Chair, just to clarify for the committee, this is the testimony we heard from Professor Pal on this subject:
Second-last, on social media platforms, there is a new offence in the bill in terms of how social media platforms or advertising platforms generally should not be able to sell space to foreign entities. I think that's a very positive move. I would just draw the committee's attention to the current rules in the Elections Act that are imposed on TV broadcasters. They cannot charge more than the lowest basically available rate to any political party seeking to advertise. What this effectively means is that it gives political parties a right to have advertising time at a reasonable rate, but it also means that the same rate has to be charged to all political parties.
Political advertising is now happening to a great extent on Facebook. There is nothing in the current Elections Act or in Bill C-76 that would prevent Facebook, through what they call their “ad auction system”, from charging differential rates to different political parties. The current rule for broadcasters is in the Elections Act for a reason. There's no principled reason why that shouldn't also apply to social media advertisers, which may have commercial interests at heart when they're making decisions about their algorithms.
That was a recommendation he made and I think it—