Evidence of meeting #121 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate your final comments about how something might work in Kenora versus Ottawa—Vanier, and I may come back to that at the end or in a future round, if I have time.
I want to pick up on something you mentioned when you talked about cybersecurity and threats. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'd like your feedback. You mentioned there was little evidence that there was a threat or any concern. When you say “little evidence”, does that indicate there was some evidence or are you saying that more generally as a kind of “cover your butt” type of comment there was some evidence but it was discounted? I'm just curious. It was an interesting choice of words.
11:20 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
In any election the size of Ontario's or the size of Canada's, there has to be a consideration of cybersecurity on all fronts and on all means that we utilize both public data, public information, and the electoral process as a whole.
We spend considerable time, as I articulated, working with privacy and provincial security experts to have them come in and do a full scope of penetration, infiltration testing and pen testing of all of our systems to ensure that they were secure throughout the event.
I've been conducting elections for 30 years. There were clearly attempts to infiltrate our systems. None were successful, and that's what I meant by “little evidence”. There was no evidence of anyone being successful in accessing any of our data electronically or by any other means, but it doesn't mean that people didn't try.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I appreciate that. Following up on that, are there information-sharing mechanisms between you as Elections Ontario with Elections Canada on attempts that may have been made?
11:20 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I've already met with folks from CSE federally and CSIS federally. We've provided them all of our materials. We've provided them all of the documentation on the penetration and infiltration testing that we did. I have met with the CEO of Elections Canada. We've provided them advice and guidance on what we experienced during the 2018 general election as well as provided them access any time that they have questions. We are more than happy to assist and help in any manner whatsoever.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Great. Thank you, sir, for that.
As part of the provincial legislation that was brought in in 2016, there was an element to prohibit collusion between third parties and between third parties and other political actors in terms of advertising, in terms of co-operation. I have two questions from that.
First, was there any evidence that there was collusion between third parties and political actors or among third parties to get around some of the limits? Did that happen? Were there any allegations of that?
The second one is on the challenge of enforcement. How is that proven? How is that dealt with from an enforcement standpoint? What powers does Elections Ontario have to enforce that and to determine whether that's happened or not?
11:20 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
There was no evidence whatsoever during this election that there had been any collusion whatsoever. There were some complaints, which we investigated fully, but we determined there was no factual evidence of anything. I had recommended prior to the deliberation on Bill 2 that they reform the definition of “collusion” in the previous Election Finances Act because I did not feel comfortable that it met the requirements we would need at Elections Ontario.
At Elections Ontario, I have the same authority that a public inquiries judge has, so I can compel testimony. I can compel information from financial institutions. I can compel any such information in the course of an investigation. I was supportive of the current bill in providing that to the commissioner of elections because that authority helps escalate the investigative nature and enforcement nature of our business. It reduces time substantively. We don't have to get into a big long-winded debate with political actors, because we have that authority. It's already enshrined into our legislation to compel that information, and it, quite frankly, speeds up the enforcement process considerably.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
That leads into something that Mr. Simms talked about a little bit, in terms of third party registration, using that $500 limit, either lowering it to nothing or increasing it. Certainly $500 doesn't go very far. I'm curious as to what resources an entity like Elections Ontario, or in our case Elections Canada, has available to seek out those examples of third parties. Certainly if I were to run third party ads for under $500 in Skeena—Bulkley Valley, for example—
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
No, don't do it. Unless my colleague Mr. Cullen has people actively looking for these ads running in a remote part of his riding, conceivably it's a challenge to determine where that's happening and when that's happening. What type of resources are needed to determine whether this is or isn't happening, and what type of resources ought we to be considering at a federal level?
11:25 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I would suggest to you they would be considerable. Quite simply, with the advent of the Internet, and its utilization now as a major, what I would call, advertising forum for political entities to utilize, it is a challenge. We receive a number of complaints from political parties, from other political actors, from stakeholders, and it's resource intensive to try to find out exactly whether that third party went past the threshold. You have to work very extensively with a lot of the social media networks and companies. Sometimes they provide discount advertising, so where it might appear to us that a third party has gone over the $500 threshold, when we do a little further investigation, we realize they got a discount rate on some ads and they're below it. It's just very, very labour-intensive. We had to substantially increase our election compliance team during the writ period.
The other issue pertaining to this is simply time. We have a 28-day writ period. When these complaints come in, we feel the need to try to investigate them as quickly and as effectively as possible to determine whether those third parties do need to register with us so there is greater transparency under that regime.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I have just a few seconds left in this round, but to follow up on that, how have your response and working relationship been with the social media networks, with Facebook, with Twitter and with Instagram? Has there been a strong or useful working relationship with them? What kind of response have you had from those networks?
11:25 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I think we have found that the social media networks we have dealt with, the main ones which you just articulated, have been very forthcoming to work with. I think for some of the issues there have been, which have garnered a great deal of media attention over the last year or so, certainly with us here in Ontario, the response has been very favourable. They were quick to respond to us and to get us the information we needed. They did not try to get away from providing us that information in a timely fashion.
11:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you very much.
Now we'll go to the aforementioned second most beautiful riding in the country.
Mr. Cullen.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
On a point of privilege, Chair, again, your riding is quite pretty—
11:25 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
—and if only you could see it in the darkness of the Yukon, we'd be able to verify that, whereas Skeena—Bulkley Valley is just gorgeous all the time.
Sorry about that, Mr. Essensa. It's a long-running battle between the chair and me.
If a third party takes out an ad on Facebook in Ontario, do they have to identify who paid for the ad?
11:25 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
At present they don't, unless they pass that $500 threshold.
Then, they have to register with us. They have to provide all of the other requirements in Bill 2, which includes who is funding their campaigns, who is making contributions, as well as expenses they are incurring.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Imagine there is a manufacturers association or a pharmaceutical association. They place a number of ads across the social media spectrum and they form a group to sponsor the ads, something like “Pharmaceuticals for Ontario”, and they exceed the $500 limit. They place that name underneath it, and then report to you where all the individual funding came from for that ad campaign. Is that right?
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Is there any identification of whether that money is entirely sourced within Canada, or can it be internationally sourced as well?
11:25 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
It's one of the challenges, because the third parties only have to indicate to us where they source that money during the writ period. If they bring money through the campaign prior to the writ period or registration, there's no requirement for them to indicate to us exactly where those funds came from.
11:25 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I'm thinking more of, by nature, multinational associations, be they oil, gas or pharmaceutical. If you simply stock the money pre-writ, you put a million bucks into the bank that you collected from a number of organizations, form an association, and then in the writ period spend that $1 million on ads promoting a certain policy or agenda, and then the accountability back to Ontarians.... They wouldn't know if that money came from the United States, Europe, China, or if it was entirely Canadian. Is that right?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
Outside of the third party indicating to us that the money had come from some foreign entity, we would not be able to see that. It is one of the things I will be commenting on to Ontario's legislators. It's why I brought it forward in my speaking comments that, as you are reviewing this bill, I don't see a similar type of provision that would prevent third parties, in the circumstance you described, from using foreign money. It's something you may wish to consider.
