to deal with clauses we don't have an objection to. I don't know what everyone else is doing here, but I sure have plenty of other work to do as well as this. I simply can't manage time on Wednesday evening. I'm shunting stuff downstream all the time as it is. I really could see that I had a little space there to work on stuff, so I would really appreciate it if we could just make it into Thursday. The hours are quite long on Thursday, aren't they?

The Chair: Okay, let's not be too passionate about getting this thing rolling. I don't see a compelling reason to start Wednesday evening. If we're committed, we're going to spend three and a half hours on this Thursday morning, and another two hours in the afternoon. That's just the first day, and we'll have the Friday and the weekend to reconnoitre. What are we going to do Monday? We'll start at 10 a.m. on Monday the 29th.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Mr. Chair, who's coming on women's issues?

The Chair: Excuse me, can we just finish this? On Monday the 29th, I just need a start time. Monday is a day that does have some idiosyncrasies around here, so what will the start time be on Monday? The suggestion is 10.30 a.m., for three hours.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Catterall: It's the only half day I have free to spend in my riding.

[English]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: You won't have any morning in your riding.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: That's right, Marlene, you should be willing to give up your morning.

The Chair: On this business of time, we have an experienced arbitrator here in Mr. Grant. He may have a formula that works. I'm still looking for a consensus on a start time for Monday.

Mr. White.

Mr. Ted White: Keeping in mind that Monday morning is sort of an organizational time, is there a chance we could start in the afternoon on Monday in order to give us that little bit of time in the morning?

The Chair: I think we'll wait until after Question Period. We'll start at 3.30 p.m. and go until 6 p.m.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, will we continue sitting into the evening on Monday?

[English]

The Chair: Having missed the morning, one could make a good argument that we should.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: And a great dinner by the clerk.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Chair: We'll work Monday evening to a reasonable hour. We'll break at 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m., we'll have some arranged refreshments or a meal, and then we'll get back to work at about 7 p.m. and go until 9 p.m.

Is that uncommon, Madam Clerk? Your staff can handle that? Good.

When we arrive at Tuesday, we will continue by using a fairly rigorous application of time, mornings and afternoons, until we finish.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Not on Tuesday afternoon, though, and you know why.

The Chair: Yes, there will be a House leaders' meeting at about 4 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: And the Board of Internal Economy after that.

The Chair: Following that, yes.

Okay, Tuesday afternoon is problematic for us, but Tuesday morning's up. Who knows, we may be finished by then.

So we've agreed on the Thursday, the Monday, and the Tuesday morning, and we'll make a decision about what happens after that on Tuesday morning. Is that agreed?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Okay, seeing no further—

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Who are the women, Mr. Chairman?

The Chair: Oh, I'm sorry.

Mrs. Parrish wanted to know about the four women's groups, Madam Clerk.

The Clerk: I have to go from memory, Ms. Parrish, because I don't have the list in front of me: the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, I believe—

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: All moderate groups.

The Clerk: I don't have the list.

Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Any MPs?

The Clerk: No, I think the decision was that last evening was the opportunity for MPs to appear.

The Chair: Okay, that's great. We can exchange further information on that later.

We can adjourn now. Thank you.