Information & Ethics Committee on May 9th, 2019

[Jason Kee]

It's simply because the systems we've deployed in the U.S., the EU and India would not have accommodated the specific requirements in Bill C-76. If we had moved forward with that, we would have actually implemented a similar system.

We actually have had preliminary conversations with Elections Canada with respect to this, but in the end, it just became clear that with Bill C-76 and the specific requirement that each individual publisher had to maintain its own registry, we would have a very difficult time accommodating the requirements.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Chair, I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Erskine-Smith.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm not technical like Mr. Graham, but I can read Bill C-76 and I have it in front of me.

It's the publication period of the registry that caused your problem. Is that correct?

[Jason Kee]

That's correct.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Right.

They don't say “real time”. You've said “real time” a number of times, but it's not what the act says.

The act says, “during the period that begins on the day on which the online platform first publishes the advertising message”. That's the part that you're referring to.

[Jason Kee]

That's correct, because basically if the ad was displayed at 11:59 p.m., the registry would have to be updated by midnight.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's one interpretation. Another interpretation might be a 24-hour period of time, which might be a more reasonable interpretation. You have high-priced lawyers and presumably they're right. I'm just thinking off the top of my head and haven't taken the detailed analysis that you have, of course, but certainly one solution would be that you just defer the publication of the ad.

Why couldn't you defer the publication in order to have a 24-hour or 48-hour waiting period until you first publish it? Then it would be quite easy to do, wouldn't it?

[Jason Kee]

Again, it's simply because technically it wasn't feasible for us to do that.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Why not?

[Jason Kee]

Our engineers told us it wouldn't be feasible for us to do that.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay, so when I go to post an ad on Facebook, they don't publish it right away. There's a holding period and they assess whether it's something that ought to be published.

Your engineers couldn't figure out a deferral process of 24 hours, 48 hours, or even seven days, and you put it on us to say we have to schedule our advertising for the election knowing we've made it hard on you, with tight timelines. There is no way you could have figured this out with all the money that you got.

[Jason Kee]

It would have been a challenge for us to re-architect within six months the entire underlying systems that we have for online advertising.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I have to say, I find the answers incredulous, as incredulous as you suggesting that $1 million is such a wonderful thing when you made $8 billion in Q4 last year. Not taking this as seriously as you ought to have is a detriment to our democracy, and you should have done better.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Monsieur Gourde, you're next up, for another five minutes.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

I'm going to come back to a practical question.

Elections Canada will pay particular attention to all digital platforms during this election. If a problem arises due to false advertising, fake news or the like, do you have a memorandum of understanding to work directly with Elections Canada as quickly as possible to remedy the situation?

[Jason Kee]

We don't have something as formal as an MOU. We've had extremely robust engagement with both Elections Canada and the commissioner of Canada elections. The commissioner's office is actually doing the enforcement of act; Elections Canada actually administers the elections.

Especially with Elections Canada, we're working with them to source data on candidates and information that we can actually see surface in Google Search, for example, when someone is searching for candidate information.

Certainly with the commissioner of Canada elections, we're working on enforcement-related actions. With respect to their principal concern about advertising, because we're not taking advertising, it's less of a concern, but there are also additional measures that were introduced in the act around impersonation, for example, and we're working with them on those issues. We will work with them very closely.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

I'm a little worried about that, because today, everything moves so fast in the digital age. If there is an irregularity during my election campaign, I will file a complaint with Elections Canada, and an Elections Canada representative may check with you that same day. You tell me that you have no memorandum of understanding, that you have never negotiated in order to put in place ways of working and that you have not designated anyone. An Elections Canada representative will call you, but who will they contact?

The complaint will be transferred from one person to another, and someone will eventually answer it? Has someone in your company already been designated for the election period to speak to an Elections Canada representative and respond to complaints?

[Jason Kee]

Yes. Essentially, there will be a team of people, depending on the specific issue, to respond to specific issues that get raised. We call them “escalation paths”.

Essentially, when we have established regulators such as the commissioner's office or Elections Canada, they will actually have means to get immediate responses on urgent issues simply because they will escalate issues that are serious ones, and then we would actually bypass or accelerate through the normal reporting processes.

It's also worth noting, in the event that you see anything on any of our systems, that we have a wide variety of reporting mechanisms for you to report it directly to us, so we'd encourage you to do that as well.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Is this team already in place? Does it already exist, or will it be set up over the summer?

[Jason Kee]

The team is actually in the process of being set up.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you.

That's it for me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Next up for five minutes is Mr. Baylis.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, gentlemen.

I want to follow up a little bit on what my colleague Nate was saying. We are clearly struggling to believe you about the aspect of you being able to meet the requirements of Bill C-76. Facebook says they can meet them. Are you aware of that?

[Jason Kee]

We are aware.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You're aware of that.

What skills do their engineers have that your engineers don't have?