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House of Commons Debates VOLUME 147 Ï NUMBER 221 Ï 2nd SESSION Ï 41st PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Monday, June 1, 2015 Speaker: The Honourable Andrew Scheer CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) 14367 HOUSE OF COMMONS Monday, June 1, 2015 The House met at 11 a.m. is happening at the same time as the government uses public resources for federal government advertising. It is important to remove partisanship from federal government Prayers advertising, because it is anti-democratic. When public resources are used to try to increase the chances for political success in Canadian society, particularly only several months away from a national election campaign, it is unfair. When I described this bill to a group PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS of grade 5 students recently, one of the students, a 10-year old, put Ï (1105) up a hand and said, “To me, it looks like it is cheating”. It is hard not to agree with that simple description. It is about using public [English] resources and harnessing them for an unfair advantage for a sitting ELIMINATION OF PARTISAN GOVERNMENT government. ADVERTISING ACT The other reason partisanship has to go is because we are now Mr. David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Lib.) moved that Bill hearing increasingly from experts and from good, front-line, hard- C-544, An Act to amend the Auditor General Act (government working, dedicated public servants that this kind of advertising advertising), be read the second time and referred to a committee. compromises the neutrality and objectivity of public servants and the He said: Mr. Speaker, my bill, which is supported by the Liberal public service. More and more senior managers are being compelled, Party of Canada, by my leader, and by my colleagues, is an attempt forced, to take actions that they know are favourably disposed to increase confidence and to drive up trust in our Canadian toward the party in power at the expense of the neutrality and democratic institutions and the way in which government as a whole objectivity they signed up for when they decided to become good operates. It is about accountability. It is about value for scarce public servants. taxpayer dollars. It is about helping Canadians have more confidence in the way we collect their hard-earned dollars and deploy or spend Look at any website operated by the federal government and take them on their behalf. a look at the colours. Then go to the Conservative Party of Canada website and take a look at the colours there. This partisanship issue This bill, Bill C-544, is about amending the Auditor General Act is one that every member in the House of Commons knows cuts to to appoint an advertising commissioner to oversee government the bone of fairness and accountability. spending on advertising. Ï (1110) Everyone in this House, from all parties, I have heard, has heard from countless Canadians who are concerned about what can only be There has been unanimous opposition to the government's described as wasteful advertising spending. It is time to bring continued advertising. Let us look at some of the headlines. Canada's advertising rules into the 21st century, and the appointment I will start with the Toronto Star: “Tory ad blitz goes simply too of an advertising commissioner, as in other jurisdictions, would far”. provide accountability for all Canadians. This legislation, should it be passed, and I am always hopeful that we can get all-party support The Globe and Mail: “How partisan Conservative ads undermine in this regard, would apply to all future governments of any political the rule of law”. stripe. The Canadian Press: “Cabinet secrecy blocks rationale behind It is important to remind Canadians that this bill would permit government's advertising slogan”. legitimate advertising. There is a role and a purpose for government advertising. I will come to the details in a moment. What would be The National Post: “Canadians growing tired of [government's] expressly prohibited, however, is the kind of partisanship we have Economic Action Plan call government ads 'propaganda' in recent seen, which infuses federal government advertising and has for the survey”. past nine years under the Conservative government. The common look and feel of government advertising is identical to the common These draw heavily on eight polls conducted by the government's look and feel of partisan political Conservative Party advertising and own Department of Finance. 14368 COMMONS DEBATES June 1, 2015 Private Members' Business It is also important to always juxtapose choices made by This tells us everything we need to know about the government's governments in the way they spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars priorities. It is shamelessly using federal tax dollars to promote its with real needs in Canadian society. brand, its common look and feel, its websites, and its Facebook ads. For heaven's sake, the Conservatives are even advertising now on We know that the current Conservative government has spent Xbox. some $780 million, likely more by now, on advertising since its arrival. Let us take a look at some of the forms of advertising it has pursued. The Conservative government paid over $12,000 per train car to Ï (1115) shrink-wrap GO trains in downtown Toronto with Conservative blue plastic shrink wrap that had the slogan “economic action plan” splattered all over them. The Conservatives call that a message. Riders on GO Transit call it propaganda. The Conservatives spent $12,000 per car. This can all stop. The government, the party in power, can be put out of its advertising misery overnight. All it has to do is adopt the Let us take a look at one of the more egregious examples that I bill and create an advertising commissioner who is empowered to think highlights the need to take action in this area. The government review advertisements before they go to print. The bill goes as far as has compelled municipalities and provinces around the country to empowering the advertising commissioner to actually ensure that spend $30 million to put up 9,850 billboards. We have now learned, before a print run is performed, before any government sends out an through access to information requests and through working with order to a print house to run, for example, 30,000 or two million municipalities, that municipalities were not able to get their federal pamphlets, it is approved in advance. infrastructure funding dollars unless they met a contractual condition, which was to put economic action plan billboards at the side of every project. The federal government went to the provinces and said that it The government has lost its way. I think the Prime Minister has wanted a fed-prov agreement. Then it went to the cities involved and really lost his way in this regard. This is a person who came to said that if they wanted any money, they needed to put up a billboard Ottawa riding a horse called “accountability”. He railed against this at their expense. That was $30 million for 9,850 billboards. for years. He railed against it while he was in office, and he railed against it while he was out of office. The Canadian Taxpayers Let us talk about what that $30 million might do for Canadians at Federation itself cannot understand why the Prime Minister is a time when there are scarce resources and so many credible needs in pursuing this kind of advertising policy, if we can call it that. It is Canadian society. also supportive of the bill and its measures. Thirty million dollars buys 15 MRI machines. It pays for 500 registered nurses' salaries for one year or over 900 personal support workers for home care for one year. It pays for 10,000 hip, knee, and cataract surgeries. It pays for 4,250 insulin pumps for kids who are We have a situation where we can do right and better by coping with type 1 diabetes and cannot afford the pumps. Canadians. We can look at the $760 million the government spent It pays for 300 affordable housing units. It pays for one million and ask, “Did we really get good value for money?” bus passes for our seniors on pensions. It pays the tuition fees for 5,000 students. It pays for student jobs for 9,000 students over the summer. Thirty million dollars pays for 15,000 doses of chemotherapy The bill allows for important messaging. Yes, it allows a drugs for cancer patients fighting their heroic battles and waiting for government to actually inform Canadians about tax measures or their treatments. It pays for 46,500 injections to treat osteoporosis at program expenditures or benefits they are entitled to. All of that is a time when our aging population is showing more and more the available, just not the way it is being done now. effects of arthritis and aging. Thirty million dollars also pays for 20 million meals at the school breakfast programs for hungry kids. It pays for 46 years of the eliminated community access program for any one province, where A government would not be able to, for example, advertise we were supplying Internet services in our libraries and community measures that do not exist. We can all recall several years ago the centres for those who could not afford the $70, $80, or $90 a month Advertising Standards Council of Canada taking the government to to be connected on the Internet. It pays for eco-energy retrofit grants task for running ads on television during sporting events for for 6,000 homes.

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