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.
3:50 p.m.
Stephanie Kusie Calgary Midnapore, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here today, Madam Minister.
Professor Lori Turnbull, a former adviser in the PCO's democratic institutions unit, which supports you, appeared before the committee this spring and suggested creating segregated bank accounts and fundraising practices for third parties' political activities.
Why do you not support your former adviser's suggestion to implement this measure?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
In Bill C-76, we have actually proposed that third parties create a separate bank account for any activities with regard to funds that they intend to use for political activities in the pre-writ period and the writ period.
3:50 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
Okay.
However, this is not created for all times, as you've indicated: It's specifically for the pre-writ and writ periods, and therefore not specifically demonstrating the origin of funds.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Well that's also the case for political candidates as well.
When you ran for office, you opened a separate bank account as a political candidate that was separate from your riding association or from the political party, so it's in line with that practice.
3:50 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
You are confirming that it's not for all times. Why would you say that you do not support disclosure at any time for any purpose?
3:50 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
Why do you not support disclosure of expenditures at any time for any purpose?
With regard to the clauses in the bill, as it stands presently, it is not possible to entirely follow the inflow of money and the expenditure of money by these third parties at all times.
Why do you not support disclosure at any time for any purpose?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
I think it's important to clarify what exactly a third party is. Third parties are anything that are not political parties or candidates. That could be an individual or civil society; that could be any group or individual in Canada.
We believe it's important that it should only meet that threshold when that individual or organization will be conducting political or partisan activities in the lead-up to the campaign. Otherwise, I think that would be going too far into either people's personal lives or the activity of organizations that may not actually be participating in political activities.
However, what Bill C-76 does is to require that if a third party is intending to participate either during the pre-writ period or the writ period, they must disclose all donations received in the lead-up to that election.
3:50 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
Thank you.
The Chief Electoral Officer asked specifically to have items in the bill related to anti-collusion, yet the measures and the amendments that were brought forward by the government deal only with third parties and not with all parties. Why is this?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
It's with regard to third parties and political parties, which we think is very important.
We also wanted to make sure.... For example, in the case of the New Democratic Party at the provincial level, if you remember, you're also a member at the federal level, and we didn't want to impede their ability to work as one party. We tried to understand the Canadian landscape of political parties in creating this. I think that's really important, but it is specifically there so you don't have a third party colluding with a political party for those objectives.
3:50 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
In Bill C-76, you attempt to tackle foreign interference in Canadian elections. Let's take a hypothetical case of a foreign entity donating $1 million to a Canadian organization for administration costs, let's say. Then this organization, which had raised money for these costs, suddenly finds itself with this $1 million available to campaign in Canada.
Can you confirm that this type of foreign funding and interference will remain legal, despite Bill C-76?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Within Bill C-76, there's a blanket ban on using foreign funding for partisan activities during the pre-writ or political period. There are anti-circumvention rules within Bill C-76 as well, to ensure that this is not the case; however, it's important to recognize that we strongly believe that Bill C-76 goes quite far with regard to doing our best to ensure there is no foreign funding either at the third party or political party level in Canada.
3:55 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
Can you say with absolute certainty that you have done everything within your power as the Government of Canada to ensure that there is no foreign influence for Canadians, be it at the social media level or at the funding level?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
I think we should determine the difference between “foreign influence” versus “foreign interference”. Foreign influences are things that could be overt—for example, a foreign government saying this is what they believe on a particular subject. That's within the rules of diplomacy.
Foreign interference would be the covert attempt to undermine Canadians' information or access to information, or understanding the results of the election. I believe that Bill C-76 does what's possible within the law to do our best to ensure that this does not happen; however, I think that what we've tried to do, and what I've tried to do with Bill C-76, is plan for the things that we know of and ensure that they're grounded in the values and the principles that are important for Canadians with regard to our elections.
However, there could always be something that happens in the future that we are unaware of, but I think that this is a very robust framework and grounding to do our best to protect Canadian elections from foreign interference.
3:55 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
At the United Nations recently, your Prime Minister indicated that there was not much foreign influence or interference in the last election here in Canada.
In your opinion, how much is too much? Is “not much” too much? Do you feel that with Bill C-76 we will have no influence or interference entering the 2019 federal election?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
His comments were based on the Communications Security Establishment report that was released in June 2017, which was the first time that a signals intelligence agency, or any intelligence agency around the world, had publicly examined and released information on foreign interference in elections around the world. While low levels were seen, they were not seen to have interfered in the election itself; however, Bill C-76, and other actions that are being taken in collaboration with the political parties and the CSE are all done to prevent and prepare Canadians for what could be an eventuality in 2019, or it could not.
As I've said, I think this is a very robust framework and I think it prepares and sets up Canadians well for 2019, and that we can have confidence in both our intelligence and security agencies, and also in our elections administration to do what they can to protect Canadian democracy.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Minister and your team, for being here.
I'm looking through the amendments that your government has moved to this bill and I'm considering the track that has taken us here. It has been 700 days since you introduced Bill C-33, which was the original effort to get rid of the unfair elections act. It's five months past the deadline that was set by Elections Canada to bring these changes to completion and into law. It more than two years after the broken promise to make 2015 the last election under the first-past-the-post system.
I'm surprised, because I thought there would be more in here on things that your government, and you personally, have claimed to support, and because you seem unsupportive of things that I think would help.
I think of the launch of the parliamentary session. The Prime Minister said to your caucus, “Add women. Change politics is how we will make a better country.”
One of the Liberal fundraising ads said, ”Canada needs more women from diverse backgrounds making decisions in Ottawa. Because when women succeed, we all succeed.”
We have an amendment in here that is based upon a model that Ireland and other countries have used. In the case of Ireland, it increased the participation of women candidates by 90% and helped elect 40% more women to their parliament.
We're ranked 61st in the world right now, Minister. You know this, of course. The Parliament is 26% women, and at the current pace, as the Daughters of the Vote pointed out to the Prime Minister, it will take 90 years to get to equity in our legislature, yet you're planning to vote against an amendment to get us there, an amendment as has been applied in other democracies.
Did you get the IT alert that I received just recently from our IT service department here in Ottawa? It just happened a couple of hours ago. It was an IT alert for a Facebook data breach. You commissioned a report, which was delivered to you by the CSE, and I'm quoting from that report. It said:
...almost certainly, political parties and politicians, and the media are more vulnerable to cyber threats and related influence operations....
The Privacy Commissioner has said that one of the ways to counter those threats to our democracy is to include political parties under privacy rules. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association just wrote to you and said that the provisions on privacy are so inadequate as to be meaningless, and the current Privacy Commissioner has said that Bill C-76—this bill—has “nothing of substance” when it comes to privacy.
British Columbia has existed under these privacy rules for 15 years. Parties have been able to communicate effectively with voters. Europe has had it for 20 years, and they've been effectively able to communicate with their voters.
We're proposing Sunday voting, which the former Chief Electoral Officer has promoted. In other democracies, it has increased voter participation by 6% to 7%.
I guess what I find confusing about all of this is that I'm trying to match the words and the rhetoric of your government with your actions when we now have an opportunity to do something about it. You've been in office for three years. Here's an opportunity to deal with the rules that guide us as politicians, that guide the electoral process. I would think that one of your fundamental mandates would be to increase the participation of women and diverse voices, yet your party has chosen to protect all incumbents, thereby ensuring the status quo. The status quo should be unacceptable to everybody.
When we have amendments that would help more women become candidates, help more women and diverse voices actually get elected, you want to vote against them. We see the cyber-threats and the cybersecurity issues that your own agency identified after your request to investigate, but this bill has nothing in it to increase protection of data and privacy.
When the current Chief Electoral Officer was here testifying, we asked him what he knew about what the parties gather in terms of the data on Canadians, and he said, “I have no idea.” Your report says that we, as political parties, are vulnerable to attacks and that Canada as a country is susceptible to these attacks. Having watched Brexit, having watched the U.S. elections, we have important and very recent examples of the reasons to strengthen privacy laws, but this bill has nothing in it.
Seven hundred days after introducing the first iteration of this bill, five months after passing over the deadline set by Elections Canada to get us to this place so we can introduce these changes, and after having made so many promises to women and diverse groups to do better, we're offering opportunities to do better through amendments, based on evidence that is in front of us.
Your government claims to be evidence-based. We are using evidence to improve the things that your government and your party claim to want to improve, and you're choosing not to do them. My question is, why?
4 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
Okay, thanks.
Thank you for all of your comments and your question.
With regard to cybersecurity, I think there are many things in this bill that are working to improve cybersecurity for Canadians and improve our democracy.
The other thing I want to note is that the Communications Security Establishment has reached out to political parties and is engaging with them to ensure that they have the best practices in place, and it is available to provide advice on an ongoing basis.
4 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
There's nothing that requires that. All your bill says is that parties have to post the policy somewhere on their website, and there are no consequences if they fail to keep the data safe.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Karina Gould Liberal Burlington, ON
There are a couple of points with regard to that. This is the first time we are requiring in legislation that political parties post a public privacy policy. I would note that after this bill was introduced, the New Democratic Party, for example, updated their privacy policy, which had been quite out of date. I think you can see that is a real, tangible step in the right—
