Evidence of meeting #110 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was political.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you, sir.
Dr. Turnbull, thank you for coming here today. I have just one broad, general question to begin with.
I notice your book that you co-authored with Mr. Aucoin and Mr. Jarvis, Democratizing the Constitution. Are we a step towards democratizing the Constitution in Bill C-76?
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Oh, that's a great question. Thank you.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Sorry. You could probably do a dissertation on it, I understand, but we have only seven minutes, please.
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
In some ways, the answer is yes, because the bill gets to some things that we have to get to. In some ways, too, you're always fighting the last battle a bit, so the bill is looking at some realities that have taken place and we have to catch up to it.
People worry about things such as too long an election campaign. You see the 50-day limit because we've gone through something such as 78 days and nobody liked that. That created a bunch of problems. We could talk forever about that. It wasn't all bad, but there were some unforeseen consequences there. People look at that and say, “Okay, we want to regulate that.”
There are things in the bill that are quite necessary and probably not too hard to achieve some consensus on. Personally, I wish it went farther in a few areas, but I try not to be too negative about that stuff. Take progress where it is. You don't want to be too rainy day about it.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
No, God forbid I'd be all Pollyannaish about it, sitting here on this side of the House.
Let me just drift away from that for a moment. We are now in the process of possibly making some amendments, despite the fact that we have accepted the principle and scope of the bill, but fine-tuning is always a wonderful thing. You raised concern about how we make Canadians feel secure, when perhaps just regulating the money is not enough. Am I getting that correct?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Where in that lies the opportunity for us to make improvements?
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I think many Canadians are not relying on traditional forms, or what we might consider traditional forms, of political communication to receive their messages. Even the conversation about how we do the leaders debate is fine, but that's not where a lot of people are getting their messages. Some people are watching the debates, but you're talking about how to get younger voters engaged, and they're not watching the debates. They're on Twitter. They're looking at social media, and they're getting a whole lot of information.
Also, I think there's an increasing fear of fake news—the fear that you're getting a whole lot of stuff coming at you and you're not sure if it's true, and there being so much information coming at you at one time. We're losing something on the verification side.
It's just tons of messages, and a lot of it is very micro-targeted. This has to do with the communications technology as well, because now we're able to be so sophisticated about knowing voters, knowing their profiles, and being able to deliver to them the kinds of messages they really want. On several levels that's good, responsive, and positive, but it's almost as if a bunch of people are getting different messages and there's not the same centralization of messaging that I think we could say we used to see in a campaign.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
If I could just interrupt you for a second—and I apologize—several years ago the CRTC had a policy where they would lay out regulating of the Internet in the way they would regulate the broadcasting spectrum, especially content. How do we do that? As you say, they're micro-aiming at a particular person who would be susceptible to their view and wouldn't bother to seek out the contrary view. Where does one start?
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I know.
It's a difficult role for the government—and I mean the government in a big sense there, because you don't want state regulation of communication. You don't want the government to come in and say, “That's fake; you're not allowed to say that.” However, on some level we need something.
I don't know a ton about what people are doing in other countries, but in the U.K., the information commissioner has taken a bit of a role there.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
That's interesting. Can you give me an example of that?
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
That was my big example—the information commissioner in the U.K.
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Again, this is sort of in its infancy. We're watching to see how other countries are responding to the same challenges we're having, which is when messaging is so quick, how do you verify and how do we know that what people are getting is true and accurate? How do we force people to have balanced messages? I have no idea. On some level, we can't. We can encourage it, and I think that links to the bill's purpose in increasing the Chief Electoral Officer's education function. I think we can't downplay that. It's significantly important, as messaging becomes more complex, for non-partisan agencies like Elections Canada to be very present in conversation—
Liberal
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
—obviously not in a partisan way but in a controlled, objective way.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you.
Mr. Emery, my colleague here to my right made a comment earlier about what was being said about those living abroad, that a citizen is a citizen.
Did I get that right, David?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
The Constitution states that a citizen has a right to vote. Therefore, in your particular situation—and I'm sure that's kind of music to your ears—are there certain limitations based on who is living abroad that should be there?
Executive Director, Canadian Citizens Rights Council
I think this should really be an unlimited right. Currently, Canadians abroad are the only subset of the Canadian population who are unable to vote. We have to remember that the majority of these Canadians can't vote where they are.
There are also the practical implications. I know of people who have sought out their MPs in the ridings they used to live in to talk about this issue and who got the message back, saying, “I don't know if I'm your MP, because you can't vote here.” They didn't have anyone to talk to. They don't have anyone to go to for help if there's some issue with the program.
I think it is very important and very fundamental that everyone should have the right to vote.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you very much, both of you. It was very nice.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thank you. I appreciate your both being here.
Professor Turnbull, I'll start with you.
In the article you wrote for The Globe and Mail back in March, there were some interesting comments about third parties. You talked about, and you mentioned a little bit today as well, what you call “preferential treatment” under the Elections Act. They're able to access types of donations that the other participants in the elections, the political parties themselves, aren't able to access, for example, union and corporate donations. You mentioned about the lack of donation limits.
I wonder if you could give us a bit more detail on that. What I specifically want to know is whether you're suggesting the same donation limits for third parties as you are for political parties. Would you suggest that would only occur during the writ and pre-writ periods, or would you suggest that's something that should occur outside of those periods as well? Would you then be arguing that those third parties should only be receiving contributions from individuals?
That's a lot all at once, but—
Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Thank you very much for the question.
Actually, that's really fantastic. You've just said everything, so I can just say “yes”.
Conservative
