Senator Miville-Dechêne: Of course.

[English]

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: We always hear that a leaders’ debate before an election is good for democracy.

I do not think that this has ever been proven, however. These last few years, we have often heard the opposite: that leaders’ debates are hard to watch and can discourage or even demoralize voters.

The impact of leaders’ debates on voters’ choices has been a subject of debate among political scientists and experts for a long time, essentially because the actual impact of these debates is very difficult to quantify.

André Blais, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Montreal, believes that leaders’ debates give voters a unique opportunity to compare each leader’s unfiltered position on a handful of topics. He also notes that they have a tendency to favour leaders of smaller parties by allowing voters to get to know them better.

According to Christian Bourque, vice-president of the Leger polling firm, and Allison Harell, political science professor at UQAM, leaders’ debates rarely change voters’ minds; rather, they reinforce their convictions.

Mr. Bourque also notes that half of those surveyed about the debates did not even watch them and relied on media coverage.

Professor Peter Loewen from the University of Toronto argues that the importance of these debates is overstated, even though, in his view, they often are the most informative event in the whole campaign.

However, more critical observers counter that debates primarily serve the interests of political parties and television broadcasters, while ignoring voters’ wishes.

The political parties insist on selecting topics, schedules and formats that work to their advantage and let them get their talking points across without any unpleasant surprises.

The media tries to spotlight their own journalists and put on a good show, sometimes by asking pointed questions or taking a confrontational approach.

The audience doesn’t always see itself reflected in the outcome, which usually resembles a frenzy of partisan squabbling focused on issues of limited interest outside a small media and political bubble.

In any case, neither elections nor debates seem capable of slowing the spread of public disillusionment. We are witnessing a disturbing loss of public trust in democratic institutions. In the 1980s, voter turnout was a little over 70%; 40 years on, it dropped 10 points to 62.6% in the last federal election. The downward trend is unmistakable.

In my 25 years in journalism, I have analyzed, covered and fact-checked candidates during electoral debates.

I have noticed that exchanges are increasingly formatted and that party leaders spend days preparing ready-made answers that avoid the pitfalls of spontaneity. They stick to the script that their strategists believe will go viral and win them votes.

In fact, televised debates aren’t so much about presenting and explaining policy proposals as they are about evaluating politicians’ performance under pressure. Rants, gaffes and attacks make headlines. It is definitely infotainment, where substance and reflection are an afterthought.

[English]

There were attempts to bring the debates closer to citizens by adding an audience and letting a few voters ask their questions directly. But the result is a bit artificial. Everything is scripted and timed, and we are far from actual participation, where voters would have a real role to play.

Whatever one thinks, leaders’ debates have been part of Canadian political tradition since 1968. However, a crisis arose in 2015 when, for the first time, the leader of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, refused to participate in the English debate. This came as a shock in English Canada, but not so much in Quebec, where the Conservative leader agreed to participate in two debates in French.

This is where the idea of a commission was born. It was appointed by the Trudeau government with the explicit aim of preventing a repeat of the 2015 scenario, when English-speaking Canadians were deprived of a significant debate.

The part-time commissioner, appointed by the Prime Minister and supported by a small team, has only had two elections, in 2019 and 2021, to demonstrate the usefulness of the commission. So far, however, their results are not encouraging.

In the fall of 2021, members of the English media broadcasting group decided on the format: one moderator, four journalists and a few citizens filmed at home. According to several observers, however, the debate was a disaster: too many questions, not enough time to answer, too few direct exchanges between leaders, a moderator who was too rigid on time and, as a bonus, a poorly worded and accusatory question targeting Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, suggesting that Quebec Bills 21 and 96 were fundamentally racist — a question so explosive that, according to Christian Bourque, it undoubtedly helped to save the Bloc campaign.

On the French-speaking side, the debate was more successful, but with six journalists and five candidates, there were a lot of people on the stage, which limited the debates.

Under its 2021 mandate, the commission was required to give final approval to the format of the leaders’ debate. But, in the end, the commission did not get involved at all, allegedly due to lack of time. What the commission did most visibly and most successfully was to ensure translation of the debate into 16 languages.

In its report, the commission itself concluded that:

There is widespread agreement that the 2021 debates did not deliver as well as they should have on informing voters about parties’ policies.

[Translation]

Despite this fiasco and the expanded consultations, the Leaders’ Debates Commission concluded that it should be made permanent, rather than have renewable terms, and that it should have expanded powers, including the final choice of moderator. The appointment of the commissioner should also be approved by the parties and the House to avoid any appearance of partiality.

For his part, Professor André Blais believes that party leaders wouldn’t dare refuse to take part in a debate if the request came from an institutional commission.

The fact is that the media don’t always differentiate between their own visibility, their star journalists’ profile and the public interest in order to organize a debate that is as useful as possible for voters. That is why proponents of a permanent commission feel that neutral, independent experts would be in a better position than journalists to establish the rules and the format of the debate.

Personally, I’m not at all convinced that maintaining this commission is the best solution to the many ills afflicting our debates. This is not the path that most other countries have chosen. I’m also concerned that an administrative commission is not agile enough, considering that organizing debates in the midst of an election campaign demands rapid action and quick decision making.

Even if Canada opts for a permanent commission, the media will always be the broadcasters and will therefore always have a say in the structure of the event. If we add one more actor to the mix, we could end up with a slower, more complex decision‑making process.

There is still healthy competition among media outlets, and that creates the right conditions for a variety of formats without any intervention on the part of a government institution.

In Quebec, TVA decided in 2015 to organize its own leaders’ debate with a simpler format: a single host and up to four leaders, who stand face to face so they can each debate with all the others.

Lastly, we should keep in mind that the televised debates are just one among many campaign activities. Interviews with individual leaders and a wide variety of potential platforms and formats contribute to the dissemination of useful information. Television viewership among 18- to 34-year-olds is down 50%, but they account for more than one third of podcast audiences.

For all of these reasons, I don’t think that it would be useful to make the Leaders’ Debates Commission permanent.

The obvious question is what value these debates have for the health of Canadian democracy, particularly when we consider that, right now, they are designed more to promote the interests of political parties and the media than those of voters.

That being said, even if we assume these debates do have some value, there is no evidence to show that the commission has played an essential role to date. On the contrary, the debates in which the commission was involved were no less criticized than previous editions.

I personally think that media outlets are capable of making arrangements among themselves or on their own to propose debates and experiment with formats. The involvement of a public commission could overcomplicate a process that should be agile and efficient.

I will close by saying that the very real flaws in the electoral debates may diminish as platforms innovate and proliferate. The rigid, scripted and theatrical format of the debates could be complemented by intimate interviews on podcasts, informal discussions on other platforms, and meetings organized or moderated by civil society stakeholders.

In short, we must hope that Canadian democracy is served not by reinvented electoral debates overseen by a public commission, but by the many formats and discussions made possible by new platforms, where, ideally, the public will find its place. Thank you.

[English]

Hon. Donna Dasko: Will Senator Miville-Dechêne accept a question?

[Translation]