PRHA 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]

Tuesday, November 24, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, the order of the day, as you see in the agenda before you, is pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(a)(v), the review of the radio and television broadcasting of the proceedings of House committees. As you know, this is the first of two meetings. Today we hear from the outside media, as it were, and on Thursday we hear from the staff of the Clerk of the House of Commons, who are involved with televising committee proceedings.

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We welcome our guests. With us we have: LeeEllen Carroll, who's from the executive of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery; Craig Oliver, CTV bureau chief; and from Radio-Canada TV, Denis Ferland.

We welcome all three of you. It's my understanding, LeeEllen, that you're going to lead off. It's my understanding that then the others will make short presentations.

Colleagues, I think we're all comfortable with that, and then we'll proceed to questions.

LeeEllen, thank you very much for being here. The floor is yours.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll (Director, Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery): Thank you very much for extending the invitation to us to appear as witnesses before the committee. I won't make any introductions as the chair has already done so.

For more than 30 years, electronic members of the parliamentary press gallery have requested equal and fair access to the committee proceedings of the House of Commons. A few years ago, parliamentarians granted that access to radio reporters and it has been proven successful. Recently, that access has been expanded to television, but only at specific sites and only to those committees whose members determine there might be public interest.

This is an excellent time to extend access to all broadcasters to all committees. Cameras and microphones are no less important to broadcast journalists than pens and paper are to print journalists. Yet more than half of our members continue to be treated as second-class citizens, with limitations on where and when they can practise and use their tools of the trade. Cameras are restricted to certain hallways and rooms of Parliament Hill. Furthermore, when access is granted, cameras are often limited to certain positions and their movement restricted.

These limitations fly in the face of Parliament's open access policy and commitment to improving public accountability. Public opinion surveys show that more than 70% of Canadians depend on television as their primary source of daily news. We welcome this committee's interest in opening committee proceedings for several reasons.

It offers more than 250 of our members greater access and more opportunity to what they decide is news. Others simply want to telecast the proceedings of the day.

Secondly, it recognizes Canada's parliamentary committee process as an important but little-known part of the legislative process. Opening the window on what happens in committees opens up the democratic process.

Thirdly, it benefits all politicians. The hard work of politicians—both government backbenchers and opposition critics—is often overshadowed by the din of daily Question Period and the profile it gives to leaders and cabinet ministers. Opening up committees will increase coverage and ultimately allow parliamentarians increased opportunity to show their constituents what they do—what you do—in Ottawa.

Before getting into specifics, it may be helpful for the committee members to know a little bit about the press gallery's history. In the late 1950s, two electronic media journalists were given permission to sit in the Commons diplomatic gallery and take notes on the proceedings. In the 1960s, broadcast journalists were granted full press gallery membership. With the growth of television, new rules were adapted to allow electronic media journalists the freedom to do their jobs while maintaining the decorum and privileges of members of Parliament.

Today, nearly four decades after Speaker Roland Michener allowed broadcast journalists into the House of Commons, we are still limited in what we can cover, despite an 1989 parliamentary resolution authorizing the broadcast of committee proceedings. The resolution reads:

That this House approves the radio and television broadcasting of its proceedings and of the proceedings of its committees on the basis of principles similar to those that govern the publication of the printed official reports of debates.

The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery's position is that, first, there should be no discrimination between electronic and print members of the press gallery in carrying out professional duties, and second, the House should immediately permit all gallery members to cover the public business of Parliament in an orderly and equitable fashion.

Gallery members are prepared to cover committees in the following manner: (a) fixed camera positions while committees are in session, while free-roving cameras would continue for pre-gavel photo ops and cutaway shots only; (b) existing room light whenever available; (c) existing committee sound system; (d) respect for the spirit of electronic Hansard; (e) pooling when and where space limitations dictate.

These criteria will ensure unrestricted coverage for the media while respecting committee decorum and will open up the democratic process without any additional cost to the House of Commons.

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To be absolutely clear, we are not asking for more televised committee rooms where the House provides the equipment. Rather, we are asking for the right to bring in our cameras to record the proceedings.

Gallery members will be free to use their broadcast material as they see fit, as part of a daily newscast or gavel to gavel, and any material shot by the broadcasters remains the property of them.

It would be helpful to both the gallery and the House if one person or one office were set up to facilitate and co-ordinate coverage. For instance, the committees branch, in co-operation with press gallery staff, might be best suited to co-ordinate the coverage of upcoming proceedings. The best way for this group to make informed decisions could be for the House to circulate to gallery members a preliminary schedule of upcoming committee sittings several days in advance. Interested electronic media organizations could then let the gallery staff know if they intend to cover, and this would give everyone a pretty good indication of how much interest there is.

Given that some sites are restricted for space, if several television organizations express an interest, the organizational committee would have time to either move the meeting to a larger venue or co-ordinate a pool camera. If pool coverage is required, all outlets should have access to the live feed without additional cost. There should be no preferential locations given to any one outlet.

It's worth noting that in some provinces and other countries committees have been open to radio and television for years. In the U.S., all committees are open, with rare exceptions. Mr. Craig Oliver was based in Washington, D.C., for several years and he can best address the greater access in the U.S.

In summary, the inclusion of television cameras in committee rooms is long overdue. The press gallery welcomes this committee's preliminary indication that it's in favour of doing just that. Public interest in the parliamentary process has never been greater.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, LeeEllen. We appreciate it.

Randy White.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome all three witnesses here today.

It is more than due, I think. I would agree that to open up the committee process this way is important, and not only because the public should have more access. I truly believe that the bulk of the work of the House of Commons does not go on in the chambers but in the committees. And that's where a lot of the members of Parliament do their best work but get little recognition for it. It seems to me that today the process we undertake in the chambers is one from 2 to 3 in the afternoon, and that is a shame.

I would like to ask Mr. Oliver about his experience in the American market. I'd just like him to explain to the committee whether there is a downside to that. Was there a fear the American politicians had that was overcome?

Mr. Craig Oliver (Bureau Chief, CTV): First, in Washington, all the committees are open. You can assume they're open and you bring your own equipment and set up. Beforehand you inform the press gallery, which informs the officials of the committee that you're coming. You make that choice and it's your own gear that comes in, unless occasionally for security reasons they announce that a committee will be closed, which everybody respects.

But the feeling in Washington, I think, is the same as it is here. Others can make the highfalutin' arguments about the importance of public policy, but I can make an argument that basically we have a symbiotic relationship. We need you and you need us—Andy Scott may not agree with that today, but we do need each other—and one of the reasons is that oftentimes we have trouble selling political stories to our desk in Toronto because the argument is made that they're not relevant to the lives of real people.

But real people are often appearing before these committees and we're not there to show them. And I won't run down the list of the number of committees where dramatic, emotional testimony often takes place; we should be able to show that. And it would help you if real people were seeing appearing before you.

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The other change, which is very dramatic in recent years, is that the appetite for this kind of thing in television has changed very dramatically. We've often been accused of trying to tell the whole world a story in 15-second news bites, and that certainly, to some degree, is still true, but in French- and English-speaking Canada now we're doing a lot of live television. We're carrying things live and we have an appetite for it because of all these all-news channels. CPAC is doing it and we're doing it almost every day now. So there's an appetite to carry long-form things like House of Commons committees.

The other argument I'll make that should be relevant to you folks is that there are too many very clever MPs who are important personalities in their own communities and who get elected and disappear, and their constituents ask whatever happened to that man or women. There they are in committees doing very good work, but they're never seen. It's time that some of these members of Parliament, backbenchers and people who aren't often in the front line of the shadow cabinet or the cabinet...they need to be seen and their constituents need to see them.

It used to be that governments resisted the idea of televising parliamentary committees because they didn't like that fact very much. Opposition backbenchers, if they were never seen, didn't bother governments very much. But one of the changes that's going on here, which a lot of us are very happy about, is Liberal backbenchers demanding to be more than sheep, wanting to be seen, wanting to have their say in the shaping of public policy and wanting their constituents to see them do that.

So I hope that on the government side now there will be a change in that approach and the government too will see that these committees need to be televised.

Finally, let me say that at the moment there is this helter-skelter system where sometimes they're televised and sometimes they aren't. I would plead to you folks to bring some order to this system so that you can say, “Yes, come on in to the committees. They're televised.” Unless you decide that for security reasons or others you're going to have in camera committees—which we will respect.

The Chairman: Randy White, very quickly, and then I have Chuck Strahl, Marlene Catterall, Gurmant Grewal, and Stéphane Bergeron.

Mr. Randy White: LeeEllen, did you suggest in your proposal—I missed part of it—that the coverage would be from gavel to gavel and would cover just the speaker? Did you envision that or did you envision that whilst a person is talking in the committee, the camera could go to everybody else?

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: What we would like to do is to bring cameras in for the duration of the committee meeting. If it is a pool situation, we would propose a camera to shoot the witness and another camera to shoot the cutaways of the committee members, but we would like to do so without disrupting the actual committee. We would like to cover it gavel to gavel but maintain the right of choosing what to do with the material. CPAC or some networks that would carry the committee meeting live would carry it gavel to gavel. However, most of the demand would come from newscasts that want to carry a clip or two.

The Chairman: Chuck Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, Ref.): Thank you for your presentation. I think there's a fair bit of enthusiasm from opposition and backbench MPs in general and, I think, even from cabinet ministers. As you know, often you get onto a roll in the House of Commons, and you can get a cabinet minister, like you say, beavering away, and maybe even that cabinet minister doesn't get noticed. So when they come before committee for estimates or for their long-range plans or whatever it might be, at least it gives them a chance to defend what they're doing too. All in all, I think there's quite a bit of support for this.

I have just a couple of questions. It was mentioned that in general you would use these clips or use the footage as you saw fit. There will be a desire on behalf of many MPs, I think, to have access to that footage, not the clip, but... The nice thing about CPAC right now is that they televise a committee meeting and you get up on your hind legs and you get to ask your two or three minutes of glory. And you might want to use that in a video clip for back home or put something together in order to be able to say to someone who asks what you have done about a particular issue that you're going to get this clip for them or that you're going to put this together and run it on your local cable 10 or whatever. But if we don't have access to that, then it's still a case of the tree fell but nobody saw it or heard it.

So the question I have is on the pool coverage. It's relatively easy, if all the networks have access to it, to perhaps extend that availability to MPs, even if they had to pay for it somehow.

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But the problem I see that maybe you could address is what we do when somebody says, “Boy, I asked the question of my life”, but it wasn't carried on CTV that night so it never really happened. It's still the old problem. You came, you saw, but no one else did, because out of the whole thing, they just clip the minister's comments, and you say you sure wish they had your question on there. So how do I get access to that so I can use it to show that I'm working here? The quote I liked was “the hard work of politicians”—and you said that with a straight face.

Voices: Oh, oh.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I really liked that part of your presentation.

Mr. Craig Oliver: I like politicians, by the way.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: There you go.

Mr. Craig Oliver: When I meet a reporter who says he doesn't like politicians, I say, “Well, what the hell are you doing here?” Would you be covering medicine if you hated doctors?

No, look, that's a problem, because if we're going to be shooting it ourselves, as a matter of policy we don't provide our video to people in politics to use in that way, and if they were your opponents, you would appreciate that policy.

I think CPAC will provide it and, obviously, if the House of Commons or the government runs the cameras, they'll give it to you.

That is a problem for you and I can recognize that, but if we didn't use your question I'm afraid that normally we wouldn't provide it, not only because it's a policy from a sort of ethical point of view, but also because of the time involved in having to find all those clips, dub them over and everything else. It would be really so time-consuming we couldn't do it.

Maybe Denis has a view of that.

Mr. Denis Ferland (National Assignment Editor, Radio-Canada TV): The only thing I can say in terms of using the clips or excerpts, especially on the part of the all-news networks, is that more and more we're using them on a kind of “best of” basis. I know especially about Newsworld and RDI: if we don't cover a committee gavel to gavel, from time to time we do a half-hour summary at the end of the day of one particular committee hearing. So chances are that more and more of those 15-second clips are going to turn into two or three minutes, actually, like a debate between one MP and one or two witnesses and things like that. So you have more opportunity than before to be broadcast back home, like you say.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: There are a couple of points I'd like to add to that.

What you're asking for would be akin to asking a newspaper journalist to photocopy all of his or her notes to prove to somebody that you said something.

Secondly, I think all television networks have the policy that we do not give or sell our material to political parties. That was repeated recently with the pool coverage of the federal election of 1997 and the foreign pools that we participate in now with the Prime Minister.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Just to follow up on that briefly, I guess where it will be dicey, then, for MPs is that although it's true that the notes don't have to be sold, I can get a complete, verbatim, in-print discussion of what we're talking about today. I have access to that. So if somebody asks me about when did I ever say something on human rights, I can go to the committee and pull that out and say, “Here's what I said.” It's proof positive. I can send it to them and they can say, “Good thing.” But if I can't do that on electronic things, then it isn't the same.

So what I'm suggesting is that when it's a common pool, when it's a CPAC feed, it's a tremendous incentive for MPs to be accountable and to mean what they say and say what they mean. And if they're going to showboat, they're going to pay a price for it—all that stuff. But if it's too selective and it's not that I can just pull this out from this transcript from Hansard...I can get the Hansard from this meeting and I can send it to whoever wonders about what I said. That's where the print media is very similar to the Hansard thing.

So I just caution you: that's the big selling feature to MPs, and if they don't have that, then there'll be a little fear, I think. Maybe MPs will think that you'll cut us some slack, but the fear will be that there's going to be more of the same; you'll take the minister, but when Paul Martin comes, all the cameras will swing over to that end of the committee and they'll blast away on him and we'll all be in here trying to interrupt even to get a question on.

That's why it would be nice to have some access to a pool feed—not clipped, not edited, not enhanced, no nothing... That's the attraction of CPAC over what you're proposing.

Mr. Craig Oliver: You'd have a better chance of getting on than you do now—

The Chairman: The chair is still here, Chuck.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Sorry.

The Chairman: Okay.

Mr. Craig Oliver: Sorry. I was just going to say that you would have a better chance of getting on than you do now—that's for sure. I see that problem and I understand why you feel that way, but we're uncomfortable with becoming vehicles for partisanship. That's the problem we have.

The Chairman: Marlene Catterall, Gurmant Grewal, Stéphane Bergeron and Joe Fontana.

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Marlene.

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.): First of all, let me say that I think Andy Scott would be the first to agree with what you said, Craig, because people like Andy and me, who really believe in involving the public in the public policy debate, know that what people know about the issues they know through the media, and as much as we might try to inform, the main formers of opinion are the major media.

I'm very interested in seeing how we can make this work, because I do think you've made some really important points, particularly the idea that all media should be treated in a similar way. And if we trust print journalists and radio journalists to make selective reporting of what happens in committees, I am not sure that I would find any one of you any less trustworthy.

The big problem as I see it is the equipment that goes along with that. Somebody can sit unobtrusively and not interfere with the business of the committee with a pad and pen or a tape recorder. It's harder and in some cases impossible to do that with a television camera. I can't tell you the number of times I've walked through the lobby trying to avoid getting hit by one of the darn things.

But you people know these buildings fairly well, so you know some of the practical problems. Obviously, in the Reading Room or the Railway Committee Room it's a different situation compared to this one, and if you take a couple of small rooms like 308 over in the West Block, you have an even worse situation. I would appreciate your comments on how that could be managed.

For instance, if a reporter gets up with a pad or paper and walks out to interview a witness, that's not a big problem. If somebody does the same thing in and out with one or maybe half a dozen TV cameras, that is a big problem in terms of how the committee is functioning and even in terms of safety issues. I'd appreciate your comments on how that could be handled and on the kinds of guidelines you would need.

Mr. Craig Oliver: In Washington, once you set your camera up on the tripod you're expected not to move it until the committee has pretty much completed its work. In other words, you're not breaking down and chasing somebody while the committee is doing its business.

In terms of crowding in a small room, as I was saying earlier, we would have to inform the press gallery that we were coming. If the press gallery saw that there were a lot of cameras interested in a particular committee...what happens in Washington is that they move the committee to a bigger room to accommodate that.

The other thing, if some of you are worried about lighting, is that our new cameras are so sensitive to light that we barely need light. We'd like to have it if we could, but we don't need to put up lights. We can take pretty good pictures in this room now with no lights. It's less intrusive than it used to be in that sense.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: So if the committee were to agree to something like that, some rules like that around cameras remaining stationary during the committee's proceedings and that kind of thing—

Mr. Craig Oliver: Yes.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: —a limit on the number based on the room—

Mr. Craig Oliver: Sure.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: You all know the practicalities of the committee rooms around here. Moving committees around is really not feasible given the number that we have.

Mr. Craig Oliver: We're also doing more pooling between the networks, and if we saw that this was going to be a committee a lot of us wanted to cover, then it would be Denis, myself, the other bureau chiefs... By the way, I'm not speaking for them, but I told all of them what I was going to say here and they all agreed with me. We would probably make a pool deal between us and agree on a camera that we'd share.

Mr. Denis Ferland: Just one clarification: are you more concerned about cameras going in and out of the room than you are about cameras moving into the room? There's a big difference. In Quebec City, for example, they're allowed to move within the room, but if you want to do an interview with a witness who is going out you need to have another camera in the hallway.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: When I talk about trying to create some equity among the media here, let me say that I would find it disturbing if somebody with a tape recorder were wondering around, and I would find it even more disturbing if somebody with a camera were doing that.

Mr. Craig Oliver: I agree with you.

Mr. Denis Ferland: Yes.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: Just to address that from a practical point, if there were two cameras set up, with one pointed at the witness, the other one does need some access to get around. If one camera was at that end pointing at the three of us and the other camera was pointing at this side, when anybody asked a question from this side, the camera could not shoot the faces here from that angle. They would have to move around to the back to get that angle.

The Chairman: I think we have to keep cognizant of the pace at which we're moving here. I have Gurmant Grewal next, then Stéphane Bergeron, Joe Fontana, André Harvey and Michelle Dockrill.

Mr. Grewal.

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Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I have found the opening comments justifying equity and fairness completely justified.

I thank all of you for the comments. I believe that you must have visited the existing committee rooms, so you may have seen all the facilities there. Do you find that those existing facilities are enough or will there be additional wiring or anything to be done? We expect some renovations to be done in some of the rooms, as I learned in the past meeting. Do you think that's enough or do you see any more renovations to be done?

Mr. Craig Oliver: Ideally we would probably want to fix up some rooms more than others if we were going to be doing this on a permanent basis. Yes. The changes wouldn't be dramatic. In fact, we could be shooting this committee right now without a great deal of difficulty, but we'd probably want to put in some permanent wiring.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: Which would be at the expense of the television networks.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: All right.

The other thing is that in the U.S. they have more than two channels—two or three channels, I think. Do you foresee that in the future there may be a need to sometimes broadcast live on certain channels? There is a need for an extending channel; CPAC has only one channel, maybe two, French and English, but—

Mr. Craig Oliver: Yes.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: —do you foresee any need for additional channels?

Mr. Craig Oliver: Yes, that's what I was saying in my earlier remarks. We have an appetite now for live television which we didn't used to have even five or six years ago. On these all-news channels like the one in Quebec and the ones in English Canada now, we're doing a lot of live coverage, almost every day. For instance, yesterday both networks went live with Andy Scott's stuff, we went live with the House of Commons, and we went live with other news conferences having to do with that event.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Finally, to improve the existing facilities or improve the whole practical operation, would it be appropriate—because we don't have too many committee rooms—if there are fixed cameras and a control room like they have in room 254-D now? Then there is no botheration to the committee and it will be easier for you to operate, maybe, if there are five or six networks with their different cameras. Maybe it would put off crowding, but to address that fixed camera, would it be the right solution, do you think?

Mr. Craig Oliver: By fixed cameras, you don't mean cameras set up all the time? I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what—

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: There are additional costs in terms of purchasing cameras, but once it is done, it's a permanent cost. And in terms of convenience, it might be appropriate to have fixed cameras in the committee rooms; then you are controlling from a different control room. That way certain problems which we can foresee—for example, crowding or pooling—can be sorted out permanently. Then there will be no need for a committee to move at the last moment, depending on the number of media present, from a smaller committee room to a bigger committee room.

Mr. Craig Oliver: But that would only apply in a case where a committee is one which a lot of media are interested in covering. But remember, there'll be a lot of committees... For instance, right now there's a committee on the whole split things in magazines. We might have been interested in covering that today while no one was. In a case like that, you wouldn't want to spend a lot of money to have a room all ready for that.

But certainly, it would be helpful to have a couple of rooms set up on a semi-permanent basis for television. I wouldn't want to leave a $100,000 camera sitting there all the time, though. And also, as a taxpayer, I wouldn't want to see the House of Commons put up the kind of money that would be necessary to televise all these committees the way the House of Commons does now. The press gallery's not proposing that you do that.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Thank you.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: There's also some concern that if a lot of money is spent in setting up the televised committee rooms, with the upcoming changes in the construction in the House of Commons over the next decade or fifteen years that money would have to be reinvested once everybody moved from here to the West Block and back to the Centre Block.

The Chairman: Stéphane Bergeron, then Joe Fontana.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères—Les Patriotes, BQ): In the same vein, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that I rather favour the idea of allowing TV broadcasting of committee deliberations, for many reasons already raised by our witnesses. Our committee members will surely have an opportunity to debate this matter again. This issue has been studied many times in the past, for instance by the McGrath committee, the Cook committee and the Cooper committee. The current committee also had an opportunity to deal with this issue. Proposals were made on several occasions; some of them were implemented, whereas others are still in limbo and have not been applied at all. The result is that we have to come back to the issue once more, knowing full well that some past proposals are still up in the air and have not been applied.

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The formula you propose may seem useful for the management of public funds, since it does not rely on any substantial injection of public money; perhaps even none at all. However, your proposal has a few logistical drawbacks, so to speak, because of the presence of cameras and cameramen in a committee room.

Someone also raised the possibility that the cameras could be moved around during committee deliberations, which might occasionally disturb the committee's work. My colleague Chuck Strahl quite rightly raised another problem, namely that if our ultimate purpose is to show the population the work done in committees, and to let our fellow citizens know that a large part of parliamentary work is done in committee, and that finally only the ministers' responses are shown on the evening news, we will obviously have failed to reach our objective.

There is a further problem if parliamentarians can not obtain excerpts from their interventions and pass them on to their constituents, not in a strictly partisan spirit, as you suggested, Mr. Oliver, but basically to raise people's awareness of the work being done on any question of public interest in our ridings. We want people to know about our interventions, not for our personal publicity or fame, but to emphasize the work done by committees.

I'll come back to some past proposals. Mr. Grewal raised this a few moments ago. We are considering equipping a certain number of committee rooms with permanent TV broadcasting facilities. We already have such a room in Centre Block and I would like to know whether the Press Gallery is satisfied with the services in that room. Do the camera shots in that room and their eventual use meet your needs and expectations as TV broadcasters?

Mr. Denis Ferland: Once again, I do not want to make a formal commitment on behalf of all the networks, but we are as a whole quite satisfied with the coverage we can get with the equipment in the Railway Room. Although I do not remember the exact number of cameras, I know that they allow us to cover almost every angle without moving around the room. The only difference is that usually, as a television report is produced, we absolutely need access to what we call a photo opportunity in order to plan certain cut away shots.

But as far as getting all the questions and all the answers and using them in accordance with our priorities is concerned, the present arrangement does not limit us in any way.

I'd like to come back to your comment about your fear of ministers upstaging MPs when they put questions. As I am responsible for assignments in the Radio-Canada office, I can tell you that the criteria for covering a committee meeting do not necessarily depend on the minister's presence. Quite often, the minister has already defended his bill during a press conference after tabling it in the House. When he comes to defend it before the committee, it is, as it were, a repeat performance. As Craig was saying just now, it is very interesting to hear citizens testify about issues like visiting rights and child care. Television networks do not necessarily give any priority to statements made by ministers and, just like magazine publishers and the advertising industry on both sides of the border, they believe that the testimony of citizens and the questions you ask them are more interesting. Ministers do not necessarily upstage everyone else. Their presence at a committee meeting is not in my mind a standard that will make me recommend TV coverage of that meeting.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Ferland, as I listen to you, I find that it is very noble of you to emphasize that viewpoint.

The Chairman:

[Editor's note: Inaudible] ...is still here.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Mr. Chairman, as I was saying, as I listen to Mr. Ferland, I find that his viewpoint is very noble as he presents it. But as I've already sat for five years in the House of Commons I do know that as we arrive at a committee meeting where a minister is due to appear, more TV cameras than usual gather around, for this very photo op as a minister comes in and goes out.

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We do know that despite the fine principles you are stating, the media are particularly interested in covering committees where ministers appear. Consequently, I think that there is a real risk that my colleagues wonder whether we can really reach our goal, which is to inform citizens about the very interesting and relevant work done in committees. Are the citizens really going to be informed about that work or won't we merely be giving another podium to those who already have one, namely ministers, the chief spokespersons of political parties, party leaders, basically those who usually rate the highest with the media, if I may put it that way?

Mr. Denis Ferland: Very often we film ministers as they come in, as a photo op, although we do not necessarily use these clips for our reports. In most cases, we cannot get the material inside the room. We film ministers because they are well-known figures and because we may need these visual clips to illustrate a news item issuing from the committee deliberations on that day. These clips are very rarely used to prepare complete reports, as there is only one room where we can access sufficiently sophisticated TV broadcasting equipment to make complete reports.

As I am responsible for assignments, I can assure you that the subjects that interest me are the ones closest to the people and regarding which people can express their views to you directly. I'm saying this very sincerely.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: To sum up your thoughts, in an ideal situation, if resources were available, having specially equipped rooms for TV broadcasting could meet the expectations of parliamentarians as well as of the Press Gallery.

Mr. Denis Ferland: Yes, that's how I see—

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: Very well.

[English]

The Chairman: Colleagues, I have five questioners still on my list: Joe Fontana, André Harvey, Michelle Dockrill, John Richardson, and then the chair.

Joe.

Mr. Joe Fontana (London North Centre, Lib.): Baaa...excuse me while I clear my sheepish throat, Craig.

Voices: Oh, oh.

An hon. member: We're used to that.

Mr. Joe Fontana: No, no, I know you were wanting to protect my Liberal colleagues and their integrity. I appreciate that, Craig.

Mr. Randy White: Tell us a cheap joke.

Mr. Joe Fontana: Oh, why do—

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

An hon. member: Don't encourage him.

The Chairman: Order.

And Joe, remarks through the chair, please.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: The chair is still there.

Mr. Joe Fontana: I've been here for ten years. We've discussed this at least for ten years, if not more than that, and I think the concept sounds intriguing. And I agree, if accessibility and fairness—equity—for the television broadcasters is the issue, there's no doubt, I think, in principle in regard to what you've just said, that we're on record as being in favour.

I want to, though, pick up on what Chuck and Stéphane have asked.

And I agree with you totally, Craig. I think sometimes Canadians don't see that we actually talk to real people and that hence that's how we formulate some of our policies in committees, and especially in committees where some of the best work of Parliament is done and nobody gets to see it. Therefore, it's important for Canadians to see other Canadians talking to us.

But I want to ask you about this. If you truly believe that you want to inform the public, the reality is that if you don't cover it from gavel to gavel and hence there isn't a record similar to that of a Hansard or to the fact that we are now being broadcast from gavel to gavel, then, instinctively, as television people, you're going to pick the clip you like best. You're going to show controversy where they may be some; you're interesting in getting that clip.

Therefore, I need to understand that you are interested in informing the public because you want the public to see how Parliament really works and how some of these committees really actually do deal with a particular item in great substance and for long periods of time. I need to understand that you will depict that as opposed to wanting to come in...yes, you might keep your camera there, and you might roll it for awhile, but really you'll pick up the snapshot of some controversial act that may occur in regard to some citizens or some politician, so really it doesn't become a public record, and hence we do nothing to enhance informing the public. That's number one.

Number two—

Mr. Craig Oliver: I confess.

Mr. Joe Fontana: It's true. You'll have to deal with this. I personally don't care whether or not I can get a clip. If I can't tell my constituents that I've been doing some work, I have a problem.

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I'm more interested in making sure that Canadians who are receiving this transmission will in fact see those very citizens doing their work and not only being part of a clip that says the minister or parliamentarians disagreed with this particular person. I think the record is important.

The second thing is that we have over 21 committees, I believe, in this Parliament.

Ms. Marlene Catterall: Yes.

Mr. Joe Fontana: And every committee, I believe, and every member who sits on that particular committee, including this one, thinks that he or she is doing the most important work of the country.

The Chairman: Hear, hear.

Mr. Joe Fontana: How would you determine what it is that you want to show the public? And CPAC is another thing. Out of the 21 committees, which ones are you going to show? Because I can tell you that on most days they all meet at the same time in the same timeframe. So logistically, if you had three or four committees and you wanted to cover them all at one time because they are all about important matters, how would you do that? You're going to need equipment like you wouldn't believe or you're going to have to do an awful lot of sharing.

There are an awful lot of committees that I'm suggesting you will pick. Unfortunately—I don't want to be a devil's advocate—you will pick the most controversial committee; hence, when George Baker was peeing all over the government or the bureaucrats—call it what you will—that would have been interesting news, right? To you?

Mr. Craig Oliver: Yes.

Mr. Joe Fontana: But there may very well be something happening in defence or in something else or in this committee that is just as important to the public. Who's going to really chose what the public sees? You will be the filter.

My third question is—

The Chairman: Joe, that's two—

Mr. Joe Fontana: No, I'm—

The Chairman: —and it's almost five minutes, and the chair is still here.

Mr. Joe Fontana: I'm sorry.

The Chairman: So briefly, the third one, okay?

Mr. Joe Fontana: The other one would be whether or not CPAC essentially works now in trying to cover as much as possible from gavel to gavel. Not that I want to preclude you from starting, because I think we ought to make some gains in this area where we haven't before, but the ultimate is to be able to show all the committees and give viewers the choice as to whether or not they want to watch environment, finance, defence, procedure and House affairs and so on and so forth, so that we truly inform the public. If that's what you want to do—and I think that's what we want to do—we're on the same wavelength. But if you want better television, then we have a problem.

The Chairman: Witnesses?

Mr. Craig Oliver: I was here when we debated opening the House of Commons to television. There were a lot of similar issues at the time. We said we we were going to make our judgments on the basis of news values. They asked how they were to know that we wouldn't twist and distort what they would say in the way we cut those clips from the House of Commons. We said, “Well, you don't.” And in just the same way, you don't know now.

As for what committees we'd cover and what ones we wouldn't, I'm sure there will be days when we don't cover any. What I'm saying is, give us the choice to make news-value judgments about what we'll cover. I can't tell you that we're not going to pick the liveliest—what you would say are the most controversial—committees. I think we probably will. There's no doubt about that.

But when we're covering them live, which we won't do that often—I don't want you to get the feeling that the place is going to be swarming with cameras at every committee—everybody is going to have his or her say then and people will get a feel for the whole thing.

Otherwise you have to say to yourself, “I don't like the way the media is covering Parliament now and they're going to keep doing it that way.” Or you have to give us a break and say, “Overall, they're fair, and I think they'll continue to be.”

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: If I could, I'll address a couple of points. The Supreme Court, up until a couple of years ago, allowed television cameras at only a couple of hearings per year. As of this year, they are giving us access to 60 hearings a year. Television access is prohibited only when there is some concern over the identity of a witness or a defendant or a victim. They were concerned a couple of years ago that their clips would be used in television instead of gavel to gavel coverage. However, they had no problem with clips being used in print, so an experiment was started two years ago and they're quite happy with it. There have been no complaints.

As well, if you're thinking about giving CPAC access and no one else, that actually wouldn't work under our parliamentary press gallery rules. CPAC has made it very clear in appearing before the parliamentary press gallery that they would choose their membership in the press gallery before being given exclusive access to any one committee. As well, CPAC gives their material to everyone because they are not competitive with anyone.

Mr. Craig Oliver: By the way, the Senate, of all places, is opening committees to a lot of television these days.

Mr. Joe Fontana: That should be very interesting.

Voices: Oh, oh.

Mr. Randy White: Do you have a station in Mexico?

Voices: Oh, oh.

The Chairman: Michelle Dockrill.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Excuse me, Michelle. C'est André and then you.

[Translation]

Mr. Harvey.

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Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi, PC): Honestly, I think that we should not dwell indefinitely over technical matters because there is certainly some technical way to improve media access to our deliberations.

If I understand the comments that have been made, both the media and ourselves, the members working in committees, should try to get away from the news, because it keeps both the media and the members in bondage. We're totally conditioned by current events, although we know very well that there are very serious problems that must be dealt with by committees or that should be emphasized even more.

As politicians, we know what our reputation is. We know that if there could be marks below 0 percent, we would get them. I do not know the statistics about the reputation of the media, but I know that for politicians, they are not very favourable.

I would like to know if improving news content could have any impact on the citizens' perception of the role played by their members of Parliament in the House of Commons. We know that during Question Period, the media always put the most indignant ones in the spotlight, but there are also important committees.

If we are discussing poverty, I think that should arouse the interest of the media and of the people. We cannot go on like this, with soup kitchens in every part of town and shelters for the homeless. People must be concerned about this. We hear anything about it. This is true of all committees, especially the National Defence committee, where we are the current laughing stock with the F-18s. These issues are never raised. The only issues raised are strictly the ones imposed by news and current events.

Do you think that improving the content would have any impact on the popular perception of politicians as a whole?

Mr. Denis Ferland: We cannot guarantee anything to committee members about the way we deal with information. Of course we will deal with it professionally, but we cannot guarantee any airtime or anything like that. Nor can we guarantee, that camera access to committee rooms will be a panacea for resolving the credibility crisis you have described. It will not be an instant cure.

We're telling you that this gives you an added opportunity to show citizens the work you are doing. Naturally, voters will have greater awareness of the work members of Parliament do. Philosophically, we may think that this is so, but we do not feel ready to guarantee anything. No study has yet shown that people changed their minds according to the time that MPs get on the air.

[English]

Mr. Craig Oliver: May I make a point?

The Chairman: Craig Oliver.

Mr. Craig Oliver: Thank you.

Can I make a point on another point you made? It would be no surprise to you that in Question Period there's essentially a lot of artifice, a lot of theatrics. It's pretty much strictly a partisan arena. But committees are the place where the public often intersects with politics, and that's one of the values I see about going to committees.

And you talked about poverty. Those are the kinds of people who will appear before a committee. They'll be articulate. They'll be making their points on any number of issues, poverty being one. It could be bankers the next day. And those are the kinds of people we want to show. Those are the kinds of issues we want to deal with more than we're able to now. These stories are difficult to do on television because you need that visual material. And the visual material would be provided if we could show those kinds of people appearing before a committee and making their points.

The Chairman: Michelle Dockrill, then John Richardson.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If we keep going around this table, I'm going to continue to run out of questions. Joe took one, and then my second one... I'm interested to hear the witnesses say that they don't see this as another opportunity for grandstanding like we sometimes see in Question Period. That's the first part of my question.

Second, in some of the smaller parties, some of our members are on four and five committees and we all know you cannot be in four or five places at one time. My concern is that depending on what committee would be covered, the opportunity would be there to be used, say, against the members for those committees; they're obviously not able to go to all of them at the same time. I'd just like to know your comments.

Mr. Craig Oliver: I'm not sure I understand that point. I'm sorry.

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Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: We have some colleagues who are on four committees. Those committees meet at the same time, but our colleagues can only be at one committee. If that happens not to be the committee that you're covering that day, my concern is that the people in the constituency who might be interested in what's going on in those other committees, not knowing the day-to-day routine we have up here, would sort of look at that as them not fulfilling their obligations as members.

Mr. Craig Oliver: They wouldn't necessarily be seen in our coverage of that committee anyway, so they might have that problem whether they were there or not; their constituents might say, “Where was my MP?” Do you see what I mean?

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Yes. I guess my concern is their priority. Today we have 25 committees meeting, and I know everybody sitting in all those committees believes that their issues and what they're talking about are important.

Mr. Craig Oliver: But if this is important to him or her, an MP could know what committee was being televised by asking the gallery.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Okay.

The Chairman: On how much notice?

Mr. Craig Oliver: I'm not sure. Sometimes it might be pretty short. That's possible.

The Chairman: Michelle.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Just on the first part of my question, do I hear you saying that you don't feel this would be another opportunity for grandstanding?

Mr. Craig Oliver: I can't stop a member of Parliament who wants to grandstand—

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Not that we do that.

Mr. Craig Oliver: —from doing so. It's that simple.

But what we noticed about the House of Commons coverage was that at first there was maybe more grandstanding than there is now, believe it or not.

After a while, I think, people would focus on the job more. Certainly there would be some, but there are now. I saw the House of Commons before and after television went in there, and during the Diefenbaker-Pearson days it was wild. And if we had had television cameras in there they would have blamed television for that.

Mrs. Michelle Dockrill: Okay.

The Chairman: Okay. John Richardson, then the chair, and then we conclude with Randy White.

Mr. John Richardson (Perth—Middlesex, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to thank the three people who are here today.

I like the comparison just made a moment ago about the House of Commons being the focus and that's the image that Canadians have of Question Period from coast to coast to coast.

And yet, there's the nice example you brought forward. There could be a poor, out-of-work person up here making a presentation on behalf of the poor people and he or she would be seen from coast to coast. That case would be heard. As somebody else mentioned, a banker could be in another committee and making a presentation. In fact, Canadians would see that parliamentarians are listening to the broad spectrum of Canadians. And they all have the opportunity to appear before committees or they can be requested to appear. And we would have a scenario out there that this in reality is a working place; Question Period makes for good viewing, but certainly Canadians want to see that and they want to know a little more about what we do.

I praise you for coming before us and I hope we can work out something worthwhile. I also think you've come at the wrong time, when reconstruction... I think LeeEllen mentioned that. It's going to be hectic for you under those conditions.

But I only want to make that one point. I think if that point is made and you do that, we'll have a much better audience and a much better understanding of what Parliament is all about. Thank you.

The Chairman: I want to make just a couple of points of clarification. We greatly appreciate your presentations today.

First, LeeEllen, what differences do you see between the way you envisage the committees being covered and the House of Commons at present? There was a question before—I've forgotten now, but I think it was from Randy—and you replied that there's the speaker—and in the House of Commons you get the speaker—and then you mentioned cutaways. And in the House of Commons, as I see that, sometimes the camera sort of draws back and you see that there's nobody there or that there are people there or whatever, or it switches to another camera and changes like that. What differences do you have an image of in a setting like this small room versus up there in the large chamber?

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: Up there in the large chamber it's controlled by the House of Commons broadcasting.

The Chairman: I understand. I didn't mean that part; I meant in terms of the viewer's perception of what's going on in the chamber.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: For cameras that are shooting a committee, they need to shoot the person that's speaking.

The Chairman: Okay. And then you mentioned the second camera. What's it doing?

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: The second camera is shooting perhaps the questioner or the reaction of committee members to what the witness is saying.

The Chairman: Just give me an idea. How different are they? In the House of Commons you get the person on, then you go the Speaker, then you get the person on, then you go to the Speaker, but occasionally you get a general view of where that person is speaking from.

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Mr. Craig Oliver: I think that to some degree this would be up to negotiation. If the committees decided that they didn't want cutaway cameras in their committees... Take this room right now—we could have one camera on a riser here and shoot this whole committee. Our views wouldn't be ideal and we wouldn't love that, but in terms of the content we would have it all and we would get a view of each of you and anyone asking a question. We might get half of a back of a head occasionally; it's not what we prefer in terms of television, but we're quite capable of doing it with one camera on a riser right now and no lights.

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: Although for television purposes, the cutaway camera enables us to edit and make a three-hour meeting make sense inside of two minutes.

Mr. Craig Oliver: It's prettier television.

The Chairman: Okay. It's the technical side I'm interested in. In the House, we have two things; I forget who's controlling it, but we don't allow reaction shots, and there was a mistake made—

Mr. Craig Oliver: There are four or five cameras in the House.

A voice: Seven.

Mr. Craig Oliver: Seven cameras in the House? You just wouldn't get that covering a committee.

The Chairman: You don't get reaction shots. That's one.

The other one is documents. This is a very small setting. What about documents and the cameras picking up documents and that kind of thing?

Mr. Craig Oliver: You'd have to really try. A cameraman would have to be trying to get a picture of a document and cheat to do that, because otherwise...to have that kind of full-blown close-up, you just couldn't do it by accident.

The Chairman: The other thing is this question of selection. Again, this is just to follow up points that have been made. You gave the case of everybody doing Andy Scott live yesterday; they all picked the same thing. Would you imagine that some people would pick one thing from these committee hearings and someone else would pick another? That's one thing. And second, in terms of choosing which committee is going to be covered, you would need some sort of advance notice. There would have to be an advance list of committees and their topics and that kind of thing.

Mr. Craig Oliver: We have that now.

The Chairman: You have enough information now to be able to pick out the appropriate room?

Mr. Craig Oliver: Pretty much. And if we need more, we can phone, and the staffs are almost invariably very co-operative. That's not a problem.

The Chairman: Okay. Thank you.

I'm going to go very briefly to Bob Kilger and then Randy White is going to finish it.

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont—Dundas, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to take you back on your question and be more specific in regard to what presently exists in 253-D in the Railway Committee Room under CPAC. What do you envision doing differently? Or would there be any difference between what you're offering and what we're presently doing as we know it now in 253-D?

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: If I could just clarify something, 253-D is the House of Commons broadcasting, not CPAC. It may be carried on CPAC, but those cameras belong to you.

Mr. Bob Kilger: To the House.

But what would you do? Is that an ideal situation for you? In an ideal situation, 10 years from now we have a free-standing committee building, everything is wired, you can have 10 committees going at any one time and you can pick up the feed wherever you want. Obviously you have a tremendous advantage, I suppose, if we're negotiating, because the cost right now would be borne by the networks, if I understand you correctly, whereas in the other format the cost would be borne by the House of Commons. But from what I understand, even for your purposes, what does come out of the Railway room is quite adequate.

Mr. Craig Oliver: It's more than adequate. It's an elaborate, expensive set-up—

Mr. Bob Kilger: It is.

Mr. Craig Oliver: —and a very valuable one, and we like it. But to do that in all the various committees we might want to go to would be really costly, more costly than any government should have to foot the bill for.

Mr. Bob Kilger: I don't think we'll ever see, at least not—

Mr. Craig Oliver: No, but I mean—

Mr. Bob Kilger: Craig, I don't see us wiring—

The Chairman: The chair is here.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Mr. Chairman, I don't see us wiring 20 rooms, but I think it's quite possible, for instance, that under the new structure a decade from now you could have upwards of 8 to 10 rooms wired like 253-D, something comparable, and go with that. At present, if the committee members deems that their work is of such a nature and a significance that they want it broadcast, of course they ask for the usage of 253-D. We would just have more options.

Mr. Craig Oliver: But you're suggesting that you should decide what gets covered and what doesn't. I'm suggesting we should.

Mr. Bob Kilger: Exactly. And I think that gets to the crux of the whole matter down the line. That becomes a very substantive question for all of us. There is no doubt about it.

The Chairman: In conclusion, Randy White.

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Mr. Randy White: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think sometimes we tend to look for the problems rather than the solutions. A lot of the questions that we had here are interesting questions, but we've apparently had this issue before the House, or at least before our committee, three times now, and all three times it's basically been considered a good idea but never got carried off. And that's too bad.

I think the argument is the same for covering one or two people by television as it would be for covering those same two people through radio or newspaper. In other words, if the cameras are in here and they choose to cover any two people or even one person, that's no different from the way is now. There are some reporters sitting down there and we don't know who they're going to cover or who they're going to quote, so I don't see that being any different whatsoever from television, radio or newspapers.

I also think that a process that doesn't work can be stopped, essentially; a process that hasn't even started, however, can't even begin to work, so how do we know unless we start it? I think it's time; I think we should get on with this and take some substantive action and see where it goes.

Who knows? It may be the best thing we have ever done. So many other Parliaments and democratic houses have done this and I have yet to hear a complaint from them, so let's go.

The Chairman: As special favour, extremely briefly, Stéphane Bergeron.

[Translation]

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron: I would like to make a small comment in a lighter vein after our friend Randy's very serious intervention. We should note that it is since the works of the House of Commons began to be broadcast that politicians' credibility began to drop in the polls.

[English]

Voices: Oh, oh.

The Chairman: Witnesses, is there anything you would care to add?

LeeEllen, perhaps?

Ms. LeeEllen Carroll: No.

The Chairman: None of you? We'd like to thank our witnesses here—LeeEllen Carroll, Craig Oliver and Denis Ferland.

Colleagues, our next meeting is at 11 o'clock on Thursday on this same topic, televising of committee proceedings, and our witnesses will be the Clerk of the House of Commons and members of his staff.

Thank you very much.