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.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
There was the very highlighted case of....
Let me start with this first to help the committee. What privacy rules are political parties subjected to right now? Are they subjected to the Ontario privacy act in terms of disclosing the data that parties collect? Also, can voters gain access to what parties have collected about them individually?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
In Ontario, a political party has to provide to me an acceptable privacy policy.
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
Yes. We have worked with our information and privacy commissioner's team to develop what guidelines need to be incurred in that policy. We provide samples and examples of what is acceptable to us. Every political party must provide that to my office prior to receiving any of the tools, voters lists, maps, etc., in connection with an election. Should they not—
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
For example, is one of those guidelines or things they have to follow that if a voter phones the New Democrats, the Conservatives or the Liberals and says that he or she wants all the data they have on him or her, does the party have to then disclose that to the voter? The right to know, essentially, is what....
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
No, that's not part of our privacy policy.
What our privacy policy indicates is that the information we provide to the political parties is to be used for the electoral purpose for that general election. Their requirement is that they dissolve that information, and provide to me a certificate indicating they have eliminated all of that information from their files. The information we provide—
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
That's the main piece. You give them the voter list, for example, and the parties then have to prove to you that they've then since removed all of that data from their systems.
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
And that they've destroyed the data.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You looked into the Highway 407 data breach. Is that right?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
There is a conjunctive investigation ongoing with the York Regional Police and my office.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
In that case, and correct me if I'm wrong, the allegations were that some 600,000 customers had their data, more or less...?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I am really not in a position to comment on an ongoing investigation.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
As we look at federal laws right now, the only thing that's required under this bill is that parties have a privacy policy. That's what's required federally. There are no limits, restrictions or even best practices that are described in the bill, of which our now permanent Chief Electoral Officer has been critical. The Privacy Commissioner has been incredibly critical.
How important is having strong and enforceable privacy rules within our election laws?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I think it's critical. You have to go no further than to read many of the publications on issues of Facebook and other social media issues that have been raised in the last several months.
I think it is incumbent on political parties and all political actors to ensure the personal privacy of those individuals whose information they've been given.
I am supportive of our regime in Ontario. It requires political parties to effectively swear to me that they've destroyed that information, and it's no longer in their domain.
I think that Bill C-76 should consider revisions or amendments to strengthen the privacy requirements. I think all Canadians would expect that.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I have one last question that might be difficult to answer.
We were talking about social media. Going back to that topic, it's not just the placement of ads encouraging voters to think about certain issues. We've also heard from some of our U.S. colleagues that the search algorithms that are used and what gets profiled in people's newsfeeds can be either intentionally or unintentionally manipulated so that certain news stories come up and are directed and subtargeted at certain voters. Do you have any insights into that, as we're designing this law?
You talked about fairness at the very beginning of your presentation. If someone is able to make Google always point in a certain way so that when people search “Ontario election” or “Canadian election”, a certain party or issue always pops up, is there any prescription we can place into law to help clarify that or pull the veil back?
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
I wish I could give you a concrete solution to this problem. I think this is something that chief electoral officers are discussing amongst ourselves. This is a new facet and regime that we're seeing with the advent of the Internet and these large social media companies that, as you correctly articulated, can direct messaging to a certain segment of society.
At this particular time as an electoral administrator, I don't have a clear-cut solution for you. I think it is something that legislators, experts in the field of social media, and electoral administrators need to work on to find an effective solution. I do believe Canadians would expect that of us.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to start with your pre-writ spending limits for parties, not third parties. What is that limit for Ontario?
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
In Ontario, it was $1 million in pre-writ spending for political parties during the six months prior to the event.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Has that been consistent or was that a change that came about in your last legislation?
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
With the changes in Bill 2, this was a new provision. We had never had this in the past. It was the first time that we had absolutely implemented it.
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Ontario
No. There was no pre-writ.... None whatsoever.
