Evidence of meeting #113 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 elections.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
There's going to be a new round of it, I believe, next year. I'm not sure. You'll have to check with StatsCan. It's unclear how much detail—
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We're safe to say they're significant. I'm just thinking that if you put an ad in The Globe and Mail, under Elections Canada laws, you have to say who funded it, and you have to keep a registry of that ad.
If you post one of these flash ads on Facebook or Twitter, which are driven by an algorithm, to certain micro-targeted voters, there's no reporting at all. We don't know where the money came from for the ad. We don't have any record of the ad unless you grab a screen capture of it. Should it be the equivalent?
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Whether or not they're equivalent in terms of their influence on people—
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Reporting.
I'm sorry. A better question is, “Should they have the same rules applied to them?”
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Right. In terms of advertising online, they should. It should be made technically possible through the platform's interface to say when an advertisement has been bought by a campaign, and to make it clear why you're being sent that message and who has decided to target it at you. Does that...?
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think so. Facebook has been in a lot of trouble with bots and Cambridge Analytica. Have they fully cleaned up their act now? Is it a secure platform? Could there be another version of Cambridge Analytica out there plotting to figure out another loophole in their system?
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
The idea of absolute security with any technology is not one that we are ever going to reach but getting closer is the best we can do. I think that because of the public pressure Facebook has been facing, they are taking steps, but not because of Canadian laws. At the end of the day, that means if pressure is put on them by other jurisdictions or by commercial interests, they won't necessarily continue that.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Are we taking that opportunity right now under the bill?
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay.
Ms. Zwibel, I want to put something to you as a suggestion. You want third parties to have the capacity to have more speech and more ability to be engaged on issue campaigns or involved in the election. If they have that influence, should they also be given a responsibility to report that is similar to how political parties have to report in terms of financing, spending limits, and all of the things that we have to do as political actors?
11:45 a.m.
Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I haven't said that I think third parties necessarily need higher limits. What I said was that I don't see the evidence for the existing limits.
11:45 a.m.
Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
I don't understand where these numbers come from, and I don't understand where some of the distinction—
11:45 a.m.
NDP
11:45 a.m.
Director, Fundamental Freedoms Program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Again, I'm not exactly sure where those come from, but given that we have at least some members of the Supreme Court of Canada saying that those numbers are so low that they effectively amount to a monopoly by political parties and candidates, I think that's something that needs to be addressed.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Let me step back for a moment, Professor Dubois, in terms of privacy. Ms. Zwibel, you may comment as well if we can get a moment.
There is no audit, no verification, and non-effective controls of privacy on political parties. Why do you think that is? What's so special about us?
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Political parties have a responsibility to connect with the electorate, and because they are not necessarily driven by commercial interests, the argument has been that privacy laws should be considered differently given those different contexts.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right, yet we have those restrictions on political parties in B.C., the province I live in. Things seem to be working out.
11:45 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
In the EU, with GDPR, there is evidence to suggest that the idea of data protection should be extended across the different contexts in which your data could be collected, tracked, and used.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The consequences are real: on our democracy, on decisions, on Brexit, on the last U.S. election. Do people care?
People are exposing all sorts of private personal information on Facebook all the time. So what if political parties collect a lot of data and know a lot about the voter? Maybe it makes political parties smarter.
11:50 a.m.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
People care, but they're constantly having to trade their own data for the things that they need. In terms of political parties being able to make valuable use of this data, I think that's true. I think there's a lot of value to political parties being able to understand the electorate through the kinds of interactions they have on the Internet. However, citizens also deserve the ability to understand how that's working and what data is being collected about them, and, importantly, to have a door open so that they can correct that information when it's wrong. It can unfairly harm certain groups of people in ways that I don't think should be built in to our electoral system.