SCTV Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE TELEVISING OF COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

SOUS-COMITÉ DE LA TÉLÉDIFFUSION DES DÉLIBÉRATIONS DES COMITÉS DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA PROCÉDURE ET DES AFFAIRES DE LA CHAMBRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, February 24, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.)): This is the first meeting of SCTV, the Sub-Committee on the Televising of Committee Proceedings. “SCTV” is Carol's innovation.

We are here because the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs tabled an earlier report to allow extended televising of committee meetings on certain conditions. They did that after holding a number of hearings and discussions, and they tabled a report and outlined the conditions under which additional filming of committees would be allowed.

Part of the report was that a subcommittee be established to deal with any problems around the implementation of those recommendations. To date, in fact, there has been no request from the electronic media to expand their coverage of committee meetings; there is some dissatisfaction with the conditions that were imposed. That's where we stand.

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So essentially, since this subcommittee is to deal just with the implementation and any issues around implementation, we really have very little business before us, but I felt it was important to have an organizing meeting in any case, in order to have a quick briefing from our researcher on the report, on the conditions that were recommended, and on anything else that's happened since this report was tabled that he feels we should be aware of.

Mr. James Robertson (Committee Researcher): I'm with the parliamentary research branch and am the researcher for this subcommittee as well as the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The House of Commons was one of the first legislative bodies in the world to be televised on a gavel-to-gavel basis. One of the reasons this was done was widespread cabling in Canada, which took place in the 1970s. There were discussions about televising committees early on. It was not a priority nor was it done, which is different from some provincial legislatures, where they started with the televising of committees and then went to the legislature.

The question of televising the committee proceedings, where, increasingly, MPs spend a great deal of their time, has been around for at least the last 10 or 15 years. In the late 1980s there was a report about it, but it was not implemented. It was reviewed again in the early 1990s. Again, that led to the development of 253-D, which is the television room, upstairs, whereby any committee that is holding a meeting in that room has its proceedings taped by the House of Commons. That tape is made available to members of the press gallery, and it is also taped for further broadcast as part of the package that is shown on CPAC, the Canadian parliamentary or public affairs channel.

The parliamentary press gallery has long asked for and lobbied for the right to come into any public meeting on Parliament Hill and televise proceedings, their point being that there are often newsworthy events of a national interest or regional interest in committees that are not in fact meeting in the television room. They have been lobbying for many years to have access to all public committee meetings on Parliament Hill.

This was raised at the end of 1988 in the full committee of procedure and House affairs. I believe Randy White, then the House leader of the Reform Party, was the one who raised it with the committee. As Mrs. Catterall has indicated, The committee had discussions about this. There were concerns expressed that if you have more television, they would interrupt the proceedings, there would be distractions, there would be inappropriate shots, and there would be some grandstanding. At the same time, there were other members who believed very strongly that Canadians should see their members at work, that they should see the work and operations of parliamentary committees, and that since the public business is being conducted, it's important that Canadians have access to it.

The result was the forty-eighth report, which was tabled in December 1998 in the House and which, I think it's fair to say, is a compromise among the differing views. It was intended by the committee, I think, to open up the proceedings to televising and broadcasting but to retain a certain amount of protection or control for the House and for the members.

The main gist of the recommendations is that if the electronic media choose to come in and televise meetings, they have to do the entire meeting from beginning to end and they have to respect the rules of parliamentary broadcasting or an electronic Hansard, which essentially means that you show the person who is chairing and whoever is recognized by the chair and you don't show inappropriate shots or focus in on papers in front of members. Also, the existing lighting and sound system had to be used, there could be no movement around the tables, and there could be no more than three cameras at one time. All of these things were designed to ensure that the dignity and the efficiency of the meeting was not interfered with any more than necessary.

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The other issue or suggestion that was included in this report was that if the electronic media chose to do this, they would have to give notice to the clerk in advance so that arrangements could be made to change rooms, if necessary, and to make sure that members and witnesses were aware of it. I think it's a 24-hour notice, subject to a two-hour notice if there are changes to the scheduling of the meeting.

But the main issue was that the electronic media are required to provide to the House of Commons a tape of the complete meeting after they have finished taping it. So they would film it from gavel to gavel, and after that they would be required to provide a copy of the tape to the House. This would be partly for archival purposes, and partly, presumably, to ensure that film clips were not shown out of context, that there would be some way of somebody going back and checking that they didn't splice together sections or whatever.

The other thing was that this was going to be done on a trial basis for a six-month period so we could see how it worked and iron out any problems that arose. That was why it was proposed that a subcommittee be established to monitor the implementation and deal with problems, because not everything could be anticipated. Also, toward the end of the six-month period, the subcommittee would decide whether it should be continued, expanded, changed, or whatever.

The report was on the Order Paper for about a year. It was adopted just before the Christmas break of last year. This anticipated that it would be in place last winter; it is now in place this winter.

I think that's the main thing. At this point in time, as Mrs. Catterall said, no members of the parliamentary press gallery have indicated that they wish to take advantage of this report. In order for this report to be in place, there would need to be an agreement or a memorandum of understanding between the House of Commons and the parliamentary press gallery binding the members of the electronic media to the rules and requirements set out in this report and as determined by the Speaker from time to time. I don't know what the status of that is. Perhaps the committee might like to look at that to see if it's going to be pursued.

A few practical questions have come up. This applies only to committees meeting in public, but any meeting that is public is open to the electronic media under these provisions. It is not up to the individual committee or chairperson to decide whether to admit the electronic media or not. As long as it is a public meeting, the argument is that any person can come in off the street and attend that meeting. Similarly, if it's a public meeting on Parliament Hill, any member of the press gallery can cover it under the provisions of this report.

The other issue is that it does not apply outside Parliament Hill, the parliamentary precinct. So committees that are travelling must still get a House order if they are meeting outside Parliament Hill in the Ottawa national capital region. They would need a House order, for a number of reasons.

That's an overview for now.

The Chair: Are there any questions for Mr. Robertson?

Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, Ref.): It's a good overview. I think it's a good report. The question I would have is whether the parliamentary press people have issue with this. Is that why we're getting together to discuss this, or...

The Chair: No. We're just forming the subcommittee in case it's needed. I have been told that the press gallery has in the last few days written to the Speaker, or to the House leaders, indicating that they're not satisfied with the conditions in this report and they probably will not be taking advantage of the opportunity the report creates for them. I haven't seen that letter yet, but I presume it's not something this subcommittee can deal with. We can deal only with the implementation of what's already been approved. That would have to be referred to the main committee, if we want to reconsider the position we put to Parliament.

Mr. Grant McNally: I'm sure much discussion has gone into this already.

The Chair: Yes, quite a lot. So we really have no business in front of us. In fact, we had considered that we might look at the kind of agreement the administration had in mind to cover these kinds of situations. But if they've indicated they are not interested in taking advantage of it, we really have no business.

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However, we have established the subcommittee officially, so we are able and willing to deal with business if and when it arises.

Mr. Grant McNally: Could the main committee then refer this letter to us as one of the issues of implementation of the plan?

The Chair: It could if it wished to.

Mr. James Robertson: There was also one other aspect of this report. When the committee was discussing this in December 1998 and Mr. Marleau, the clerk, appeared before the committee to provide some input, he advised the committee of a problem that had arisen before that only committees meeting in the television room, 253-D, had their proceedings broadcast. Everyone else meeting on Parliament Hill had to get a special House order.

The House of Commons does have portable television equipment, so they have the equipment to televise a second meeting going on at the same time.

This report was premised on the fact that if another committee were meeting on Parliament Hill and wished to have its proceedings televised or filmed by the House of Commons broadcast unit, they could do so and they would not need to get a special House order.

I think the original understanding was that this equipment could be moved from room to room, and in here it talks about having enough time to move it around.

Subsequently, we have learned that while that's true, they can provide a live feed of committees that are meeting in rooms outside of the Centre Block, so if they're meeting in the old reading room, which is 237-C, they can film and provide a live feed to the electronic media and other people. It is not possible for them to do that in the West Block, because the technological facilities do not yet exist to provide a live feed. It would be filmed, and they would then have to take that film back, duplicate it, and provide it to the electronic media.

My understanding is that at present efforts are underway to equip the old reading room, 237-C, as the permanent room for this portable equipment. So there will now be facilities under this report, which has been adopted by the House, for two committee meetings to be televised by the House of Commons at the same time. Those will be made available to CPAC, I believe, and broadcast. They are available to the members of the press gallery. And if Room 237-C is busy or being used for some other reason, that equipment can be moved elsewhere.

So this report does, even if the press gallery aspects do not get sorted out, still mean that at least two committee meetings will be filmed at a time.

The Chair: Are there any other questions or comments?

Jamie said they can't broadcast except in the Centre Block. Does it mean technically they can't, it's impossible, or technically they don't have the equipment to do it? My question, if it were the second, would be what would it cost them to be able to do it?

The Clerk of the Committee: Madam Chair, we have two people from House broadcasting sitting in as observers. Perhaps they could explain the technical background.

The Chair: Does the committee want to hear that?

The Clerk: John Leduc.

The Chair: Do you want to join us at the table?

Mr. John M. Leduc (Operations Manager, Television and Radio Services, House of Commons): I'm John Leduc, manager of operations for the broadcasting service at the House.

The infrastructure in the West Block is not equipped physically. There are no fibre links. There is nothing to get us back to our master distribution centre, and until the renovations of those buildings are done, it's impossible for us to do it physically.

At this time, the only building that has that capability is this one.

The Chair: Thank you.

Unless anybody has any further questions for either our researcher or broadcasting, I think that probably concludes our business, with the exception of two motions that we may or may not need. Let me put them to you.

One, as proposed by our clerk, reads that the subcommittee retain the services of a researcher from the Parliamentary Research Branch, Library of Parliament, to assist the subcommittee and its work at the discretion of the chair.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: The second is that the subcommittee meet at 3.30 p.m. on Thursdays, as required or determined by the chair.

(Motion agreed to)

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The Chair: I guarantee you I will not call meetings that are unnecessary.

I will entertain a motion to adjourn to our next meeting, if we ever need it.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.