This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Karina Gould Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill C-76 expands it beyond physical disability.
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
Is the requirement for that a physical disability, or does it also go beyond physical disability, in Bill C-76?
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
With respect to the attempt of C-76 to make it easier for people to vote, particularly those with disabilities, how does the technology work if someone is voting at home? How does that happen, if they opt to vote at home because they're going to have a problem getting to the polling station?
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
In addition to Bill C-76 provisions aiming to prevent misinformation in advertising, is Elections Canada taking any proactive measures to prevent bots and other malicious media manipulators that could impact elections?
That's okay.
Again, on privacy and on third parties, these are two areas that may warrant, in my view, some further discussion and examination by the committee.
Before I get into the table, I just want to say a few words about the third party rules.
Overall, the proposals in Bill C-76 are a major improvement on the rules governing third parties. They expand the scope of the rules to include not just advertising activities but also all kinds of partisan activities. The scope is expanded. They also provide for rules that not only apply during the writ period but also the pre-writ period. They contain a number of measures to deal with foreign funding.
I want to note that there is some imbalance between the rules as they apply to third parties and parties in the pre-writ period. Parties would be limited only in their advertising expenses. Third parties would be limited in all of their partisan activities. They would have to file up to two pre-writ reports, and parties don't have to do that. I just note that. I don't have recommendations to that effect, but I did want to bring that to the attention of the committee, when you consider the overall regulatory burden on third parties.
While there are some important rules to deal with foreign funding, there is in my view a residual opening for foreign funding through third parties. There are some ways that this can be addressed. I will be making one particular recommendation in that regard.
I've not made a recommendation on the table in terms of the contribution rules to third parties. I think this is an area where there are a range of options. You need to balance Charter of Rights considerations. You need to look at the overall regulatory burden. I'm quite prepared to have a discussion on those topics with the committee, but I have not made a specific recommendation.
If you turn to the table, I'll take them in the order they appear on the table.
The first issue is a narrow but important issue. There is now in this bill a solemn declaration for voters. Voters would be required in some circumstances to say that either they are 18 or will be 18 on voting day. That's quite correct. However, they also are required to say that they are citizens or that they will be a citizen on polling day. That's something that they cannot make a declaration for. They do not know whether in fact they will become citizens on polling day. They don't control that. The ceremony has not taken place. It may not take place. My view is that certainly only citizens should be able to vote, even in the advance vote or special ballot. The oath should be amended to reflect that. Someone should not be called upon to say that they will be a citizen on polling day.
The second point is one of the issues related to foreign funding of third parties. One of the ways in which the bill improves the regime is that not only does it ban contributions made by foreign sources for the purpose of regulated activities, but it in fact bans the use of foreign funds. In some cases a third party may receive foreign funds and not be able to use them. They could have turned around and passed it on to another third party. That third party could then spend it. I would recommend that there be an anti-avoidance clause in the bill. There are other examples of such clauses in this bill, and the Canada Elections Act. That would deal with those kinds of situations where a third party is turning around and passing on foreign funds to avoid the restrictions in the act. That's an improvement that I'm recommending on the bill.
The third point relates to convention fees. The rule right now is that when a person buys a ticket to participate in a convention, the contribution that this person makes is then determined by looking at the price of the ticket minus the tangible benefits that he or she receives at the convention, such as the meals, beverages, and so forth. The bill recommends to also deduct from the ticket price a reasonable allocation of the overhead costs of doing the convention. It also allows for another individual to not only pay for that ticket but also deduct from the amount the overhead costs. The effect of that is that a wealthy person could, by buying all or most of the tickets, essentially pay for all of the party's convention costs.
There are number of ways to deal with that. The first way would be to simply not accept that there be a deduction of the overhead costs from the amount that constitutes a contribution. That is my preferred approach. In the alternative, one could say that this deduction only is allowable for a single ticket, not multiple tickets. It's a bit more complicated to administer. If that is not acceptable to this committee, then perhaps the law should be amended so that the party's annual return reflects the fact that a person has paid for tickets for more than one person to attend a convention, so that if a person buys a slate of tickets for a convention, that is simply reported in the annual report. At least there is some transparency in this regard.
The fourth point I want to raise is in regard to the issue of privacy that we have discussed. As I indicated last week, I am concerned by the fact that there are no minimal standards. Each party would decide which standard is appropriate for them. Perhaps more importantly, I'm concerned about the absence of oversight. On the first issue, the standards adopted by the parties in their policies should be consistent with those set out in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which is usually referred to as PIPEDA, and I do believe that the Privacy Commissioner is the appropriate person to provide oversight. I have discussed this with the Privacy Commissioner and he is in agreement with that.
The fifth point that I want to raise is.... This is actually a recommendation that came from Elections Canada. It's reflected properly in the bill. It's a recommendation to deal with the possibility of disinformation in cases where there's a publication that claims to be made by a party or a candidate, but it is not. In our recommendation, we should have made an additional element to that, which is that publications, whether electronically or traditionally made, that are claimed to be by Elections Canada, but are not, should be covered by the same prohibition. That's just an expansion of that same rule to cover false Elections Canada material.
The sixth one relates to an important clause in the bill dealing with cyber-attacks. I believe that is an important issue. There is a proposal in the bill relating to the misuse of or interference with a computer. However, in order for an offence to be committed, there is a requirement to show that there was an intention to affect the result of the election. In some cases, a foreign state or a third party may wish to interfere simply to disrupt the election or simply to undermine trust in the election, so the requirement to prove an intent to change the result goes too far. I think it needs to be expanded to cover other intents, which I've just mentioned.
Finally, the last one is a really technical one. It's a transitional provision regarding the reporting obligations for candidates. There should be a clause in the bill that says that if the rules come into force midway into the campaign or after the campaign, the reporting obligation at the end of the campaign should match the substantive obligations during the campaign. That's sensible. The drafting of this clause can be improved and should be improved. There are similar clauses in the bill that we feel are better drafted in that regard and we refer to those in the table. That is strictly a technical amendment.
Thank you.
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Good evening and welcome back to the 106th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs as we continue our study of 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 by officials from Elections Canada. Here with us again today are Stéphane Perrault, Acting Chief Electoral Officer; Michel Roussel, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Electoral Events and Innovation; and Anne Lawson, General Counsel and Senior Director, Legal Services.
Thank you all for being here.
I forgot to ask, but the clerk will have to know who is going to travel with the committee. The Liaison Committee has a limit of seven people. As soon as parties find out, can you let the clerk know?
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes. Thanks, Chair.
Thanks, Chris, for the comments.
Let me preface this very briefly by saying I don't blame anyone around this table for the circumstance we're in. Clearly, on the government's side, I don't think the timing of the bill and the study was of the choosing of any of the committee members—certainly not you, Chair, and certainly not the opposition—yet the bind that I feel myself in is that I have a similar objection because I don't like some of the rules that exist right now on voting reform. Bill C-76 addresses some of those things that we've talked about openly, vouching and whatnot.
As a parliamentarian, I also see and feel the responsibility of getting whatever we do to Bill C-76 right—amend, reject, whatever those options are—simply because in my experience if you rush legislation, particularly omnibus, it's inevitable you'll make some mistakes. The question is how grievous those mistakes are, and you realize them too late. Elections Canada tries to handle something voters experience at the election and it doesn't work the way that we were told and the way we hoped. I feel myself in a bit of a bind.
I'll start with the witness list and work backwards to the travel proposal. Mr. Christopherson is back and re-engaged, and I just got a witness list from him and, yeah, it's exhaustive and exhausting to look at. We're going to spend tonight whittling some of that down because I have a few thoughts. I was borrowing a little bit from the electoral reform experience, because I think through those many long months of study we found some witnesses who don't immediately pop to mind who I think would be very helpful on this.
I appreciate the efforts in terms of the travel component and the way the motion is worded. As we know, in urban and rural experiences voting is different, and particularly first nations people have a different experience as well.
The initial proposal for travel makes sense. I would hope we would talk today about what a day would look like, because sometimes committees travel and it looks a certain way and other times it looks another way. We had raised the issue of talking to young Canadians when we're out on the road. We had raised the issue of potentially having.... When we go to towns sometimes we go to Halifax or Toronto and we see only experts, so-called experts, people implicated by it, but we have no access to average Canadians who don't have a Ph.D. behind their name. I think we're made more poor for it if we do that. I would advocate some small version of an open house, if we go places in the evening, and then in the daytime we give over to the experts who have lots of opinions about this.
In terms of the rest of the meetings, I remain very open to what we're doing right now. I know it's not always comfortable and it's hard to schedule with extended hours and sitting, simply because we've been given a Sisyphean task here and we ought to try to do as much as we can to get it right.
Other than that, my only other reservation, which I expressed to Andy before, was the proposal of doing clause-by-clause all in one day. We have a philosophical objection to the custom that, if there are more than 80 amendments, suddenly we go on the clock, and that reduces us to five minutes per party per clause, I believe. I've seen from both sides, government and opposition, bills just brutalized because you're hammering through clauses by the end, by the evening sittings. Committee members don't really.... I think we stop doing our jobs at some point. It gives me angst to see a day of clause-by-clause on a bill that's 250 substantive pages. That's a lot.
The last I'll say is that the government talks about different numbers, but 85% of the bill was prestudied or 85% comes from Elections Canada. That's fine. The percentages are fine in terms of public relations or media, but I don't want to suggest that simply because 85% of the bill has been looked at, the 15% is going to be fast. It may not be 15% of the effort because of the stuff the government has added into this bill on top of the previous legislation. It's not simple or obvious things. We're talking about freedom of speech and some things that are potentially complicated. I don't have a pre-opinion as to what that will look like.
All that said, I think the travel is short, but it will work. If we can reconsider the clause-by-clause, that would be good, and we should talk about what a travel day looks like. If we go to Halifax, what does it look like? If we're in Toronto, what does the day look like? That will inform my feelings toward getting out on the road.
Well, they're not trying to win power directly. In Bill C-76 you do have restrictions, both during the writ and in the pre-writ period.
Filomena Tassi Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
Okay.
Above and beyond those two clarifications, can you comment on the changes in Bill C-76 that make voting more accessible for those with disabilities and for those in remote areas?
Yes, and one of the provisions in Bill C-76 is the commissioner's ability to initiate an investigation.
LCdr Jean-François Morin
Currently there is an exception for the five-year limit for dependants of Canadian Forces members residing abroad with those members, so no, they currently don't fall within the five-year rule.
If I may add to that, however, Bill C-76 will bring an improvement for the dependants of Canadian Forces members residing with them abroad and also to other civilians who accompany the Canadian Forces members abroad. For example, RCMP officers could be participating in a mission with the Canadian Forces, or Global Affairs Canada, GAC, officials could be participating in a mission as well. They would still vote under division 3 of part 11 of the act. Currently, they are experiencing some difficulties voting under that division, due to the fact that Canadian Forces members serve in remote areas. With the postal services in those areas, it might not always be easy to get their special ballot kit and send it back to Elections Canada so that it would be received before 6 p.m. on election day.
Bill C-76 brings with it a legal obligation for Elections Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces to collaborate in order to make sure these civilians who accompany the forces abroad, including dependants, have an easier way to vote.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Did the government of the day, in doing a generational change to our voting laws, say that thou shalt never transfer, for incumbents, for those working in political office, information gathered through your work as a member of Parliament over to the party database side? We all hope that we all have good ethics and that every office prevents that transfer, but does Bill C-76 have anything to say about that?
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Well, this is an interesting thing when we're dealing with Bill C-76 and we're talking about data.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I understand, but in some European countries, a voter can phone up a party and say, “Tell me what you know about me.” The party has to say, “Well, we know your address and information. We also acquired information that you signed a petition in 1990. We know that you registered this.” Parties collect a data-rich source. They're trying to. The Liberals used to brag about it. They bragged until recently, until Cambridge Analytica, about just how they won the 2015 election: great data management, great data harvesting.
I'm wondering if there's any provision under Bill C-76 that allows a Canadian to petition a party to give them even the source points of data, i.e., “What points of data have you collected about me?”