Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2018

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

This is great.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I want to raise the issue of the voter information card. I had this discussion many years ago with Jean-Pierre Kingsley, and I pointed out this out to him. The voter information card does provide information on a person. I guess you could falsify one if you wanted to; I don't think that's happening. But it suffers from a certain degree of database error, and these kinds of mistakes indicate it's not necessarily all that helpful.

One example that I pointed out to him at the time was that I received, when I was living alone, three voter information cards—one to Scott Reid, one to Jeffrey Reid, and one to Scott Jeffrey Reid. Of course, all three of these are me. I was on the voters list three times as a result of that. In theory, I could have voted as three people—once at the advance poll, once at the returning office, and once at my local polling station. Of course, as an incumbent MP, somebody might have noticed, so that restrained my conduct.

I just throw this out as a way of illustrating that it is not a foolproof system. I'm going to guess you probably agree with that.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

Yes, if you're referring to the physical voter registration cards.

My bias, and I will fully acknowledge it, is that I am purely in the digital world. In that respect I'm a young person—even though I'm not young. I'm purely digital, and I trust digital electronic data. I'm talking about data with the massive protections—the CRA income tax database is a very secure system, as is the RCMP intelligence database.

We still have a voting system from the 19th century. We do not have a voting system that's for the 21st century. We're going to have to start, especially with millennials, to move towards electronic voting. You can't do electronic voting with these very archaic, 19th-century technologies of identification, because electronic systems require much more secure and sophisticated methods of identification.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I can only say, duly noted. That's obviously not going to be contemplated in the current legislation; hence, it's merely of academic interest.

I'll turn to Mr. Hamilton and to the issue of third parties and their spending. This is being presented as part of a package that includes a reduction in the length of the writ period. The maximum writ period has now shrunk. This prevents the pro-rating of party expenditures that occurred in the longer writ period that took place in 2015. The government has touted this as being an important step forward, but I notice they had to create a new pre-writ period. It's sort of two writ periods that have lumped on to each other, one of which is actually longer than the last election was. They then place limits on what parties can do in that period, without placing commensurate limits on what third parties can do.

If you said to me, Scott, your challenge today is to design a law that will have the effect of privileging third parties over registered parties, I think I would have designed this system. Am I being fair in my assessment?

[Arthur Hamilton]

That's a very fair assessment of the current state of play, given this bill. It is not going to achieve the stated purposes of the legislation, if you accept that those stated purposes are really what's going on with this piece of legislation.

Third parties are a clear and present danger to our electoral system. When you allow third parties to be the conduit to foreign influence and foreign money, that danger is extreme. This bill has done nothing to correct or arrest any of the mischiefs that can be done by third parties.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right.

In your view, does it actually expand those mischiefs, or does it merely keep them kind of in the position they were already in, without a significant change?

[Arthur Hamilton]

Theoretically, you've increased spend limits in this pre-writ period, so presumably the mischief is more problematic coming into the next general election now—if that's conceivable, because it was already terrible in the last election.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right.

Do you have any idea how readily it became evident that there was an issue with Leadnow in the last election? The reason I ask this is we're in the midst of a provincial election in Ontario, which will be taking place on Thursday. It would be helpful to have some analysis of how their rules have worked in order to examine whether the rules here are appropriate. I'm just wondering how long it would take to have an idea as to these things, based on what happened federally?

[Arthur Hamilton]

To answer your direct question, it was very evident, very early, that Leadnow was engaged. I believe it was an outside media source. It wasn't one of the political parties that identified this cheque coming up from a San Francisco organization, which Leadnow readily admitted it had taken into its coffers.

In terms of going forward, it's this simple: If you are serious about arresting the undue influence of third parties, you need a complete code of conduct that deals with both sides of the question. Yes, you want to stop the mischief-makers in the third party from foreign sources, but you also want to make sure that our regulators have the ability to challenge those who are receiving the money as the third party.

You need to put a sanction on the people who figure they can just ask for forgiveness later. That may be one way that some people think effective regulation occurs. In the electoral setting, the horse is very much out of the barn by the time any regulator can, if they choose, try to get to the bottom of something months or even years later.

Just so you know, our request for an investigation of Leadnow by the Conservative Party, as I understand it, remains an open investigation in the year 2018. The election was three years ago and that remains open. If you want to tell me that's an effective piece of regulation that keeps the third parties in exactly the position our Supreme Court has directed they should be kept, without pointing fingers at anybody, it's been an abject failure.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Now we'll go to Mr. Cullen.

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

I'll start with you, Mr. Hamilton. What investigation was this? You said, investigation by the Conservative Party?

[Arthur Hamilton]

No. The Conservative Party lodged a complaint with the commissioner of Elections Canada.

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

I see.

So, that would be a little like the Fraser Institute accepting $750,000 from the Koch brothers. Would that be a clear and present danger to our democracy?

[Arthur Hamilton]

Do you mean in an election setting? I don't know that the Fraser Institute is participating in an election.

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

Oh, don't they participate in elections?

[Arthur Hamilton]

I'm not aware.

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

They don't provide, say, research to the Conservative Party that then gets advocated for in elections, and then distributed to voters?

[Arthur Hamilton]

I'm aware of no such thing.

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

Do you want to double-check that before you answer that?

[Arthur Hamilton]

I'll take your source, if you have one.

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

So, the Koch brothers are okay to donate to people who participate in our elections. It's okay for the largest foreign investors in the oil sands to advocate for certain policies, which were then enacted by, say, the Conservative Party of Canada, but if somebody does it from another political point of view, that's when you have a problem with it?

[Arthur Hamilton]

No. Read my statement; review it again. I say eliminate all of it, every last inch of it—eliminate it.

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

Would it be wrong for anybody to, say, divert voters to the wrong polling station, using databases that political parties have obtained over time?

[Arthur Hamilton]

One hundred percent, that would be wrong. That's already a violation of the current legislation. People should be prosecuted if they do that.