Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament
Issue 19 - Evidence, December 2, 2009
OTTAWA, Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met this day at 12:25 p.m. to study the broadcasting of Senate proceedings.
Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, we will resume our study on the broadcasting of Senate proceedings. You will recall that this committee was called upon to approve in principle the installation of cameras and other equipment in the Senate Chamber and in at least four committee rooms so that the proceedings of the Senate Chamber and Senate committees can be broadcast.
[Translation]
A number of witnesses have appeared before the committee on this matter, including Senator Segal, who sponsored the motion that gave rise to our study, as well as Senator Banks. We also heard from CPAC officials, including Colette Watson, President and General Manager, and Ken Stein, Chairman, Board of Directors, as well as Martha Fusca, Founder, President and CEO of Stornoway Communications.
The Library of Parliament also gave a presentation on the experience of other upper houses with respect to broadcasting their proceedings.
[English]
Today we will hear from Mr. Blair Armitage, Principal Clerk, Communications and former Principal Clerk responsible for broadcasting. Mr. Armitage will brief the committee on the current infrastructure for broadcasting, costs associated with the installation of cameras in the Senate Chamber, and other issues related to broadcasting.
Senator Furey, do you have a question?
Senator Furey: Before we hear our witness, I would ask for clarification on an issue raised by Senator Cools at the last meeting. She indicated that witnesses who come before this committee require the unanimous consent of the committee.
Senator Cools: I said that staff — strangers — to speak on the record require the unanimous agreement of the committee. There is much precedence about the rule of strangers.
Senator Furey: I looked at that, and the only rule I can see that pertains to the conduct of the committee is a majority vote. Perhaps Senator Cools could enlighten the committee as to where this practice or rule is with respect to unanimous consent. If it is so, then perhaps we need to change our practice, Mr. Chair.
Senator Cools: The committee should look at this and have a debate on the entire matter. I have no doubt that in previous years when staff wished to speak on the record the chair would ask for the agreement of every member. I have no doubt about how it was in the past. In the past, it was not habitual for staff to speak on the record in committees, as happens now not only in this committee but in others as well.
I would be quite prepared to have a debate on this. Had you given me notice, Senator Furey, I would have come prepared. It is my understanding of the process that members of Parliament are supposed to exist in a brotherhood whereby their privileges and powers and ability to speak in these processes are jealously held. It relates to a whole long history of the jealous holding of these. I understand that these principles might not mean much to many, but they do mean something to some. Senator Furey's approach is a little odd, because the onus is on those who change the practice to prove that they can change the practice, rather than on those who object to the practice being changed. That is my understanding.
Senator Furey: My approach is to determine the proper way to do it. My experience as a former chair of committees and a member of committees is that that practice was not followed. Rule 96(1) was usually followed. In fairness to Senator Cools, perhaps at the next meeting we could have 15 or 20 minutes set aside to have a discussion on this. If that is the way it should be done, then let us do it that way.
Senator Cools: That is a different question. It is common now to find that systems which have been in place for many years are suddenly unknown and unclear to many. That is a different matter from staff appearing as witnesses. That is a matter we have to discuss and debate.
The Chair: Senator Smith would like to make an intervention; then I will conclude the matter so that we may hear from our witness.
Senator Smith: I do not mind having a discussion at a future meeting on whether there is a rule regarding this, but I do not think we need to spend any time on it today. We do not need to have unanimous consent because this committee already asked the clerk to do this report and report back to the committee. In this particular case, it is fine.
Senator Cools: We still need the agreement of the committee members. It is easy to get agreement if it is asked for.
The Chair: We cannot have three people talking at once. Senator Smith, you have the floor.
Senator Smith: When the committee asked him to do the report and report back to the committee, that implied the consent of the committee.
Senator Cools: I am thinking we should have a real debate on it.
The Chair: Senator Furey has suggested a real debate. I thank Senator Furey for raising this, because the committee should look at the issue and have a debate on it. I will take it up with the steering committee. We will choose an appropriate date and time to do that.
Rule 90 deals with the exercise of the power to invite witnesses and call for persons does not require leave. Senator Furey, you are quite right in saying that decisions are by a majority decision of a committee as rule 96(1) sets out, and you just cited the rule.
I will take this matter up with the steering committee. We will pick a time and place and prepare some briefing notes. This committee can discuss it in full. It might well be that there should be a change in the existing rule, if that is required. I do not know. Thank you for raising the matter.
Honourable senators, I would like to turn the floor over to Mr. Armitage. I know that Mr. Armitage's preliminary comments are quite all-embracing, and it is important that we hear all he has to say. If we run out of time, perhaps we would even want to extend further questions to another period. However, it is important that he gives us the background notes, which are things we should all hear.
With that background, Mr. Armitage, you have the floor.
Senator Fraser: Did we get the background notes, chair?
The Chair: No.
Senator Cools: Perhaps, Mr. Chair, if the committee had asked for a report, whatever the witness is putting before us could have been distributed to members of the committee.
The Chair: I talked to the witness about what he was going to say.
Senator Cools: A few minutes ago, the point was made —
The Chair: Mr. Armitage, you have the floor; please proceed.
Senator Cools: — in a very good position. As a matter of fact, there should be no dispute whatsoever —
The Chair: Please proceed.
Senator Cools: It is not our greatest moment.
[Translation]
Blair Armitage, Principal Clerk, Communications, Senate of Canada: Honourable senators, as the chair mentioned, I was asked by the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure if, as the former principal clerk responsible for broadcasting, l could give you a briefing on our current organizational and physical infrastructure for televising committees; on the costs and considerations that would be associated with installing television cameras in the Senate Chamber; what it would cost to staff the operation; and to address some of the so-called futurist suggestions that have been raised.
I am joined today by my colleague, Hélène Bouchard, Director of the Information Services Directorate. Hélène is responsible for the technical infrastructure for televising committees and for the maintenance of the equipment. In addition, she is responsible for the information management program in the Senate and is very familiar with developments in that area, which we will touch upon in the third and final part of my presentation.
[English]
In 1997, a pilot project was initiated by Internal Economy to see how televising committees would work. A director was contracted from the House of Commons, and a second standby crew from the private sector was also sometimes used.
After a period of adjustment, and a decision by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission, CRTC, CPAC went from an ad hoc approach to accommodating the Senate's desire to have some of its committee proceedings televised to being obliged to come to a formal agreement with the Senate. After negotiations with Internal Economy, a 20-hour, fixed schedule was agreed upon and signed between the two parties in April 2004.
At the same time, Internal Economy committed to televising committee proceedings by agreeing to the creation of a directorate, of which I was the first principal clerk, and to a formal understanding with the House of Commons to contract out the provision of personnel necessary. That agreement has since been amended twice to increase the capacity to cover Senate committees so that today we are able to produce three committees simultaneously for each time slot in which committees normally sit.
At this service level, we calculate that in an average sitting week there are about 48 hours of potential committee proceedings that may be televised. We do not, for the purposes of our recording, count meetings of Internal Economy, Rules or Conflict in these hours since they typically do not televise, although Rules does from time to time.
Of those hours, typically 80 per cent, or about 38 hours a week, are meetings that we consider to be appropriate for televising. To come to that number, we subtract in-camera meetings, travelling committee meetings and otherwise administrative meetings. As a rule of thumb, public meetings with witnesses and some clause-by-clause consideration of bills are considered capable of being recorded and televised.
We recognize that some meetings — clause-by-clause consideration of some bills, for example — would not make for scintillating television as they go by quickly and not much of substance is discussed. However, these parameters give us a useful base for evaluating our activity levels and for giving feedback to senators and the management of the committees' directorate.
Based on these assumptions, we calculate that committees are using our current capacity at a 74 per cent level. We produce up to 20 hours of committee proceedings each week; and in an average year, uninterrupted by long prorogations or elections, 560 hours of committee proceedings are typically produced.
Given that our agreement with CPAC provides for up to 1,040 hours in a given year of available time slots, we have a gross capacity to fill about 50 per cent of that time with original programming. However, because committee proceedings are not uniform in length, we end up losing available time within a time slot. CPAC fills in the odd bits of time as best they can with their own filler productions.
Due to limitations in personnel, the Senate is not currently capable of creating filler productions — or wraparound productions, which you heard discussed earlier — although interviews with committee chairs and deputy chairs, for example, would be a good way to assist committees in promoting their work and helping viewers understand the approaches being taken by the given committees.
[Translation]
In anticipation of a question I am sure has occurred to you, CPAC exercises little to no subjective judgment in deciding when to play original proceedings or in deciding which proceedings get replayed. It was judged that this would prejudice against committees whose work is perceived to be less newsworthy but deserves to be shared with Canadians nonetheless.
[English]
CPAC has testified that they would be willing to play this role of editorial or subjective selection, but to date I have not detected any sense of consensus among senators that they would prefer to have that over the status quo.
The status quo, however, is not necessarily more equitable. In the absence of subjective decision making, CPAC follows a protocol whereby they endeavour to broadcast original productions as soon as possible after the original meeting date. The ability to do so is sometimes hampered by the length of the committee meeting. Some committees are delayed if they are overly long and may not get as much replay as others. Our records show that committees that are close to 60 minutes, 90 minutes and 160 minutes get replayed as often as seven times, whereas committees that are three hours long rarely get replayed.
As an aside, one of the strategies that we have employed for committees that have long time slots — special committees, for example, and the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, which had a period where it was having afternoon-long hearings — is that we would ask them to break their committee down by witness. Therefore, even though it was one meeting, it would be considered three shows if we had three sets of witnesses, and that would allow CPAC to rebroadcast the material.
When I was given responsibility for televising committee proceedings, I was faced with a few challenges: no mandate, no guiding principles and a relatively limited capacity. I think we have addressed all three.
In the case of guiding principles, you have before you a document called "Senate Broadcasting Service," which includes our mission and our mandate. It is a larger document in this form. I apologize; it has not been distributed yet. It has our mandate, some guiding principles and some authorities articulated that gave us a certain amount of comfort in the way we structure our committee meetings.
In the case of guiding principles, I am very proud of the product that we produce. Our senior director, David Turriff, was hired through the House of Commons agreement we have specifically for the needs of the Senate. He came to us from a 20-year career directing news and political panels for the CBC.
At the urging of certain senators who were advocates of televising our committees, and after having the guiding principles approved, Mr. Turriff established a camera selection plan he modified from shooting political panels. The plan incorporates wide-angle or establishing shots, coupled with shots that show not only the person speaking but also senators and witnesses as they listen to the person speaking — in other words, reaction shots as they take notes or otherwise participate in the proceedings.
The freedom with which Mr. Turriff makes these selections is situational. In a committee where it is clear that there is a general consensus and collegiality, he employs a far greater degree of freedom, lingering on shots that reveal the degree to which senators are enjoying the witnesses' testimony or the interplay that is often a feature of Senate committee proceedings.
However, this being a political environment, there are times when there is no clear consensus, approach from a committee or even agreement among committee members about the work being conducted. In times when there are differences of opinion, Mr. Turriff and his colleagues use a more cautious approach. They limit reaction shots and focus on the person speaking. However, the objective in both cases is the same: to make the viewers at home feel like they are in the room and to give them a greater sense of how the process works.
The Chair: Mr. Armitage, could you stop you there, please? We now have a document that we have seen for the first time, entitled "Senate Broadcasting Service." Who prepared this? Has it gone to the Senate or is this administrative?
Mr. Armitage: This is a document I prepared early in my mandate. It was passed by the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. This is the formal structure that was approved by Internal Economy for the way the Senate broadcast service conducts its business.
The Chair: It outlines the mandate, guiding principles and authorities.
Mr. Armitage: That is correct.
Senator Cools: Is the date on the bottom of the document when it was approved?
Mr. Armitage: That is the printing date. It was approved in 2005 or 2006.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Cools: Do you remember the date that it was before the committee?
Mr. Armitage: No, I do not. I can certainly get that information for you. It should have been printed on the document.
With respect to this loose camera plan that we have allowed compared to other jurisdictions, I am pleased to note that we have not had a single complaint. If there is a perception of partisanship being employed by the camera operators or inappropriate shots being employed, the whips are to be involved. They are to come to the principal clerk to raise any issues. I know from experience that this is a regular feature in the House of Commons. The director of broadcasting receives input frequently from that perspective. We have not had a single case in the Senate where there has been a perception that our camera operators have favoured one point of view in some way or done anything to imply that one side of the debate is getting an advantage over the other. We are very pleased with that.
When CPAC appeared before the committee, they referred to the use of electronic text to assist the viewer. The purpose of this is to gain a greater sense of the context for the work of the committee, what it is studying and why the current witness is of value to that study. It reveals their credentials and responsibilities to a degree far more detailed than merely listing their title.
The small booklet that you have before you was prepared and approved by the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. On pages 26 and 27 in both English and French versions, you will see an example using Arthur Kroeger before and after this was implemented. Mr. Kroeger was a frequent witness before Senate committees. After he retired, the procedural way of listing his appearance was "as an individual" because he was not representing any particular institution. That is perfectly appropriate for our official parliamentary documents and notifications. However, from the standpoint of a viewer at home, who is Arthur Kroeger? The average Canadian does not know who he is. The example tells you in a couple of lines why he might be relevant to a study.
This facility has been built into the software that we have developed in-house through Ms. Bouchard's office with the help of a colleague of mine, Denine Martin. Committee clerks can simply input this information. It is made available to the directors who can incorporate it into these electronic text boxes.
Committee clerks are understandably cautious about this because there can be political implications. However, they are encouraged to work with their steering committees to ensure a proper vetting process and agreement on the content of those boxes. The information provided can talk not only about the witness but also about the work that the committee has been doing and what it will be doing and communicate that to the viewing public.
[Translation]
Before getting to the technical infrastructure information and proceeding to the costs of introducing television to the Senate Chamber, I would like to publicly address a question that is often asked in moments of stress or confusion but is rarely followed up on afterwards: how do committees request television, and how is it decided that one committee will not be televised in favour of three others, since we can only televise a maximum of three in a four-committee time slot.
[English]
In general, during their organizational meeting, most committees delegate to either their chair or their steering committee the responsibility for deciding when a study or particular witness should be televised. They make their views known to their clerks, who include a request for television in their preparations for upcoming meetings. We have developed this in-house software application to permit clerks to include any relevant information as preparations develop. When an apparent conflict arises, it allows the two whips to see immediately the committees involved, what they are studying and who the witnesses are.
The whips have an agreed set of criteria that govern most, but not all, cases. Ministers or VIP witnesses get top priority. "VIP" is a somewhat vague and flexible term, but there is a floor to what they would consider a VIP. For example, it would be an ambassador or very high-profile individual with very tight scheduling constraints. Political discretion is exercised on this element.
In decreasing order of priority are continuing orders of reference over one-off or early exploratory meetings on a reference; first-come, first-served with witnesses identified; willingness to accept the room assigned; past attendance or projected attendance of the committee; overall willingness to provide added-value information and to cooperate in the production quality of the proceedings; and fair distribution of opportunity, all other considerations being equal. Those were agreed by the whips at the time and have continued to be agreed upon as whips change over the years.
Senator Cools: Staff seems to know about these agreements, but how would senators know what the whips have agreed to?
Mr. Armitage: If I am not mistaken, in the past, whips have raised this in caucus at the beginning of new parliaments. This is to remind caucus of the criteria they are employing in agreeing to which committees are displayed. It occurs not immediately into a new session, but after a meeting with the person in my former position, Ms. Bouchard. The meeting is to discuss with the two whips past practice and ask them what they would like to do going forward.
Senator Cools: You are saying the whips' agreement is largely an informal one. You believe they raise it in their caucus.
Mr. Armitage: It is talked about in the meeting and generally understood that this is the practice.
Senator Cools: Thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Armitage: The Senate has two purpose-built committee rooms for television, rooms 2 and 9 in the Victoria Building. Their equipment is state of the art and can be operated by a director, a camera technician and an operator.
[English]
We have two adapted committee rooms — 160-S, Centre Block, and 257, East Block — that are now capable of being operated by the same number of personnel. However, the cameras are limited to four instead of six and they are mounted on tripods. They are capable of being operated remotely, and this allows the reduced number of personnel overall. These rooms have been upgraded from using individually operated cameras and by improving the lighting. This has been accomplished by making use of reallocated funds during the course of the fiscal year and by having a ready list of equipment and renovation requests.
As of today, the Senate has invested a total of close to $5.5 million in equipment and renovations to support its broadcasting services. This includes forecasted amounts and the reallocated amounts. Some equipment upgrades and a proper control room for room 160-S that meets Parliament Hill occupational health and safety standards are still in the plans.
Our agreement with the House of Commons is in the amount of $325,000 annually and covers four full-time personnel: a senior director, two associate directors and a technician. The remaining personnel are called up on an as- needed basis for camera operation and character generation work, the electronic text boxes that appear all the time.
As indicated earlier, this amount allows us to televise up to three committees at the same time. It is estimated a fourth crew would cost up to $100,000 if used to capacity. However, our current statistics indicate there are basically three problematic time slots: Tuesday and Wednesday evenings when the Senate rises and the late Thursday morning time block. When we have special committees, which typically sit on Mondays, it also creates a fourth time slot where conflicts can arise. I think Senator Smith will recall this with regards to the Special Senate Committee on Anti- terrorism.
I want to thank you for indulging me in that lengthy talk about committee broadcasting, because I know that is not the core of what you are doing. However, I hope it gives you a flavour of how the administration has responded to the mandate to televise your committees and the way we have tried to grow our capacity and refine our techniques.
I will turn now to the specific matter of infrastructure costs and ongoing operational costs that might be involved in televising the Senate Chamber. In 2004, Ms. Bouchard received permission from the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration to present a request to the Building Components and Connectivity Program, or BCC, to proceed with the modernization of the technological infrastructure for the Senate Chamber, room 160-S and adjacent facilities.
The BCC was created to provide an administrative structure within which the stakeholders — the Senate, House of Commons, Library of Parliament and Public Works — would cooperate in the implementation of the BCC program in order to have a campus-wide approach for all accommodation and information technology projects in the context of the long-term renovation and construction plan in the Parliamentary Precinct.
That proposal was made to the BCC, but, unfortunately, it was not acted upon, having failed to meet the criteria of successive ministers of Public Works. Nonetheless, the Class D estimates that were included in that proposal are still relevant today.
Senator Cools: Mr. Armitage is using acronyms unknown to me. What is BCC? Perhaps it is the first time you mentioned it.
Mr. Armitage: Maybe I skipped over it. I thought I had mentioned it. It is the Building Components and Connectivity Program.
Senator Cools: What is that, pray tell?
Mr. Armitage: It is an administrative structure within the partners on the Hill that would cooperate in the implementation of the program. Those partners are the Senate, the House of Commons and the Library of Parliament.
Senator Cools: Is that a committee of members or is it a committee of others?
Mr. Armitage: It is an institutional committee; it is a bureaucracy.
Senator Cools: I have got it.
Mr. Armitage: The proposal produced and presented to that program eventually goes up to the minister of Public Works. For whatever reason, I am sure they were legitimate —
Senator Cools: Not to belabour the point or to delay the proceedings, but, perhaps, Mr. Chair, sometime we should have a look at these relationships. Apparently it is quite an enormous task on occasion to be able to decipher where Public Works prevails and where the houses prevail. There is a fair amount of complacency that we indulge and believe that everything is looked after, and it is. However, sometimes you would be amazed at the number of difficulties that I encounter on the way. At some point, we should look at some of those relationships, as they are very complex.
The Chair: For now, I would like Mr. Armitage to finish his presentation, because we have 35 minutes before the bells ring for the Senate. Mr. Armitage, could you summarize the balance? You are coming to the meat of what you are about to say, as you have already indicated. However, if you could get on with that, I know honourable senators have a number of questions they would like to put to you.
Mr. Armitage: If I understand correctly, the BCC is part of the long-term vision and plan, or structure, for the Senate. Senator Furey is probably very familiar with it.
Senator Cools: Some of us are members of few committees and some of us want to know.
Senator Joyal: I would like to speak on a point of order. Mr. Chair, I thought we had a procedure in this committee: A witness comes here with testimony, we hear the testimony, we note the questions we have along the road and, when the witness has finished, you recognize us and give us the opportunity to ask as many questions as time affords.
With the greatest respect to Senator Cools, she has interrupted the witness four times. Maybe we have changed our procedure. Perhaps now it is our procedure to interrupt the witness anytime we have a question in mind.
I have written five questions to the witness that I want to ask. I did not interrupt the witness. I hope that, unless we agree to change the procedure, we will let the witness testify and, after that, we will signal to you that we want to ask questions. That is what I understand, unless you indicate to me that you have changed the procedure.
The Chair: The procedure has not been changed. I appreciate your raising the issue, and I would now call upon Mr. Armitage to please continue with his presentation so we can open the floor for questions from honourable senators.
Mr. Armitage: We believe the Class D estimates that were prepared for the original proposal a few years ago are still relevant today for the purposes of having a general understanding of what it would cost to equip the chamber and to build a control room. Accounting for inflation in certain areas and for declining costs in other areas — and I believe those have been discussed by certain senators in the past few meetings with respect to camera equipment — it is estimated that this project will cost a total of $2 million.
However, the same caveats exist now that existed at that time: engineering reports would have to be conducted to assess the architectural impact the project would have on the structural integrity on the floor of the Senate Chamber; heritage considerations raised by the inclusion of FHBRO, the Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office, may give rise to unexpected expenditures; and a space for the control room would have to be confirmed. Additionally, the special uses to which the Senate Chamber is put, such as openings of Parliament, investitures of Governors General, Royal Assent, and special ceremonies such as the one recently hosted by the Speaker for Remembrance Week, would have to be a assessed from the point of view of camera planning, lighting and sound. These needs are unique from those of the House of Commons, and its camera plan cannot simply be adapted to the Senate.
A crew capable of covering the average sitting week of the Senate and simple packaging of certain elements of the proceedings, such as Question Period and debate on certain bills, as has been discussed, would, by itself, cost approximately $100,000 a year. They might also be used at minimal extra cost to cover some committee proceedings not currently being covered. This amount would also mean that another full-time resource would be available to the Senate and that original productions could then be contemplated.
Until we know more about the answers to some of the questions that Senators Oliver and Smith have been raising, such as the objectives of televising and how innovative senators wish to be on the production side, it would be difficult to speculate how much more it would cost in annual operations. We would be pleased to do some cost analysis once concrete concepts have been advanced for consideration.
This leads me to the so-called futurist issues that have been raised and the implications for operating costs and infrastructure they might have.
First and foremost is webcasting. The witnesses you have had so far have made a fundamentally similar point: Television is not the only distribution medium available anymore. When we entered into the agreement with CPAC, webcasting existed, but most people at home did not have the access to bandwidth or the desktop equipment that made it feasible as a mainstream delivery option. Clearly that has changed. My own kids, the teenagers especially, use their laptops as their primary vehicle for watching most of their favourite television shows.
The Senate has been making the live audio webcast of its committee proceedings available since 2001, and has done so for the video webcast since 2003. In 2006, the audio and video webcasts of its committee proceedings were made available through an integrated application on the Parliament of Canada website called ParlVU. ParlVU was implemented to facilitate the management of live and on-demand webcasting of its proceedings and to provide the general public an identical webcast environment for the two houses.
Since June 2006, we have been working with Information Services Directorate to implement a video on-demand of committee proceedings, taking advantage of the existing ParlVU platform. The video on demand will be available to parliamentary users in January and to all Canadians once all issues have been identified and resolved through meetings with Internal Economy. The House of Commons has been providing video on demand to the general public since 2007.
In the meantime, Internal authorized a service we provide that allows individuals to request copies of committee proceedings on DVD. Requests for the service have gone from 50 per year to a peak of over 350 per year. Senators are often our prime clients in getting copies of these DVDs to interested parties. Witnesses who appear before us look for copies as well, as do stakeholders following the proceedings.
Linked to this idea of video on demand is a concept that has been raised generally by senators and witnesses alike — linking video to text and tagging video packages according to subject matter and type of proceedings. Senator Nolin referred to PRISM, an application developed by the House of Commons and which the Senate administration, with the approval of Internal Economy, has been exploring for use by the Senate.
PRISM is a comprehensive application for capturing all sorts of information produced by the parliamentary process, adding identifying tags for retrieval later on and for the storing of information in such a manner it is reliably archived and easily used for other purposes. It is also a means for making the publication of the Debates, Journals and Order Paper more efficient and for committee clerks to prepare for committee meetings.
Of particular interest to your study here, PRISM would allow the possibility of having debates and other proceedings in the chamber properly tagged so they could be retrieved in either text or video format. A citizen, parliamentarian or parliamentary staffer could easily call up all debate on a given bill, no matter when it was debated. Depending on what you decide as senators, they could call up debate according to parliamentarian, party, first language, geographical region of representation, however you wanted to identify it. If, while reading a particular passage, a reader was not sure about the intended meaning of the person speaking, they could link to the related video and audio to see if there was a degree of sarcasm, humour or indignation that would help place the remarks in context.
This degree of integration of text and video has not yet been activated by the House of Commons. In previous meetings, the point has already been made that it is only recently that storage space has reached a degree of size and cost that would make it feasible. However, because it has PRISM, the House of Commons has the capacity to do so sometime in the future, if they so wish. Without PRISM, the Senate would have to rely on a process that is highly selective in what is chosen for individual availability, which is time-consuming and personnel-heavy to produce.
E-consultation and interactivity was raised. That term has been used in parliamentary circles for several years now. The House of Commons has had a few pilot projects that have had varying results. In the Senate, a notable experiment was conducted by the Social Affairs Committee under Senators Kirby and LeBreton on their mental health study. Anecdotally, these experiences have yielded some positive results but come with heavy price tags and laborious work processes, particularly because of the inherent nature of our bilingual parliament. It would be worthwhile to explore these particular exercises at some point to see how they might be adapted to the needs of the Senate generally and, in particular, to televising committees in the chamber.
Ms. Fusca's ideas for interactivity sound interesting from many perspectives and are definitely innovative. It would take careful exploration to determine what kind of equipment would be involved, how much the on-air personalities and extra equipment would cost and how it could be adapted to the Senate's proceedings.
A number of other technological possibilities have been raised. The Senate administration has been, to date, innovative and cost-effective in what it has achieved, although it has been cautious in ensuring it does not overstep the readiness of senators themselves to accommodate those innovations. However, the continued ability of the staff to absorb new duties and functions is strained, and all proposals will have to be assessed in terms of development, implementation and ongoing operational costs.
[Translation]
I think I have touched on the main points of the mandate I received for my appearance. I would be pleased to try to answer, with the assistance of my colleagues, any questions you might have.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you for an excellent presentation. Did you want to add anything, Ms. Bouchard, before I open it up for questions?
Hélène Bouchard, Director, Information Services: No, that is fine.
The Chair: Before I turn to Senator Smith, I want to ask you one quick question. As I understood your testimony today, with committees we are taking up only 74 per cent of our capacity with CPAC. You said that, on average, we use about 560 hours a year but our total capacity could be 1,040. Did I understand that correctly?
Mr. Armitage: Thank you for asking for that clarification. We are using all the hours available to us in a year with reruns. I think there is some value to the reruns. For instance, if we were televising today and went for an hour, they would broadcast for the first time our meeting, just as they would everyone else who met this week. Then going forward during weeks when the Senate does not sit and they still have to fill our time slots, CPAC would go back into its inventory and look for committee meetings that fit the time blocks that they have to fill and replay them. That is what I was trying to get at about equitability not necessarily being balanced. Committees that adhere to certain time frames, and they are mentioned — here is my plug for my book — in the Senators' Reference Guide to Televised Committee Meetings, we talk about the importance of the length of time. That is the real determining factor that CPAC currently employs for replay. If you value the reruns that you get for your committee, adhering to the time frames is very important. Certain chairs have figured that out.
Senator Smith: Earlier in your report, when you referred to the $325,000 annually, which included the four full-time personnel, you referred to this $5.5 million figure, but I was not clear what all was included. Is that the total of the expenditure so far?
Mr. Armitage: The $5.5-million is infrastructure spending. In the time since we created room 2 and room 9 —
Senator Smith: Infrastructure spending that has already been spent?
Mr. Armitage: That is correct. That would also include, I imagine, ongoing maintenance and equipment replacement as well as upgrades to this room and room 257 East Block.
Senator Smith: Then when you talk about $2 million and you are talking about the cost for equipping the chamber, for that $2 million, we go from three to four committee rooms plus the chamber, regardless of how much we are using it. In other words, it would be installed on a permanent basis with the appropriate control room. Is that correct?
Mr. Armitage: That is correct. The $2 million is solely for the Senate Chamber and a control room necessary to operate the equipment in there. It is the wiring, the cameras, the infrastructure, such as the channeling of cabling and that kind of thing, that would have to take place.
Senator Smith: You then got into the video on demand that will be available in January, from the Commons presumably, but this is for people with laptops and whatever who are already —
Mr. Armitage: That is correct. The video on demand is still our product, a Senate product, and we organize it and control it. We share a delivery location with the House of Commons; there is just a technical difference. It is for people with laptop computer connections who would then have an advantage over any Canadian who is relying solely on CPAC for access to committee proceedings. They would have access to anything they wanted at any time they wanted it.
Senator Smith: I have one last question. I do not want to take up too much time, but we will have to go back to some of these fundamental questions. You mentioned how your kids are very adapted to all this stuff. Maybe young people are able to do it, but my sense is that, to the extent there is an audience out there, it is older people with time who are probably more apt to be watching CPAC. I found the presentation we had from the ichannel intriguing but, as I understand it, their audience is only about 15 per cent of what CPAC's is.
The Chair: CPAC has been diminishing.
Senator Smith: My hunch is that in the near future you want to maximize the ability of people who are apt to watch the programming coming from the Senate. Whether we like it, in the near future we will likely have more viewers by far on CPAC than on the web or on ichannel. Do you have a reaction to that?
Mr. Armitage: The retrieval of the information on the number of hits to ParlVU was not as easy as we had hoped, so we do not have firm figures on that.
Senator Smith: Many of those hits are from parliamentarians, are they not?
Mr. Armitage: I am not sure whether we can break it down. I am still exploring that angle.
Webcasting and on-demand video is not a solution by itself. It simply shows how the availability of our product is growing outside the narrow bounds of relying on television broadcasters. Television broadcasters will still be a core part of how the Senate wants to get its product out to Canadians. As you say, not everyone has the bandwidth or the technological interest to watch this kind of thing on computer.
Senator Joyal: I want to come back to the first question raised by the chair. If I understand well, the Senate does not have the capacity to broadcast all meetings of the committees on a weekly basis, during the weeks we are sitting, of course.
Mr. Armitage: That is correct.
Senator Joyal: What at minimum would we have to do to ensure that we have such capacity? I understand that we must equip another committee room and add one person year in terms of additional cost on a permanent basis once we have paid for the infrastructure, which is a one-shot deal with the Senate Chamber. What would we have to do to be able to say to all colleagues in the Senate that they will see their committee proceedings broadcast?
Mr. Armitage: We are not using our current capacity at 100 per cent. Committees that could be televised are not asking us to televise. That could be addressed. Why do some committees not want to be televised? We are at a 75 per cent take-up rate for the available committee crews. To be able to broadcast four committees simultaneously, given that we have four or five time slots occupied by four committees other than Internal, Rules or Conflict of Interest, to hire another associate director full time, which we would have to do, and the appropriate call-up personnel, the ballpark figure I was given is around $100,000. That compares with hiring a crew to televise the committee for its current average sitting pattern.
If we went to televising the Senate and hired that fourth crew, they potentially could cover off the three problematic time slots, which I mentioned earlier, on Wednesday when the Senate rises, Tuesday when the Senate rises and late Thursday morning before lunch. Those are the time slots where we consistently have to choose one committee over another and disappoint a committee and give the whips heartburn.
Senator Joyal: It means that we still have some room to manoeuvre with CPAC in terms of filling content. I do not mind if committees are rebroadcast up to seven times, but, in my opinion, the preference should be given to broadcasting all committees to provide a variety of subject matter and points of view.
Mr. Armitage: All committees that are taped for CPAC are televised by CPAC at minimum one time. It is simply a question of who gets replayed later. You are right in saying that we have room to grow the amount of product that we produce and have it aired.
Senator Joyal: In your past experience, why would a committee choose not to have its proceedings broadcast? If we were to adopt a rule to say that all committees would be broadcast, except Rules and Conflict of Interest and Internal Economy, then each committee would be obliged to adjust to broadcasting. In your opinion, why have some chairs or committees decided not to be broadcast?
Mr. Armitage: The one concrete objection I have heard is that chairs who have an ongoing order of reference, especially the ones in those three contested time slots, do not like the idea that some of their proceedings will be broadcast and not all, and the ones not broadcast will be somewhat ad hoc. They think it is a disservice or unequal treatment to the witnesses who appear on a day when the committee is not chosen for broadcast. That is the one concrete example I have heard expressed as a reason for not asking for television coverage at all.
Other than that, it would be speculative for me to try to figure out why a chair or committee chooses not to ask for those services. I have heard no other explanation.
Senator Joyal: You said that it would cost $100,000 per year. If we were to include the broadcast of Senate proceedings, we would have to invest about $3 million in infrastructure in the Senate and, of course, add the annual operating cost.
Mr. Armitage: It would be $2 million for the chamber and a control room. I am not sure how much it would cost for this room, for example. We are using four cameras in here on tripods. Ideally we would have six cameras on the walls. Based on my recollection of this past estimate, for this room and for room 257 East Block, it would cost about another $1 million. I can see Senator Furey getting indigestion already.
Senator Joyal: We might want to put that information in our report. Perhaps we could ask the witness to revisit his figures to ensure that we have the right numbers when we are in a position to report. As Senator Smith and other senators will recall, when we discussed the use of Aboriginal languages in the chamber, the first question was, "How much?" It would be an essential element to add to our information.
Senator Fraser: I have two questions and a short comment in response to Senator Joyal's last question.
I am one of those presumably Luddite chairs who have not preferred to be televised. I have been dragged kicking and screaming to acceptance of television on a regular basis. Even in committee, I see that the presence of the cameras has an impact on the way senators behave. Not long ago during one session that we thought was being televised, we discovered that because of a mistake I had made we were not being televised. When I announced that we were not being televised, senators' behavior changed. They stopped making speeches. It was interesting. This is not a partisan comment but just for the information of senators.
The Chair: On that point, may I ask another question? Does it matter what committee you are chairing? Would it make a difference which committee you were chairing, for example Transport and Communications or Legal, as to whether you would want to be televised?
Senator Fraser: The topic under study would be more important. In the past, before I was dragged kicking and screaming to my acceptance of it at all times, I used to try to make a judgment with the steering committee about which subjects, bills or witnesses would be most interesting to the public. Some bills, as you know, are inherently more interesting than others. Copyright legislation might be less interesting than some of the crime bills, for example. I do not think it is easy to make a hard and fast sweeping generalization on that question.
My Luddite qualities are showing. Would the installation of infrastructure in the chamber be any different if we were aiming at television only or at webcasting only, or would it be the same? I should say, web archiving.
Mr. Armitage: I think we would employ the same equipment. If we were aiming only at web diffusion, we might degrade the signal going out to a degree to allow it to take up less bandwidth and less processer time at the other end.
Senator Fraser: That is marginal.
Mr. Armitage: Yes.
Senator Fraser: Second, how do I find ParlVU and PRISM?
Mr. Armitage: If you are on your committee website or another committee website and want to see the proceedings, you can click on it, and it will take you directly to ParlVU. If I am not mistaken, ParlVU is also featured on some of the front splash pages about Parliament and so forth.
It sounds like I have a communications issue to deal with here.
Senator Fraser: I have not gone back to the Senate site for quite a while now because I have ended up finding it so frustrating — being filtered through a site that was designed for the House of Commons and that does not give me most anything I want, if I want to go to a Senate website — so I stopped doing it. Have we contemplated the first elementary step of having our own site?
Mr. Armitage: Well, yes, and thank you for asking. The concept of the entire shared parliamentary site has been the focus of some discussion at an administration level amongst the three institutions for the last year. We have been working closely with the house and the library to come up with a way to present your core business, legislative information, in a more coherent and useful fashion, and it is taking time because it is reworking the way we do things and relationships with the other houses, and money. We hope to have a prototype out to start demonstrating to other people for approval in the not-too-distant future.
The question of a Senate-alone website will have to be a part of the consideration going forward on any comprehensive communications strategy. Again, among the three institutions in this working group, the parliamentary information management committee, there is the experience in the United Kingdom, where they have spent quite a bit of money rebooting their entire website to be a collaborative platform where the two individual houses can highlight what they want to highlight but where outsiders can come in and understand where they are and go to the right place. It cost a lot of money. Again, I am not going to be Senator Furey's best friend in the next couple of years. The solution for everything is more money.
Senator Fraser: Stand-alone would be vital if we want to do this properly.
The Chair: Honourable senators, we have four minutes before the Senate begins, and I have to be there and I know other senators want to be there. We have not finished with this important witness. Do I have your permission to ask this witness and Ms. Bouchard to return at our next meeting for further questions and discussions on these important matters?
Is that agreed, honourable senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Smith: Could we have the entire meeting on the whole issue of television coverage? We will then have to get into a discussion of some of the big questions. Would that be for next Tuesday?
The Chair: Yes. Is that agreed?
I have other senators on the list for today, and there is a great deal I know a number of us would like to ask.
Senator Fraser: I realize that some of the senators who were in that committee meeting I referred to are around the table, and I want them to know that I was not being personal or critical when I talked about the events at that committee — just factual.
Senator Cools: Do you think it would be possible that the next committee meeting could be in camera? Mr. Armitage is a very devoted staff member here and has worked on many large issues for many years. If we were in camera, we would be able to deal more in depth with details without being worried about what other people would be looking at. Perhaps we could contemplate that.
The Chair: I will take that matter up with the steering committee and get their views. I am asking Mr. Armitage and Ms. Bouchard to come to our next meeting next Tuesday for a continuation of this.
One other thing: Senator Joyal made an intervention today about how this committee proceeds, and we checked the rules and rule 96(6) says that the normal way Senate committees have proceeded here for many years is that if someone wishes to make a comment or ask a question, they shall first address the chair. That is the way this committee has traditionally been done.
Honourable senators, this meeting is now adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)