Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon. My name is Christianne Laizner and I'm the senior general counsel at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. With me today is Manon Bombardier who is the CRTC chief compliance and enforcement officer.
We are pleased to appear before you as you study Bill C-23, which proposes a number of amendments to the Canada Elections Act. I would like to start by reminding the committee of the new responsibilities that would be given to CRTC if Bill C-23 were proclaimed.
My colleague, Madam Bombardier, will then speak about how the CRTC would be prepared to fulfill its mandate under the proposed legislation.
If the bill is adopted in its current form, the CRTC would be tasked with establishing and maintaining registration information for voter contact services. This means that any person, group, or company engaged in voter contact, including those using automatic dialing announcing devices, which we also refer to as robocalls or ADADs, for voter contact purposes, would be required to register with the CRTC. Registrations would be made available to the CRTC within 48 hours after a call is made.
The ability to verify the identity of the calling party is another important aspect of the bill. Any person or group using a calling service provider or making robocalls for voter contact purposes would have to provide identification to both the CRTC and the calling service provider.
Additionally, the bill would require recordings of messages and scripts to be retained for one year after the date of an election.
Breaches of these roles could cost violators penalties of up to $1,500 for individuals and $15,000 in the case of groups, such as political parties or companies. It is important to note that these penalties can be assigned per violation and that each day constitutes a separate violation.
Let me now open the floor to Ms. Bombardier.