Evidence of meeting #125 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 election.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
6:50 p.m.
NDP
6:50 p.m.
LCdr Jean-François Morin
I'm not saying that the reporting requirements are affected by this. I'm just saying that even below the $500 threshold every single person in Canada incurring any, even minimal, partisan advertising expense—and then there's an associated provision during the election period for election advertising expenses—would be required to provide it to the Chief Electoral Officer within 10 days.
6:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right. So, all the reporting requirements exceeding $500 or $10,000 are extraneous to this. What this is talking about is if somebody says they want to put a $300 ad in their local newspaper, or they want to buy three hundred dollars' worth of Facebook ads to target a particular group of voters, they have to send a copy of that to Elections Canada. That's what this amendment says.
The trick is that, with the previous amendments that the Liberals moved and passed, there are triggers at which the social media companies, as a company, have to start reporting, and it's three million views a month, I believe. It's a relatively high bar. You could very much imagine smaller platforms—more political platforms—that are exclusively political and targeted, would never get near three million views. If someone advertises on those and the ad is never triggered, it is never recorded or held by that...there's no responsibility to hold that ad. You could have fake news under a bit of a subversive campaign going on, and any of those ads would not be required to be captured by that platform company, nor if this fails then we just wouldn't have any repository at all.
So, you're a candidate in an election and someone's running all this advertising through social media networks that are not three million views a month, of which there are many more than there are that exceed three million views a month, and your ads would simply be.... You could micro-target them and you know how much you could get for $500 on a social media ad, especially the smaller ones. You could get lots saying Ruby's a terrible person, just to pick an example.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
I have a question for Ms. Lawson.
Is there anywhere right now that Elections Canada is required to hold on to advertising or anything as it's going on? Is there any other point that something like this exists? Is there any precedent for this?
6:50 p.m.
Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Regulatory Affairs, Elections Canada
No, there's nothing currently that would create this type of repository.
6:50 p.m.
Liberal
David Graham Liberal Laurentides—Labelle, QC
So, we would never send you a copy of our campaign signs for you to hold in escrow, or....
6:50 p.m.
Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Regulatory Affairs, Elections Canada
As you know, there is a lot of reporting that goes on and the repository, in a certain sense, of all the reports that are tabled and filed. Those have to be put online, but not advertising, per se.
6:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I don't imagine them sending out election campaign four-by-fours to Elections Canada saying, “This is my election sign.” This is overwhelmingly digital, and so Elections Canada keeps a digital copy of the ad.
I think this has two effects. One, if people know they have to deposit those with Elections Canada, maybe it keeps some folks away from doing the darker side of politics.
Two, if something does go wrong, or an election is held in some controversy, we're able to pull back the ads that were run in that campaign, or by that social media agency, or by that person in this case, and say that there was a coordinated effort amongst 40 people within this riding to all spend $450 on the same ad, but nobody has the repository as it is right now. So, you just had $4,500 coordinated out into targeted social media, as long as the company doesn't have three million views a month. That's the way to get around it and it's a relatively significant loophole, as opposed to me doing my ad, pressing send, Canada Elections...that's the law. It requires Elections Canada to hold it.
6:50 p.m.
Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Regulatory Affairs, Elections Canada
I just want to make one point about the way this is currently worded. It's not only digital or electronic, so it would cover posters that are made in people's windows or other types of advertising that cost under $500.
6:50 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Fair enough.
I assume just about every piece of advertising we make, posters and everything else, exists in digital form. Maybe somebody's hand-painting posters and sticking them up in their window. I guess that's lower on my concern list.
6:50 p.m.
LCdr Jean-François Morin
I was going to raise the same issue as Ms. Lawson.
I don't want to turn myself into the legal counsel for this committee. I'm not providing legal advice in any way, shape or form.
I would just encourage members of this committee to think about the free speech provisions in the charter and the impact of a rule that would require every single citizen posting partisan advertising messages to report to a government agency on those messages during the pre-election period.
6:55 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
This is not a speech issue.
I don't think millions of Canadians take out election advertising. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe our citizenry is out there buying social media ads like crazy and this is going to be very onerous. I haven't personally experienced it, but maybe others have.
I'm sorry. I appreciate the witness's comments, but it is not a speech prohibition to send in an ad. If you're willing to participate and buy advertising in a Canadian election, you are participating. This provides no limitation of speech, no way.
6:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
We'll vote on NDP-19.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Keep in mind that we've spent way more than 15 minutes on this particular clause, so let's try to go a little quicker.
We're moving to PV-8.
Ms. May
6:55 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
I'll be as brief as I can, Mr. Chair.
This may seem a bit ironic as in my last intervention I was pointing out....
What third party groups have testified to this committee, particularly Fair Vote Canada, is that having a threshold of $500, which then requires registering immediately as a third party and all of the other obligations, was a quite low threshold. Réal Lavergne pointed out in his testimony before committee that in the Prince Edward Island referendum, the threshold was $500.
Prince Edward Island is a very small jurisdiction in terms of population and media reach. If their spending threshold was $500, the suggestion I'm making in this amendment is that the national threshold should be $2,500, which is a more reasonable threshold to imagine for anyone with plans to impact a national campaign, and $500 in a single electoral district. It's to reduce an onerous burden on particularly all volunteer groups having a very small foray into election activities.
That's a brief explanation. I know you'll be wanting to move on, but I'm happy to answer questions.
6:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
If there are no comments, we'll go to the vote on PV-8.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
We're moving to CPC-91.
Would someone introduce this amendment.
6:55 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
This amendment is similar to our previous amendment allowing early registration for pre-election and election periods, but again, applicable here to third parties.
6:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Yes, Chair.
As it stands, you cannot register until the pre-writ period starts. If you're intending to spend money, if you're intending to be involved in the process, let's let them start on it early and get registered rather than forcing them to wait until the pre-writ period starts. I think this is a logical time period to allow this.
6:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
If there is no discussion, we'll vote on CPC-91.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
On CPC-92, go ahead Mrs. Kusie.
6:55 p.m.
Calgary Midnapore, CPC
This is adding a geographical catchment area to opinion poll disclosures for third parties.