Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2018

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

But I'll say a couple more things.

For the purposes of elections and election spending, I would argue that if we want to make things level and we want to level out the playing field, we would look at the same process for third parties as political actors, as we do for everybody else. Therefore, individuals are able to make election contributions to all political actors at the same limit.

I had realized that the regulatory problem is how you compartmentalize the election activity of a third party and separate it out from the rest of their activity. For some organizations, it might be more clear-cut than others.

There are some where they maintain an educational and advocacy function on an ongoing basis. Does that automatically mean that once the pre-writ period kicks in, everything they do is election advertising? I think there would then be an imperative to try to protect what the organization does as part of its ordinary functions, but then try to pull it into a more regulated sphere once the writ is dropped.

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

To clarify regarding the idea of the contribution limits, are you suggesting that we would look at and treat various types of third parties differently, or are you suggesting we would have contribution limits on any third party that would participate in elections?

[Lori Turnbull]

Yes, any that are registered.

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

That would not just be throughout the writ period, or this newly created pre-writ period, but I'm talking about the other three years and eight months, or whatever it is.

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

If it were during the writ and pre-writ, I'd be happy. I think that would be enough of a way to make a substantive difference to levelling that playing field, which is what I want to achieve.

Parties and other entities have to accept those limits annually, even in non-election years. It would be difficult to enforce that, and I wouldn't need to die on that mountain if we did it in the six months around an election. I think that would be a substantive—

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

You would argue for expanding a little beyond what it is then.

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

Exactly.

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

With fixed election dates, what about that scenario? If everyone knows the deadline and I want to drop in $1 million, and this $1,500 limit is going to exist tomorrow, I'll drop the $1 million in today. How do we fix the problem in that scenario?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

In that case, I agree with your logic entirely. To me, any time you say, “Here's the drop” or “Here's the start time for the limits,” on some level it's arbitrary, because we're campaigning all the time.

I can see there being a different formula applied to third parties, because their behaviour is not necessarily campaigning all the time in the same way that a political entity does. However, I take your point: what stops the millionaire from dropping the money in the day before, especially when we have the fixed election dates, when you know it's coming and you can plan it?

That's also the issue with foreign donations. There's nothing wrong with a third party accepting foreign donations, as long as they're not used for election purposes. It's the same thing. If you have that drop and it's prior to the regulated period, that's just part of the funds that are in the organization's bank account. Those are your own funds, and you can use them.

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

I guess what you're saying is you're not really sure you've got a suggestion on how we would regulate that, but if there was a way to do it you would be in favour of it. Is that fair?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

I'd be happy if for political contributions that are kept in a separate bank account, like the bill is advocating, those limits applied all the time. I fear that's not going to survive a court challenge. I'm willing to accept a kind of lesser scenario.

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

Understood. What you're saying is it's accepting what you think is possible maybe rather than what you think is desirable.

To clarify then, those caps you're suggesting during the writ and pre-writ periods, because you're not sure how we would find a way to regulate outside of that, would they apply only to individuals or would you allow the $1,575 it is currently to come to a third party from other entities other than individuals?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

The way to level the playing field is to have only individuals be able to donate for election purposes.

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

Thank you very much.

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Now we'll go on to Mr. Cullen.

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

I was looking at this quote because I never actually knew where it came from, but apparently in 1929 Lieutenant Colonel Schley of the Corps of Engineers wrote, “It has been said critically that there is a tendency in many armies to spend the peace time studying how to fight the last war.”

There's an interest in my party, and I personally support the interest, in undoing some of the aspects of the Fair Elections Act, the vouching, some of the prescriptions on expat voting, and some of the other things by which, whether they were by intention or not, I think the effect was voter suppression for some Canadians who maybe weren't as supportive of the government in theory or in practice. Yet I think, Ms. Turnbull, Professor Turnbull, Dr. Turnbull, which do you prefer? Do you care?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

Not at all.

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

Okay.

There's the fixation on money, and it's not bad to have a fixation on money because they say money in politics is like water on the sidewalk, it finds its way in through all the cracks, and it's one aspect, but to not have the other aspect of political influence gained without a lot of money, would you say that's doing half the job, 90% of the job, 10% of the job, in terms of trying to have a clear connection between those seeking to affect elections and the voters understanding and having free and fair elections in who they choose or propose?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

So the question is—

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

If the goal is that a voter goes in with the best information, and not the—what was it?—mis-, dis-, and mal-information, as one of our witnesses said.... I thought that was a good summation. If the goal is to make sure that between the voter and those running for office there's a clear line of information and anyone providing information in that conversation is identified and is not of foreign influence or a malevolent nature, money is one aspect of it.

These are people funding certain sides of a debate, funding certain candidates illegally or through surreptitious means. Another side of the debate is the tools now, which were unimagined 20 years ago, the influence of social media. If we just take care of the money side of things and try to limit foreign influence, foreign money coming in, as much as we can, without doing the other side, which is how easy it is to spread mis-, dis-, and mal-information through social media, how much of the task of that goal are we actually accomplishing?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

I would say half, maybe less.

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

If we're trying to fight the next war, rather than the last one, if this is the trend, I would imagine the power of social media to connect to voters, to inform or misinform voters, is likely only to go up. Is that fair?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

I think that's right.

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

One of the questions—and forgive me if I've missed this—is the cross-mixing of money, that you can have a Canadian entity set up a Canadian bank account, which this bill requires, yet you can commingle the financing. They can have foreign money in their core financing. When we asked the minister and Elections Canada how you pursue it to the end of the conversation to find out how much is commingled, is any money displacing....

I'm having a hard time articulating questions today. I'll give you a scenario. If an organization has a $2-million budget, normally, an operational budget, and they get an extra $1-million donation from the United States, Russia, it doesn't matter, and they displace their core budget and spend all of their $2 million now on elections or to the prescribed limit, $1.5 million, it's essentially using through a loophole foreign money to advocate a position. I don't see under Bill C-76 how we'd catch that scenario. Do you follow?