Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Okay.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

It's already been said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

So we have no speakers on the list.

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I go back to the question of whether this motion is in order, since it does deal with a date that has passed.

Is this motion in order at this point in time?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Let's vote on the subamendment now.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Can we continue to debate a motion that, as has been mentioned, is nonsensical, on that point?

I look to the chair for clarification on that.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Remember that the amendment causes it to not be nonsensical. You cannot agree to not do something that would have involved being in the past, thereby bringing logic to it. That wasn't the reason for the amendment being put in, but it does have that effect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You want the subamendment, then the amendment, and then the main motion can be amended if the committee wishes to.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Well, then I'll—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

You're on Mr. Reid's subamendment to your amendment.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I'm on the subamendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, again, to the committee for giving me the floor. It's always a pleasure to discuss this motion and discuss the subamendment that my able colleague has proposed.

Certainly one aspect of Mr. Reid's amendment has been dealt with in terms of the appearance today of the chief electoral officer of Ontario. Frankly, I found his testimony to be interesting, intriguing and fascinating. He touched on a number of issues that I think are related to the bill that we have before us in this committee in the examples that they had provincially, whether it be third party financing, the provisional voter registry or, more generally, concerning technology, which isn't directly foreseen in this bill, but has been something that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada has touched on and commented on, particularly as it relates to e-poll books, how that was implemented provincially and the challenges that our CEO, Mr. Perrault, is having federally in terms of implementing that in a professional and appropriate way.

In his testimony last week, he noted that he is not in a position to roll forward with that in a testing capacity, which would normally be done in a by-election, in the by-election that we expect will occur at some point this fall. Currently there are vacancies in York—Simcoe as of Sunday, in Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, in Outremont, and I believe in Mr. Di Iorio's seat as well. I did notice that Mr. Di Iorio is still on the website. I'm not sure when his resignation takes effect. I thought it had happened back in the spring, but that doesn't seem to be the case since he still seems to be on the website. So, potentially there will be a by-election there, as well as in Burnaby—Douglas, which I think is Burnaby South right now.

Certainly there are opportunities in those by-elections to pilot certain things. However, the understanding is—and I think appropriately so—that the CEO is not willing to undertake that unless he has full confidence that the technology is there, has been tested and is ready to go. The information that we received this morning from the provincial CEO about how he rolled out that testing in the Whitby—Oshawa by-election and then rolled it out province-wide this past June is a positive.

His testimony was also worthwhile in terms of technology and how it is implemented. An interesting dynamic that those of us who have rural or remote ridings—mine is certainly more rural than remote—but, rural in terms of connectivity and the challenges we are faced with in terms of using new technology, whether it be e-poll books or vote tabulators.... I had the great privilege of using this technology during our federal leadership race in May 2017. I believe it was the same company and the same technology. They look like old fax machines.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

It's related to the provincial CEO's testimony, which is—

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

It has nothing to do with the subamendment.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

—part of the subamendment. And so—

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Graham, for that comment.

When I was a deputy returning officer, this technology was being used in the polling location that I was responsible for near Fergus, Ontario. Even there, in a relatively established area, there were challenges with the Wi-Fi, using the modem to connect, to the point that I had to physically move locations to connect. So there is that challenge.

What I found interesting and informative from the CEO's testimony is that 90% of voters voted at locations that employed this technology, whereas 50% of the locations employed the technology. That certainly takes into account a lot of the challenges that are faced in a number of areas. When we look at how the results came in, how they were tabulated, we see that the speed with which the results initially came in for the vast majority of the ridings, the vast majority of the polls within the ridings, showed the success of that. But we waited for some period of time to hear back from those locations that were using traditional tabulating of paper ballots. I think that's informative of how it worked. Certainly, the testimony he provided us in terms of the success rates—between 99.4% and 99.6% in terms of connectivity throughout the day—is positive, worthwhile and good to hear.

Whenever we, as a committee, or Canadians talk about new technology, there's always the concern of interference. The system that's been undertaken, as the CEO mentioned this morning, is really technology that is 30-plus years old, so it's not as though it's new in that sense, but it's certainly a new use of it.

But the ability to use that technology and also have the hard-copy ballots saved and maintained afterwards is worthwhile.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Nater, I'll just remind you that the subamendment is only that the minister appear, so if you agree with that, you'll be making arguments as to why the minister should appear, or if you disagree, to why the minister should not appear.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Sure, Chair. I'll focus my comments more going forward. I thought the subamendment included both the CEO of Ontario and the minister.

I do apologize for that, Chair.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That's already happened.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That is interesting. That has happened. We enjoyed hearing the CEO's testimony.

Going forward, I think it's absolutely important that we hear from the minister before we proceed to clause-by-clause. I was quite looking forward to hearing the minister testify at committee on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

What really frustrated me was that from the government's side there was this implication that the testimony from the minister was some kind of gift bestowed upon the opposition by the government. Frankly, it's not. That's not the way it should be. The minister and her counterparts across the cabinet were given clear direction in their mandate letters that they should be available to committees. My hope is that the minister will appear once more before committee before we move to clause-by-clause so we can discuss some of the amendments.

I appreciate that the clerk will be distributing the amendments that have been submitted by all parties, and I understand that there are a number of them: from the government, the opposition and the third party, and from I believe the Green Party and potentially the Bloc, although I don't know that for a fact. I do know that Ms. May has submitted proposed amendments.

It's important, I think, that before we actually go to clause-by-clause—and now in the coming days we'll have access to the proposed amendments—we have the opportunity to speak with the minister. It's important to to hear from her and to have her indicate to us what direction she's looking to take in terms of which amendments would be acceptable to her from a government perspective, and what amendments she's not willing to undertake. The ability to have her appear before this committee at a certain point in time I think would be worthwhile. I think it would be beneficial.

Certainly, those of us who are on this committee have an interest in this file, obviously, since we're sitting on the committee that's studying the bill, but she, as the responsible minister, has an important vested interest as the minister responsible for this matter to appear and to indicate the government's direction. I appreciate, certainly, that we may not agree with every amendment that she proposes, and we may not agree with every amendment that the NDP or the Green Party may propose, but we would at least have an indication from the minister of what direction she would like to see.

From my perspective, I would be curious to see what amendments she would be willing to accept as they relate to third parties, so the ability to ask her whether she would agree to additional strengthening of some of the provisions on third parties.... Certainly, taking into account some of the comments that came from our Ontario CEO as they relate to third parties, I would be intrigued to hear whether she'd be amenable to strengthening some of those concerns, particularly—and again, this is in relation to the ongoing commentary and controversy south of the border—with regard to foreign influence and foreign interference. None of us wants to be talking about Russian interference and #FakeNews in terms of that foreign influence.

Clearly, too, I think most of the population, with perhaps some leading American figures excluded, believes that there was an act of interference in that election. I want to hear from the minister how she will go about addressing the concerns that are rightfully held by members—I think on all sides of this table—about how foreign influence will be dealt with in an upcoming election. How the minister will deal with that is certainly an open question.

I'd be curious to question her on whether she would adopt some of the testimony of the provincial CEO in terms of having all donations disclosed for a third party in regard to where the funding comes from, and whether that funding comes from a foreign entity or from an entity that perhaps mixes foreign funds with domestic funds. Hearing from the minister on that particular matter in terms of whether she'd be open to some increased reporting standards and accountability mechanisms that would prevent entities from using foreign funds in Canadian elections I think would be worthwhile.

As well, I think it would be worthwhile to question the minister on the role of the Auditor General. I found it interesting that the CEO brought up the point that the Auditor General conducts a review of government spending in the pre-writ period. That's an interesting way to address it.

As far as I know, the Auditor General doesn't have that role federally. I'd be curious to see the minister's comments on that, and whether she'd be open to having an audit role for the AG or another similar entity, perhaps the CEO, or perhaps someone not directly related to the elections, to review how government advertising is undertaken during the writ period and in the pre-writ period.

That goes along with a further commentary that, in the proposed legislation there is the pre-writ spending cap applying to political parties. I'd be interested to hear the minister's comments on whether she would be open to aligning the periods for federal advertising, as well as ministerial announcements and parliamentary and ministerial travel that could conceivably be seen as being done with an electoral purpose. I would want to know whether the minister would be open to reviewing that type of function.

For all intents and purposes, it appeared as though the minister was open to having these conversations. She certainly, physically, showed up on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. She sat through the entire meeting in Centre Block. She had notes in front of her. Conceivably, she was prepared to testify and was open to questions from this committee.

That didn't happen. A motion was brought forward at the beginning of the meeting, before the minister could testify, which we debated throughout the meeting. It was the guillotine motion that's now before us. The actual original motion, I guess, was to revive that motion for debate rather than doing so after the minister's testimony. That's unfortunate. As I said, I don't think the appearance of a minister at committee should be seen as some kind of gift or some kind of benefit that's provided to committees only if we agree to a programming motion, only if we agree to a guillotine motion. I don't think that's appropriate, especially when you review the mandate letters of ministers, which focus on them appearing before committees.

Another thing I wanted to hear from the minister before we move forward is her focus and her efforts to implement a similar provisional voter registry, as was undertaken in Ontario. The CEO of Ontario provided some positive commentary on that. In their example, it was an optional registry. In ours, it was an automatic registry. In both cases, the option is to withdraw at some point in time. I'd be curious to know the minister's thoughts on those two strategies, and which one is more appropriate from a federal perspective.

On the provincial perspective, the CEO, Mr. Essensa, mentioned that about 1,200 people, give or take, were on the register. That seems exceptionally low given the population of Ontario and given the number of 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds that are out there, particularly since the vast majority of 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds are currently in high school, so they're in a public institution that a CEO or an elections official would have access to. That 1,200 number seems low. I'd be curious to hear the minister's commentary, one way or another, in terms of how that's undertaken. The CEO appeared to indicate that the number of people who have withdrawn is exceptionally low. I think that's a positive outcome. It would be curious to see whether that bears out when it's a mandatory or an automatic registration.

This ties in with the privacy concerns with that. I was pleased to hear from the provincial CEO that this data is guarded within Elections Ontario. It is not shared with political parties. It's not shared with third parties. It's not shared outside of Elections Ontario. I think that's an important matter that we need to assure ourselves of: that similar provisions are in place.

Federally, we've heard from the former acting minister, Mr. Brison, in a commentary on the bill itself in the House, that it would not be the case that this information would be shared with people outside Elections Canada. That's reassuring, but as well, we need to assure ourselves that it is the fact.

As the corollary to that as well, when people do turn 18 and they become eligible to vote, those names are then added to the permanent voters list, at which point, of course, as registered voters, people are entitled to vote in the federal election. That information would be shared with those actors in the political process that have the right to have that information.

While I'm on the subject of privacy, and Mr. Cullen brought up the issue of privacy regulations, privacy rules, how we go about dealing with the challenges of protection of personal data, protection of information. Certainly, this bill has some measures designed to move us toward that, but on hearing from different witnesses, different experts, there is no agreement that it goes far enough. I'd be curious to know from the minister, if she's had any change of heart in terms of how questions of privacy are dealt with in this legislation.

One matter on which I'd like to hear from the minister, when she appears and hopefully that can happen, is whether she feels the federal privacy legislation, PIPEDA, applies completely to those actors within the political process, or whether some aspects of it could be applied to the process. We've heard testimony both from the CEO and from the Privacy Commissioner who have made specific suggestions around the privacy question and personal information. Being able to go forward and have that conversation with the minister and question her as to whether or not she will accept those recommendations from those commissioners, or whether she has an alternative proposal to do so, would be of benefit to the committee.

Certainly, the legislation has made the provision that parties will have a privacy policy that would be subject to oversight by the Chief Electoral Officer. That's probably a worthwhile process with which to begin. Whether that's the long-term policy or not would be something the minister will have to address during her testimony, if and when she appears before this committee.

Another issue that is worth articulating, and worth having that conversation with the minister about, relates to the anti-collusion provisions that the provincial government has implemented. I was heartened to hear there were allegations—I shouldn't say heartened to hear there were allegations. I should say that I was heartened to hear how the CEO dealt with allegations of collusion among political actors, among third parties and how those were investigated.

I'd be curious to hear whether the minister would be open to strengthening and implementing strong anti-collusion provisions within the federal legislation to ensure that third parties and political actors are not trying to get around the rules and the limits that exist within legislation to influence beyond what they ought to be able to influence.

The Ontario CEO, as a corollary to that, brought up the example of the minimum spending limit, it being $500 in Ontario, and the challenge of forcing that within a digital environment. We could take a step further and look at that writ large with advertising in general.

With online advertising, whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or more traditional banner ads on websites, it's difficult to maintain a registry or an observation of these advertisements. Unless you or someone connected with the campaign have observed them first-hand, there's not typically a permanent record of that available online. It may not ever even appear to someone individually, based on the metrics that are indicated in an advertisement.

For example, on Facebook, it can be targeted to people who like a certain page, who may have certain page likes within their Facebook account, so based on that, you may or you may not see a political ad.

If I happen to like the Conservative Party of Canada on Facebook, if I happen to like Andrew Scheer on Facebook, the Liberal Party or the New Democrats—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You might need a sanity check.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I might need a sanity check, but that goes for politicians in general.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's probably true.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Chances are that, if the NDP or the Liberals are running an ad, those who like Andrew Scheer and those who like the Conservative Party or similar entities will be excluded from seeing that ad. The ability to know what its money is being spent on is largely limited to actually being able to physically view an ad. When we have the minister here, we need to have that conversation about how we go about ensuring that, particularly as it relates to third parties.

In terms of political actors, the disclosure of information is, I would say, fairly robust. We are, through the Canada Elections Act, required to report all expenses, all contributions, so it's dealt with that way. Again, there are always challenges, but if money was spent on Facebook advertising, if money was spent on online advertising, as a matter of the law and as a matter of electoral rebates, for that matter, political entities report that on their returns.

A third party who is not required to register, though, will not have those same dynamics, so we need to have the conversation with the minister in terms of how we go about addressing those types of concerns, particularly in a digital environment.

Now, I don't claim to have the magic solution to any of those challenges. Certainly, there are options available for this committee, and I look forward to seeing the amendments that are being brought forward by all political parties, to see if there's something in there that we could adopt and implement that would allow us the opportunity to go about that direction, to look at ways in which we can ensure that third party rules foresee some form of digital advertising and how to address that digital advertising when it happens. Perhaps it is real-time reporting of all expenses of third parties, together with the forced registry of all third parties, so whether they spend $1, $500, or $5,000, I think that would be one way to go about that. Certainly, the provincial CEO indicated that it would be easier for him to determine a $3,000 or $5,000 threshold, or a zero-dollar threshold, but when you come to a $500 threshold, you're certainly kind of using a judgment call and it makes it more challenging to see where that happens and where that comes into play.

Certainly more generally, it's a conversation that needs to be had with the minister more broadly, on how we deal with new technologies and new ways of communicating that don't always appear in the traditional way of doing business in an election. I'm a new MP, but I've been involved in election campaigns for my adult life, and I very much remember that original advertising was very much focused on radio and television ads, and in smaller communities on the weekly newspaper and the local newspaper. For those, it was very easy to indicate who spent the money to pay for the ad, which campaign was doing that, because it said that it was authorized by the official agent for so and so. That certainly was the way it was dealt with in the past, in terms of how we traditionally campaign.

In the new era, it's more challenging to have that clarity in terms of what ads pop up in one's stream. There are ways that you can see individual pages and what advertisements they are undertaking, but it's not always clear to a voter, to a constituent, to a Canadian, in terms of where those are being targeted and where they are undertaken.

I would note that you can click on, I believe, the “About” tab and see which ads are being currently run by a particular page, but again it doesn't show who paid for them and who's authorized those ads. Particularly on a Facebook page, it may not have a clear definition of who it is. Certainly, if the Facebook page was “John Nater, MP”, you could reasonably assume that's a Facebook page that is related to John Nater, or John Nater for the Conservative Party, or some kind of indication that it's connected to that.

The challenge we're facing, however, and where we need direction and clarity is with other entities. If there were a “Friends of John Nater” campaign that had a Facebook page, determining exactly who the friends of John Nater are would be a challenge.