Mr. Chair and committee members, good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
I am here on behalf of the Canadian Labour Congress, Canada's largest labour central. The CLC is the voice on national and international issues for three million working people in Canada. It brings together 55 national and international unions, 12 provincial and territorial federations of labour, and over 100 local labour councils.
The Canadian Labour Congress broadly supports Bill C-76. In particular, the CLC is supportive of the measures in the bill to ensure a fair, accessible, and inclusive voting process. We strongly support the bill's measures to improve access for voters with physical disabilities and to include child care and expenses related to a disability in a candidate's expenses.
Bill C-76 restores the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to authorize the notice of confirmation of registration, the voter information card, as identification. This is a welcome step in our view. We also support the restoration of the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to undertake public education and information programs to promote awareness of the electoral process among the voting public, especially groups facing barriers to access.
Bill C-76 reintroduces the option of vouching for the identity and residence of an elector, a step that we support. We agree, however, with Monsieur Mayrand that the option of vouching should be extended to staff in long-term care facilities and nursing homes, even when the staff person is not an elector in the same polling division.
I want to turn now to the bill's ramifications for third parties, such as unions and labour organizations.
Bill C-76 introduces significant additional requirements for third parties participating in elections. Under the bill, reporting requirements on third parties will become more extensive than for other participants in the electoral process.
During and between elections, unions and labour centrals engage with their members and with Canadians about issues that are important to working people. This education and engagement is vital to the informed and effective participation of working people in civic life and democratic debate.
We appreciate the fact that subclause 222(3) of Bill C-76 excludes from the definition of “partisan activity” the act of taking a position on issues that parties and candidates may be associated with. This is in the pre-writ period. Nevertheless, we urge the committee to carefully evaluate the additional restrictions and reporting requirements in Bill C-76 to ensure that the ability of labour organizations to engage with members and the public on workers' issues is not impeded.
A leading concern of the CLC is that if and when Bill C-76 is enacted, Elections Canada will issue an updated handbook for third parties that establishes the identical interpretative guidance for pre-writ partisan activity and partisan advertising over the Internet, as Elections Canada established for Internet election advertising during the writ period.
This established that Internet-based messaging during the writ period is only election advertising if there is a placement cost, that is, the cost of purchasing the advertising space. If there is no placement cost, then social media, email, and own-website messaging do not fall within the definition of election advertising. We hope and expect that Elections Canada will apply the same definition to pre-writ messaging. This is especially important now that, effectively, the period between elections—from polling day of the previous general election all the way up to the current pre-writ period—will be subject to regulation and reporting requirements.
With that, honourable members, I'll conclude my remarks.
Thank you very much for your attention.
