Bill C-76 (Historical)

Elections Modernization Act

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make certain consequential amendments

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to establish spending limits for third parties and political parties during a defined period before the election period of a general election held on a day fixed under that Act. It also establishes measures to increase transparency regarding the participation of third parties in the electoral process. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) adds reporting requirements for third parties engaging in partisan activities, partisan advertising, and election surveys to the reporting requirements for third parties engaging in election advertising;
(b) creates an obligation for third parties to open a separate bank account for expenses related to the matters referred to in paragraph (a); and
(c) creates an obligation for political parties and third parties to identify themselves in partisan advertising during the defined period before the election period.
The enactment also amends the Act to implement measures to reduce barriers to participation and increase accessibility. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) establishes a Register of Future Electors in which Canadian citizens 14 to 17 years of age may consent to be included;
(b) broadens the application of accommodation measures to all persons with a disability, irrespective of its nature;
(c) creates a financial incentive for registered parties and candidates to take steps to accommodate persons with a disability during an election period;
(d) amends some of the rules regarding the treatment of candidates’ expenses, including the rules related to childcare expenses, expenses related to the care of a person with a disability and litigation expenses;
(e) amends the rules regarding the treatment of nomination contestants’ and leadership contestants’ litigation expenses and personal expenses;
(f) allows Canadian Forces electors access to several methods of voting, while also adopting measures to ensure the integrity of the vote;
(g) removes limitations on public education and information activities conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer;
(h) removes two limitations on voting by non-resident electors: the requirement that they have been residing outside Canada for less than five consecutive years and the requirement that they intend to return to Canada to resume residence in the future; and
(i) extends voting hours on advance polling days.
The enactment also amends the Act to modernize voting services, facilitate enforcement and improve various aspects of the administration of elections and of political financing. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) removes the assignment of specific responsibilities set out in the Act to specific election officers by creating a generic category of election officer to whom all those responsibilities may be assigned;
(b) limits election periods to a maximum of 50 days;
(c) removes administrative barriers in order to facilitate the hiring of election officers;
(d) authorizes the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information about permanent residents and foreign nationals for the purpose of updating the Register of Electors;
(e) removes the prohibition on the Chief Electoral Officer authorizing the notice of confirmation of registration (commonly known as a “voter information card”) as identification;
(f) replaces, in the context of voter identification, the option of attestation for residence with an option of vouching for identity and residence;
(g) removes the requirement for electors’ signatures during advance polls, changes procedures for the closing of advance polls and allows for counting ballots from advance polls one hour before the regular polls close;
(h) replaces the right or obligation to take an oath with a right or obligation to make a solemn declaration, and streamlines the various declarations that electors may have the right or obligation to make under specific circumstances;
(i) relocates the Commissioner of Canada Elections to within the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, and provides that the Commissioner is to be appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, after consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions, for a non-renewable term of 10 years;
(j) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties for contraventions of provisions of Parts 16, 17 and 18 of the Act and certain other provisions of the Act;
(k) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the authority to lay charges;
(l) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the power to apply for a court order requiring testimony or a written return;
(m) clarifies offences relating to
(i) the publishing of false statements,
(ii) participation by non-Canadians in elections, including inducing electors to vote or refrain from voting, and
(iii) impersonation; and
(n) implements a number of measures to harmonize and streamline political financing monitoring and reporting.
The enactment also amends the Act to provide for certain requirements with regard to the protection of personal information for registered parties, eligible parties and political parties that are applying to become registered parties, including the obligation for the party to adopt a policy for the protection of personal information and to publish it on its Internet site.
The enactment also amends the Parliament of Canada Act to prevent the calling of a by-election when a vacancy in the House of Commons occurs within nine months before the day fixed for a general election under the Canada Elections Act.
It also amends the Public Service Employment Act to clarify that the maximum period of employment of casual workers in the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer — 165 working days in one calendar year — applies to those who are appointed by the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
Finally, the enactment contains transitional provisions, makes consequential amendments to other Acts and repeals the Special Voting Rules.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let's deal with limits, because that's what Bill C-76 deals with.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let's run that scenario under your ideal, if Bill C-76 dealt with false statements and false promises. Let's just walk through one.

The last time you both appeared we were talking about electoral reform. We were talking about a specific promise that 2015 would be the last election under first past the post.

In your ideal scenario, what would happen next if the law prevented parties from making false statements?

[Duff Conacher]

I think Bill C-76 goes further than B.C. because of this special bank account you have to set up.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Conacher, I'll start with you.

When you were before this committee—I think it was about a year or so ago now—you stated that you'd like to see disclosure for lobby groups or third party groups in their spending between elections. I'm assuming that's still your position. Given that this is not addressed in Bill C-76, do you think that this legislation should be amended to include that kind of disclosure requirement so that it's out of the writ and the pre-writ periods?

[Duff Conacher, Co-Founder, Democracy Watch]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to testify before you today.

I am testifying here in my role as co-founder of Democracy Watch, which, if you are not aware, is a citizen advocacy group. We've been working since 1993 to make Canada the world's leading democracy, pushing for changes to require everyone in politics to be honest, ethical, open, and representative, and to prevent waste. A total of 190,000 people have signed up to send a letter or petition in one or another of our campaigns from across Canada.

Today, my submission is based largely, as Mr. Gunn mentioned, on earlier submissions made to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform.

Bill C-76 makes many good changes, reversing many of the unfair changes made by the 2014 so-called Fair Elections Act, but the Democracy Watch position is that the negative effects of many of the changes in that act were exaggerated. As a result, the reversal of those changes will likely have little overall effect on what actually happens in elections. Like the 2014 Fair Elections Act, Bill C-76 unfortunately doesn't live up to its name. It's called the elections modernization act, but like the Fair Elections Act, it allows many old-fashioned, unfair, and undemocratic election practices to continue, as follows:

Number one, of course, the vote-counting system doesn't count votes in a fair way, and usually produces false majority governments. It also doesn't allow voters to vote “none of the above”—a key option that voters should have, and already have in four provinces—and it doesn't fully fix election dates, as the U.K. has, to stop unfair snap election calls.

Number two, it continues to allow the baiting of voters with false promises in ads. The Canada Elections Act prohibits inducing voters to vote for anyone by—and this is the actual wording—“any pretence or contrivance”. However, the commissioner of Canada elections refuses to apply that measure to a blatantly false promise or false statement made during an election. A clearly worded “honest promises” requirement, with significant penalties, is clearly needed. It's the number one hot-button issue for voters: even if they vote for the party that wins, they don't get what they voted for because of blatantly false promises.

While clause 61 of the bill adds some specifics to the measures in sections 91 and 92 of the Canadian Elections Act concerning false statements about candidates, the measures actually significantly narrow the range of prohibited false statements. That is a move in the wrong direction. Dishonesty in elections should be broadly defined and discouraged. It's a fundamental voter rights issue. They have the right to an honest campaign so that they know what they're voting for honestly, and misleaders, as opposed to leaders, should be discouraged with significant penalties.

Related to that, the bill does not do nearly enough to stop the new form of false claims, secret false online election ads, including by foreigners. Bill C-76 trusts social media companies to self-regulate, only holding them accountable if they “knowingly” allow a foreign ad, but not saying anything at all in terms of their knowingly or in any other way allowing a false domestic ad. Again, clause 61 narrows the definition of “false statements”, but it still would be illegal to make a false statement about a candidate.

In terms of the “knowingly” standard, the social media companies will easily be able to come up with evidence that they didn't know an ad had been placed. It's not going to be enforceable. They'll get off every time, so that doesn't discourage them from allowing secret, false, online election ads by people in the country or foreigners.

Media and social media companies should be required to report all details about every election-related ad to Elections Canada during the six months leading up to an election, so that Elections Canada can check whether the ad is false, whether it exceeds the third party spending limits, and whether it is paid for by a foreigner. All those three things are illegal, but if Elections Canada can't see those ads, which they can't because they're micro-targeted, how are they going to enforce those laws against false and foreign-sponsored ads, and ads that exceed the third party spending limits?

Don't trust the social media companies to self-regulate in this area. Require them to report every ad to Elections Canada. During those six months, empower Elections Canada to order a clearly false or illegal ad because it's foreign or exceeds the spending limits to be deleted from a media and social media site and impose significant fines on the violators.

In terms of what the bill also does not address, annual donations are still too high. Bill C-50 doesn't do anything about this. As a result, the parties all rely on a small pool of large donors who donate thousands of dollars or more. That facilitates funnelling as SNC-Lavalin was caught doing. It also facilitates lobbyists bundling donations to buy influence. That's all undemocratic and unfair.

There are seven practices the bill does not address that should be switched to be overseen by Elections Canada or other watchdogs.

One is unfair nomination races. Elections Canada should be running all of them. The reform act has not changed anything. All the parties have handed back to party leaders the power to approve election candidates, sometimes with someone in their party headquarters' office as a screen.

Another is unfair leadership races. Elections Canada should be overseeing them.

Another is questionable auditing. Elections Canada should be auditing parties, candidates, and third parties.

Another is unfair election debates. Elections Canada or a commission should be running them with their rules. Hopefully a bill making that change will come soon, before the next election.

Another is biased election polling station supervision. The ruling party and second party choose those people and can force the returning officer to appoint whom they want. Elections Canada should be appointing all the polling station returning officers.

There is the questionable use of voter information. The bill does not extend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, PIPEDA, to the parties. The law should be extended to the parties with the Privacy Commissioner doing enforcement.

Another is unfair government advertising. Hopefully there will be a bill coming on that as well with the Auditor General or Elections Canada empowered to stop any ads that are partisan in the six months leading up to an election, and a full prohibition on government ads during the three months before an election.

There is the third party spending limits area. There's no way to stop Canadian businesses and citizen groups receiving foreign money from entities that frees up other money they have to use for third party election advocacy activities, unless you're going to prohibit foreign-owned businesses in Canada and foreign contributions to citizen groups completely. This bill does go quite far in requiring the separate bank account to be set up. I think the problem with it is it's discrimination against citizen groups that take donations versus unions and corporations that are also third parties. It's very easy for them to shift money into this bank account, but a third party is going to have to do special fundraising to get money into that account if it's a citizen group. It's going to make it much more difficult for citizen groups. They are allowed to donate into the account from their own funds that they may have gathered throughout the year, obviously not foreign funds. I think the overall effect is going to make it much more difficult for citizen groups to gather any funds compared to unions or corporations.

The disclosure of the reports and the limits are all good as well, but you need a limit on government advertising as well to make it fair for everyone leading up to the pre-writ drop period and the election period. Overall, I don't see any reason to increase the third party limit during the election period. That's a bad idea. That's a move in an undemocratic direction because it would allow wealthier interests to spend more. The cost of online ads is much less than traditional advertising was when the limits were first set. Even though the new limit covers more expenses, including surveys and going door to door and things like that kind of outreach, I don't see a reason to increase the limit. I think it's a move in a bad direction. How was the limit chosen? How were all the limits chosen? Are they based on anything? Are they based on looking at what parties spent on ads in the pre-writ period in the 2015 election, before the 2011 election?

It's the same with third parties. Is it based on anything that's been reported to Elections Canada? I know that the figures in 2004 limiting third parties were arbitrary, but now we have some track record and I think it should be examined.

I'll just finish with this point. The limits as stated in the government's backgrounder are not the same as what's in the bill. I'm quite confused by huge discrepancies in the amounts. The pre-writ limit for party spending says $1.5 million in the backgrounder, but in the bill, it says $1.1 million. In the backgrounder, it says it's adjusted for 2019 figures based on inflation, which is 30% inflation which we don't have now. All the limits are the same. For third parties, there's a $300,000 gap between what it says in the bill and the backgrounder, and for a riding there's a $3,000 gap.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 110th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Today we continue our study on Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make certain consequential amendments.

We are pleased to be joined today by Taylor Gunn, president and chief election officer of CIVIX, and Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.

For the committee's information, you have the list from the clerk of the total number of witnesses. The good news is that they've all been invited—all 300—and we've accommodated everyone who's interested. If there are any more who express an interest, we have slots this week and can fill them. We should be finished with witnesses this week.

We can do some opening statements.

Mr. Gunn, maybe you could start, and then we'll hear from Mr. Conacher.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

What I'm asking for is that within Bill C-76 itself, what part of the disabilities section, the access to voting, is key to you?

[Ryan O'Connor, Lawyer and Director, Ontario Proud]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee members for inviting me here today.

My name is Ryan O'Connor. I'm the lawyer for and director of Ontario Proud, which is a registered third party political advertiser in the province of Ontario for the current provincial election. We're a social media-based political advocacy group. We're not-for-profit. We promote ethics and accountability in government, fair taxes, personal freedom, and Ontario culture. We started in February 2016 as just simply a Facebook page, and have grown to over 400,000 supporters on the web. Millions in Ontario and throughout Canada view our content online, to the point where Ontario Proud is one of the most engaged and popular Facebook pages in Canada and is the most engaged and popular Facebook page in the province of Ontario.

Since November 9 of last year, Ontario Proud has been registered as a third party political advertiser in Ontario. That was the first day we were required to do so under that province's Election Finances Act. We've advertised on television, but we've largely focused our efforts on non-traditional fora for political advertising, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, in order to maximize our reach in the most efficient manner possible while remaining compliant with the very strict spending and disclosure requirements of the Ontario Election Finances Act. We receive support from donors throughout the province of Ontario. We also comply with the legislation by not accepting contributions for advertising expenses from anyone outside of Ontario.

The legislation on election procedure and campaign finance is arguably some of the most important legislation that Parliament enacts. It sets the ground rules for the exercise of our constitutional right to a free and fair franchise and sets the ground rules for those who participate in the electoral process. Because such legislation is so important, Parliament must carefully and properly consider any changes to the conduct of Canadian elections. This is especially so with Bill C-76 as proposed. Neither this committee nor the House and Senate should expedite the passage of this legislation before the House rises in the summer if it cannot give due consideration to the serious infirmities contained in the legislation as proposed. These infirmities, if not rectified, will have as their result the opposite effect of what the legislation intends and will work to stifle political discourse, discourage third parties from participating in issue advocacy, and perhaps more alarmingly, cause them to ignore the requirements of the legislation altogether.

I will focus my remarks on two primary areas of concern. First, the onerous registration rules, compliance costs, and spending limits outside of elections in relation to third parties are likely unconstitutional. Secondarily, the attempts at limiting the foreign funding of political advocacy will have no measurable impact on the foreign influence that has occurred previously in the Canadian political discourse.

With respect to the constitutional concerns, the legislation as proposed will, for the first time, impose spending limits and registration and donor disclosure requirements on third parties outside of election periods and for a specified pre-election period that commences on June 30 of a fixed-date election year. The legislation goes further than most regimes in the country insofar as it will not only regulate third party political adverting spending; it will also regulate “partisan activity expenses” and “election survey expenses”. The former specifically refers to, in the draft legislation, holding rallies, canvassing, and encouraging electors to vote.

Furthermore, the proposed legislation purports to expand the government's role in policing election advertising, partisan activity, and survey spending even before the pre-election period by requiring third parties, after registering with Elections Canada once incurring expenses, to file an interim return if the third party has received contributions or incurred expenses for regulated activity of $10,000 or more from the time of the preceding election until the time of registration.

The leading Supreme Court of Canada case, which I'm sure many members of this committee are familiar with, is the 2004 case of Harper v. Canada. In that case, the majority of the court found that although the third party spending limits that currently exist in the Canada Elections Act violated paragraph 2(b) of the charter, which is the right to free expression, those were justified, under section 1 of the charter, as reasonable. However, it's critical to note that the spending limits, which remain in the legislation but are indexed to inflation, are only applied during the writ period and only applied to advertising spending. The majority of the court in Harper v. Canada found that the limited time period within which these limits applied was minimally impairing of the right to free expression and proportionate to the objective of promoting electoral fairness. In disagreeing with the minority's position, in that case, that spending limits meant that—to quote from the decision—“citizens cannot effectively communicate their views on election issues”, the majority said that “this ignores the fact that third party advertising is not restricted prior to the commencement” of the campaign period.

More recently, the B.C. Court of Appeal found in a 2012 case, the Reference re Election Act (BC), that the proposed third party advertising spending restrictions on a 40-day period prior to the writ period violated the charter right to free expression and was not justified under section 1 of the charter. Part of the rationale of the court in that decision was that the B.C. government had advanced no evidence that restrictions on third party advocacy had the benefit of ensuring electoral fairness outside of a period when electors would actually be voting.

Currently in Ontario there is a coalition of trade unions that has initiated a constitutional challenge to the third party spending restrictions of the Election Finances Act. A constitutional challenge is inevitable, I would say with all due respect, if the legislation as drafted passes in its current form.

When organizations regularly participate in the political discourse in this country and are forced to comply with onerous regulatory requirements such as those proposed in the legislation, they may simply refuse to do so. They will do so in two ways. They will either ignore the legislation—which in any event is impossible to police in an era of digital campaigning—like many third parties are currently doing in Ontario, or they'll simply not participate in the democratic discourse. Parliament shouldn't be prioritizing the political expression of candidates and parties at the expense of ordinary citizens.

Parliamentarians also need to consider how Bill C-76 will affect issue advocacy. Any trade union that publicly advocates on labour legislation outside of a pre-election period will now have to account for its spending on that issue to Elections Canada. An environmental advocacy group that wishes to organize a rally related to forestry development would have to do the same. Also, a small citizens advocacy group that supports lower taxes will simply stop participating in the public discussion of issues, both during the pre-election period and during the writ period, because it is afraid of running afoul of the legislation or cannot afford the significant compliance laws that Mr. Lavergne had alluded to. This is hardly the intent of the proposed legislation, but that's going to be its effect, and its effect is an unconstitutional one.

I want to turn now briefly to foreign finance loopholes that exist in our current electoral financing legislation. Foreign influence in elections has been a concern in western democracies over the last half a decade, although that may be putting it mildly. One of the most common examples cited is the previous presidential election in the United States. Canada has not been immune to foreign influence in our elections. Foreign-funded groups have bragged about funding third party campaigns against parliamentarians, most recently in the 2015 federal election. Senators—notably, Senator Frum—have been encouraging Parliament to close any loopholes that allow foreign financial influence in our elections.

The proposed legislation before you prevents foreign entities from financing third parties for their advertising efforts or their partisan activity; however, it only does so during the pre-election period and the writ period. It doesn't specifically prohibit financial support for third parties outside of these periods. It would still be legal for foreign foundations, governments, corporations, and trade unions to financially support third parties.

Going further, it would allow third parties to avoid the disclosure requirements of the act altogether if they simply chose not to register during an election period. If members of this committee really wish to address the mischief of foreign involvement in Canadian politics, it would do well to completely close this loophole and either ban or heavily restrict foreign involvement in our electoral system at all times, not just between June 30 and election day.

The government that proposed this legislation often refers to itself as the party of the charter. If it truly wishes to live up to that mantle, it would support amending the proposed legislation, limit any domestic third party spending requirements to the writ period, and defend the right to free expression instead of causing its suppression.

Thank you.

[Réal Lavergne, President, Fair Vote Canada]

Thanks very much.

Thank you for inviting me. I see a few familiar faces in the room. I'm happy to be here.

I thought I'd help out by handing out my speaking notes, but I understand that if they are not translated, you're not going to see them for a while. But I would like to point out one thing in particular, which you'll find on page 5. I've actually listed a few items in which we have comments on how the bill might be easily amended, if you were interested in doing that.

I know you are busy. You have a 350-page document in front of you. This would hopefully make it easier. I'm happy to email this to anybody who'd like to see it. Just be in touch with me and I can send you the link. It's a Google doc.

You know what Fair Vote Canada is. I'm not going to go into any detail about that, but as a representative of Fair Vote Canada here—I'm the president—I'd like to address mainly issues of third parties, because there is some new material here and I'd like to express a few thoughts about that, which I think you will find useful.

Before I get into that, I'd like to acknowledge a couple of things with regard to our general issue, which is equal opportunity in the electoral process, levelling the playing field. I'd like, first of all, to acknowledge how much the bill actually does, without going into detail—because you already know what it does—in terms of ensuring greater access for a wide range of specific groups of people, including people with handicaps.

One thing I have to acknowledge, and that we all have to acknowledge, that it does not do—and my colleagues would not forgive me if I didn't mention it—is, of course, anything to ensure that every vote counts equally in terms of effectiveness regardless of where you live and who you vote for. The only way you could get that is with proportional representation, and this act doesn't deal with that. I'm putting it on the table, but I'm not going to harp on it. I know that's not what you want to hear today.

Let's talk about the third party issues. Here I'd like to speak about five different points. The first one is whether Bill C-76 is restrictive enough with regard to third parties. There is one important point to be made on what we in Fair Vote Canada and, I think, many others would think it is not restrictive enough, and that is with regard not to how much third parties can spend, which is fairly generous, and I'm okay with that. We can't spend that much money anyway. We couldn't spend a fraction of what the ceiling is, so it's not a problem for us. However, there is no restriction that I could find on contributions to third parties, so what you have is a system whereby moneyed interests can channel large amounts of money to third parties. They can create more third parties if they want to, and therefore, have a disproportionate influence on the results of elections.

I would like to point you to the B.C. Election Act, which I think is a very good example of restrictions that can be added with regard to third parties. I'm familiar with it because we're working on the referendum there. It restricts contributions to third parties in the same way as it restricts contributions to political parties, with a maximum of $1,200 per individual. I believe there are also restrictions on corporate and union donations as well. I think that is worth looking at. I don't know if you have time to look at it, but I'd like you to put that issue on the table as one that needs to be dealt with in the future.

I am speaking now as a representative of a third party, and I turn to whether the bill is too restrictive in any way. I have four points to make. From my very careful reading of the bill, it is not too restrictive on these two points, but it's not very clear. I'd hate for us, in Fair Vote Canada, to spend hours arguing back and forth on whether it applies to us or does not apply to us, so I have a couple of suggestions on how to make it clearer, assuming that my understanding of what's intended is correct.

First of all, with regard to the pre-election period, third parties have to register if they engage more than $500 in partisan activities, partisan advertising, and election surveys. Never mind election surveys; we don't do a whole lot of those, but maybe that's something we'd have to do. Partisan activities and partisan advertising, the way they're defined here, we do. We are a multi-partisan organization and we focus strictly on the issues, and the bill seems to exclude from consideration advertising that's focused on issues.

It sounds as though we're off the hook, but where it's not clear is whether we can name parties and candidates and the position they have taken when we provide information on our issues.

Does that constitute partisan advertising or is that simply informing the voter? I think it's only informing the voter, and I think the bill is intended to allow naming provided that it's with regard to the issue. That needs to be clarified. It could be clarified with some very simple wording where, when you talk about it with reference to “an issue”, it actually says, “otherwise than with reference to an issue”. If you're referring specifically to an issue, you can name and you can describe, and that's okay. That needs to be clarified: which is it? That's the first point.

With regard to the “election period”, the election period is more demanding. In terms of the election period it says that even when you're dealing with the issues, if you are promoting or opposing a candidate or a party, that counts as election advertising. Fine. I think that makes perfectly good sense.

What we're concerned about here, and I think it could be useful—we ran into this with the Ontario election, where there are similar clauses—is what happens with a general brochure that doesn't promote or oppose any party or candidate but advocates for proportional representation. It's clearly about the issue, but it doesn't promote or oppose. The spirit of the bill seems to be, no, that's not election advertising; that's general advocacy around an issue.

For almost any issue in the country, there's going to be an advocacy organization that works on it. Do we expect every advocacy organization in the country on any issue to register whether they promote or oppose? I think not. If you could be clear about that, it would be really useful. I've proposed that in those “not including” clauses—there are five of them now—you add a clause that refers to business-as-usual advocacy that does not oppose or promote. That's my suggestion on that one. Make it clearer. That will make everybody's lives a lot easier.

The third point has to do with the $500 trigger before a third party has to register. This is nationwide. If we spend more than $500, we have to register. If we spend more than $500 on election advertising, we have to register. Now, that depends on what you consider to be election advertising, hence my two points that I've made and that are important to clarify.

The point is this. For example, in P.E.I. right now, they're discussing Bill 38. Bill 38 is about the referendum. Their trigger for a third party to have to register is $500. They have a population that is about equivalent to that of a riding anywhere else in the country, and here we're talking about a whole country and you want the same threshold of $500. To me, that's way too low. You should be talking about probably at least $5,000, which is 10 times that much. I'd like you to consider that having to register is a huge burden on a third party. We have to hire a financial officer. That's expensive. It's going to be more than $500, I can tell you that; it will be several times that much.

Basically, then, if you say that if we spend more than $500, we have to register, you're basically saying that we're not in the game at all. I think we need to be fair. I think it's going to have to be higher than that. That's worth thinking about.

Finally, there are the new clauses on collusion. There are clauses in the Canada Elections Act—or a clause—on collusion already. The logic of it is obvious. If third parties are working with a political party in order to circumvent limits on election spending, that's against the law. That's collusion.

The existing Canada Elections Act is as clear as day on that. You're not allowed to circumvent limits on spending. You're not allowed as a third party to make in-kind contributions. If you own a storefront, you're not allowed to just lend it to a party. That's obvious. It's included already in the Canada Elections Act. However, for an advocacy organization like ours, Fair Vote Canada, we have to work with politicians or we are never going to get electoral reform in this country.

If we are not allowed to talk to politicians to find out what they're prepared to do if they're elected.... Are they prepared to take some leadership on proportional representation? If they are, we might want to consider endorsing them and supporting them. We need to talk to them to do that, just as politicians need to talk to voters. They're prepared to tell voters what they're prepared to do and not do, and voters are prepared to push back. There has to be that kind of dialogue with third parties as well, without circumventing the electoral spending limitations.

I think, and my colleagues in Fair Vote Canada think, that the new clauses on collusion are over the top. They should simply be struck out. They're not necessary. They are handicapping third parties from doing what they need to do, which is to be part of the political process and to talk with politicians to see where alliances can be forged in order to pursue our reform agenda.

Thank you very much. You have the notes. As I said, if you need them more quickly, just contact me. There is a summary. There are proposed amendments. The definitions I was talking about are included at the back. I think you'll find this useful.

Thanks very much.

[Prof. Michael Pal]

I have to say that when I read Bill C-76 the fact that the parties were required to have a position at all on the sale of data was quite surprising. I like to think I read pretty widely on what political parties do, and I don't think there was a widespread sense that the sale of data was happening at all.

I think it does really matter in the sense that parties now have a lot of information about voters. We're in a world where that data has real monetary value. I do take very seriously the point that we want to facilitate and encourage conduct between political parties and individuals, so this may mean that whatever the privacy rules are in Bill C-76—or may come in the future—they may be very different from the public sector generally or from the private sector. I think that's appropriate. The trade-off, then, is that parties need to be using that data for political purposes. A part of the rules for registration is that the party has to prove they're actually engaging in political purposes and that they're not actually a commercial entity pretending to engage, pretending to be a political party. There's case law on that.

I viewed the issue as potentially broader than what you've suggested. What did occur to me is that perhaps parties—members of the committee may know better than I do—sell data to provincial or local branches of a party because you may not be able to make a non-monetary contribution, which the giving of a dataset may be. Selling data might be the way to actually comply with provincial rules. That would be one narrow exception where I think it would be entirely appropriate, but then selling to a private entity what's collected under the offices of a public political purpose still does trouble me.

[Prof. Michael Pal]

There are already in the act some provisions related to robocalls. I think the provisions in Bill C-76 that deal with foreign interference and unduly influencing Canadian elections will go some way to reducing opportunities for interference from abroad.

The act is always trying to catch up with new technologies. Robocalls were the new thing, potentially, in the 2011 election. It's still an issue, but I'm not sure that's where we should necessarily focus all our energy. I think potential voter suppression efforts, especially from foreign entities on social media platforms, are concerning. I go to a lot of events around the world on emerging electoral practices, and one of the big things that I keep hearing about is campaigning on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is a direct messaging system that is famously end-to-end encrypted, so no government can see what is happening. That's one of the reasons why people like it, but it also means that it's very hard to regulate political advertising or campaign finance laws if people are using mass WhatsApp groups to distribute misinformation, say, or voter suppression, or incorrect information about a polling location.

I would suggest that Facebook, WhatsApp, and new platforms that are emerging are where we're going to see the problems that we have to address for 2019 and beyond.

[Andrea Furlong]

I think that looking at students or young people in general is a really good example of that. What we know, aside from a bump in the last election, is that generally young people are voting less. What we know about education is that it would promote a really strong electorate.

With young people being first-time voters, you want to bring people in when they have their first opportunity to vote. You want to educate them on how, where, and what the process is so that they become voters for their entire lifetime. Bill C-76 would provide for them, as well as for people who haven't engaged in the system, those education pieces about what the changes are. It was very disheartening to see in the current legislation that the Chief Electoral Officer wouldn't be able to do those things to really promote a vibrant democracy in Canada. That's what we want to promote through Bill C-76.

[Prof. Michael Pal]

Collusion is already illegal, so this just adds it into the pre-writ period, and then building into some of the other rules on foreigner interference. Bill C-76 doesn't transform what already exists.

If you do move to a coordination standard, though, you do end up needing to be very specific.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

But Bill C-76 could do something about that.

[Prof. Michael Pal]

I wouldn't say it's a Bill C-76 issue. It's that the Elections Act uses that collusion standard. There are other mechanisms to try to get compliance agreements and things like that, but you don't see a lot of prosecutions and convictions for these, and not a lot of compliance agreements.