Evidence of meeting #114 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.
3:55 p.m.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
It's just the young person signing up. You don't need to have a parent or guardian with you.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
What's done to ensure the privacy of that information? Is it provided to political parties at all?
3:55 p.m.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
No. They're not added to our.... We have a system called the ERIN system. It's our voter registration system. You're not added to the ERIN system until the date when you are actually eligible to vote. In terms of documentation, if somebody asks for a commercial list of voters that they can send flyers to, or that they pay for or something like that, your name is never provided if you're under the age of 18.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
I think it's only been for two years. I'd have to get back to you.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
It's been roughly two years. Have you had any issues at all? There's been an election during that time, right? There would have been at least one election during that time.
3:55 p.m.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
Sure. To our knowledge, we haven't had any problems or issues. There's been nothing like that.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
It's almost like you read my mind. That's exactly what I was wondering: whether you had any kind of problem with the data being accidentally leaked before it should have been and added to the other part of the list.
3:55 p.m.
Commissioner of Elections, Louisiana Secretary of State
No, because if they're not added into the ERIN system for that, then they can't possibly be.... They couldn't even accidentally do it. It's a completely separate registration.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Okay. Thank you.
Next I'll go to Ms. Henry, from the OpenMedia Engagement Network.
I first have a couple of background questions about your organization. Where do you get your funding? Is it from donations, individual donations? What's your source of funding?
3:55 p.m.
Digital Rights Campaigner, Open Media Engagement Network
The majority of our funding comes from individual donations from Canadians. When we do seek out or accept donations outside of that, it's for projects specifically in other countries, or where there's a cross-border issue, for example, such as our campaign around border privacy or privacy of digital devices crossing the border from one country to another.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Understood. I's largely individual Canadians, then. Would they give small amounts, typically, or make larger donations?
3:55 p.m.
Digital Rights Campaigner, Open Media Engagement Network
We receive some project funding from foundations and so on, but unfortunately most of our donations are quite small. We're always looking to get bigger ones.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Well, that's not atypical for most organizations, including us as political parties. You just have to find a lot of small ones, right?
I think you mentioned that when you do some work in other countries, there may be some foreign funds for those types of activities. Is that what you were saying?
3:55 p.m.
Digital Rights Campaigner, Open Media Engagement Network
It's for projects specific to that country—for example, work that we might be doing in the EU.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
You were registered as a third party in the last election, so that money was not utilized for those purposes? Was it strictly for these other purposes?
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Okay.
You did spend, I think, $18,000 on advertising in the last election. Can you tell me what those ads would have consisted of? What type of advertising would that have been, and what type of messaging?
4 p.m.
Digital Rights Campaigner, Open Media Engagement Network
I'll have to give you that information later. It's not my area of expertise.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Would you mind providing that to the committee? Perhaps you could give us some indication of what it was spent on and the types of messaging.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Thank you.
This may not be your area, but I'll ask you because it is part of this bill. There are changes regarding third party funding. What are your thoughts on that? Particularly, should we go further to discourage or prevent the use of foreign funding through third parties in our elections?
4 p.m.
Digital Rights Campaigner, Open Media Engagement Network
More can always be done. Whether it happens through this process or through another is another good question. One of the things we've been working on as an organization, alongside many other civil society organizations and privacy experts, is reforms to privacy laws themselves. For example, with PIPEDA we have a lack of enforcement ability. Let's say there is a corporation or company that is not obeying those privacy laws; the Privacy Commissioner lacks the ability to issue fines or force compliance with them.
We could be looking at many other ways to give more teeth to our laws in order to prevent third party or foreign influence.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Let me just ask you this, quite simply: do you believe we should not allow any foreign funding to be part of our elections?
4 p.m.
Digital Rights Campaigner, Open Media Engagement Network
I think there will always be issues, such as the issues we deal with, that cross borders. I'm not an expert in this area. I'm here mainly to represent the views of ordinary people in Canada. Obviously, it's a big area of concern for them. As to where that line in the sand would be drawn, I couldn't quite answer you now.