Evidence of meeting #123 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 clause.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
—direction. There are strong consequences if parties do not do that, in the sense that they will be deregistered as a political party—
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
On the other hand, there is also a requirement for political parties not to mislead Elections Canada, and that would come with very strong repercussions. We are empowering the commissioner of Canada elections, if a complaint is made, to be able to do that investigation.
I think these are really positive first steps and I would encourage the committee, if this is an issue they think is of importance, to study it more deeply and more broadly.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You are not accepting efforts to help more women and diversities get elected. Why not?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
In this legislation, I'm very proud of the fact that with regard to child care and other care provisions for candidates, we will now be reimbursing that at up to 90% if this legislation is passed, and it will be outside of the total spend that candidates are allowed with regard to the election period. This is really important, because if it was within the spend limit, it would result in, for someone who has care costs for a family member, including a sick family member, a decrease in their competitiveness with others who may not have those costs, and they can also be reimbursed at a higher level.
There are some practical things in here that I think will encourage people of greater diversity to run.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
I also think that all of us here in this room as leaders should be doing our part to encourage women to participate—
NDP
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
—and our government has also recently announced $4.5 million for the Daughters of the Vote, as well as support for Equal Voice, and is really working to encourage and increase diverse participation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you, Minister.
Now we'll go on to Ms. Sahota for seven minutes.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Some of those incumbents include women, Mr. Cullen, so you could have things go the other way around.
Anyway, I also have some questions regarding Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other social media, which have become very common for use in advertising for political purposes and during campaigns as well.
Currently they keep records of advertisements, but when that advertisement is old and no longer available, you no longer can see any record of the advertising. Do you think when it comes to political advertising that there should be better recording? How should that recording be made available? Should it be made available to the Chief Electoral Officer or made available publicly? What are your thoughts on that?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Absolutely, it should be made available to both the Chief Electoral Officer and to the Canadian public, because I think as we've seen in jurisdictions around the world and within their electoral experiences, one of the key ways that foreign actors have attempted to interfere in the electoral process is specifically with regard to not disclosing that they are in fact the ones who are purchasing advertising on social media platforms. I think a stronger transparency regime with regard to advertising on social media, but also on media more broadly, is also very important.
I think it's really important for this registry to be available for a period of time following the election as well, so that if there are questions or complaints, there is a public registry where people can go look and where the commissioner can also take a look at what was advertised and how it was advertised.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Do you have any suggestions on what that period of time should be?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
I think it should be for two to five years, because we would want to be able to go through an entire parliamentary process.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Okay.
Going back to some of the third party spending and foreign money coming in for third party spending here, especially when it comes to social media platforms—I know this question was raised, but it was in a little bit of a different way—even outside the writ period or the election period, if a foreign actor is spending for political advertising but maybe not during the writ or the pre-writ period, should that still be captured somehow?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
This legislation would only deal with the writ and the pre-writ period, but I do think that more information is always better, and transparency is always the right policy to pursue. I think there are often times when Canadians may think they are getting information from a domestic actor when in fact it could very well be coming from a foreign source, so I think there is an onus on social media platforms to disclose that information, because it contributes to the domestic dialogue.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
But you don't feel that it's the place of this legislation or the Chief Electoral Officer—
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
This is the first time we'll be putting a pre-writ period into practice, should this legislation pass—which I sincerely hope it does—and I think we would then have evidence to determine how that took place during the pre-writ and the writ period and would provide further evidence for this committee or parliamentarians or Canadians or Elections Canada to make further recommendations as to what else would need to be done. However, it should be noted that foreign funding is banned at all times for anything that has to do with partisan process.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Okay.
During the CEO's testimony at committee, the commissioner of Canada elections said that there are challenges of enforcement in the provisions of Bill C-76 to prohibit organizations or individuals from selling ad space to any foreign entity. Ensuring enforceability is obviously key to keeping foreign actors outside of Canadian elections. Do you agree, and if so, do you feel the bill should be amended to include this aspect?
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Okay.
Building on that, there was also another suggestion by the CEO that when anyone enters the database or the computer system, whether it is with intent or without intent, the bill should capture it either way and then be able to enforce against those actors. Whether they knowingly wanted to affect the outcome of the election or not, just being in that space alone should be a violation.
I have heard arguments on both sides about whether we can go that far and remove intent from the actor. I know that our act coincides with the Criminal Code as well.
Can I get a little bit more direction on how the two acts, the Criminal Code and this piece of legislation, would act together and whether it is possible to remove the intent portion?
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
If you don't mind, I'm going to turn it over to Jean-François to answer.
Lieutenant-Commander Jean-François Morin Senior Policy Advisor, Privy Council Office
Thank you very much for your question.
Yes, there is an amendment that has been proposed to partially implement the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendation. This amendment would actually make it also an offence to attempt to do anything that is currently in Bill C-76, but always with the intent to affect the election. This new provision in Bill C-76 mirrors an existing provision of the Criminal Code, so in Bill C-76 the provision about malicious use of a computer includes two intent requirements: one specific intent requirement related to the election, and one more general intent requirement that is only related to fraud.
In parallel to that, the Criminal Code provision will continue to apply, and of course the Criminal Code provision doesn't have that specificity about federal elections.
Therefore, yes, definitely the commissioner of Canada elections will be able to investigate this offence in the Canada Elections Act, but if he finds that all essential elements of the offence are met except for the one related to the electoral context, he can also turn to another investigative body and ask that charges be laid under the Criminal Code.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ms. Sahota.
Now we'll go back to Ms. Kusie for five minutes.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, my apologies: I didn't complete my comment thanking you for being here today, so thank you for being here today.
Minister, normally during an election there are severe limits on activities that the government can undertake at the same time that there are stringent limits on election activities. Bill C-76 extends the time period during which political parties and third parties are subject to strict rules, so it stands to reason that there will be some reasonable limits on government activity during the same period. You've already announced a ban on most government advertising in the 90 days prior to the fixed election date; can you commit to extending this ban to include the entire pre-writ period?