Evidence of meeting #141 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 elections.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You mentioned in a recent interview that the parties' databases particularly are the weak link in the cybersecurity chain. Is that comment fair?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
I didn't mean that as a criticism, but that is what the Communications Security Establishment assessment is. That's not my assessment.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right, and that assessment from our security establishment gives you concern.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I've been looking around for an analogy for this to understand and learn from the examples of our democratic allies, the U.S., France and the U.K., with the Brexit vote and the citing of fake news. Let's deal with that as an element.
Someone trying to bring in misrepresentations or exaggerations has been a part of the debate in politics since politics was first invented, yet we have a new scenario. Parties have made promises that they have broken, such as that the last election would be the last to have first past the post, and all those other wonderful red book things from ages past. That's existed. What we have now is fake news, which I would, if you'll follow me on this analogy, liken to a match. The party databases, this rich content of very specific details about many Canadians and what their preferences are, are like the dry timber in the forest, and social media is like the wind. These lies can be weaponized now unlike ever before, and weaponized in that they're targeting particular voters on their motivated issues. Is that a fair analogy in terms of what the threat is?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Certainly that is a significant threat, yes.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You said, about the bill that is now law in Canada, Bill C-76, that you were disappointed that political parties weren't required to follow privacy laws like other organizations. Is that true?
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think you said “very disappointed”.
That weak link we talk about, does that not then give opportunity for that threat to be greater? I'll give an example right now. If a fake news item is posted on a free social media platform, any one—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube—it doesn't fall under election advertising laws, does it?
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
It does not, but it may run afoul of other rules, like impersonation, or some disinformation rules in the Elections Act, but broadly speaking, you're correct.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Broadly speaking, right, and so the lie can be weaponized that way, and Elections Canada doesn't have any ability to note it, to identify it or to stop it even.
We have the case—I think colleagues would have seen this just yesterday or the day before in the by-election being run in Burnaby—where there was a completely made-up story trying to discredit the NDP leader in the by-election, to try to say, “Oh, look, this fellow is living in a massive mansion,” which is utterly untrue, and everybody who knows anything would realize that, but it spread through Twitter and Facebook, which themselves have no responsibilities under Bill C-76 that we can tell to stop the lie.
What happens then? Is this the one case where we could actually pursue this because it falls within the writ period and because it is misrepresenting? I think it's under section 91(1)(a) of the Elections Act.
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
As you're well aware, there was a complaint that was made in that case. I won't comment on the specifics of the case, but the distinction between organic and paid content is important. If it's advertising, it is subject to a number of rules that do not apply to organic content.
11:30 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
If it's a paid ad and it's misrepresenting a fact or mis-characterizing, it's simply lying about one of us as a candidate, and it's paid, then it is caught. You are allowed to investigate that.
11:30 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
The commissioner would be investigating that.
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Now in terms of the rules that apply to advertisement, they're agnostic as to whether the ad is true or untrue. These are financial disclosure rules. This is a registry, right?
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
In terms of the content, whether it's an ad or not, there are some minimal rules that cover impersonation of parties and candidates, impersonation of Elections Canada and some elements of disinformation, and that's an offence whether or not it's paid content.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
So they are narrow rules. I think I'll take you up on this. If it's not paid, if it's a lie spread through Facebook and Twitter or YouTube, the commissioner can't be brought in. If it falls outside of section 91(1)(a), which is a very narrow bandwidth of a lie, the commissioner can't rule on it.
We're still in place where, as we saw in Brexit, as we saw in the Trump election and as we saw in the hacking of Macron's email in France, lies can be generated, databases can be hacked and then spread through social media, and no one can stop them.
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
That's why precisely it's an all-of-government and all-of-society response, and we need to build some resilience. There's no silver bullet to this, and we can't have the Elections Act regulate all social media content.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Certainly stopping the access or ensuring the access to the party databases would have been good start, because without that, it's much harder to target voters.
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
Correct, and so we are meeting with the parties. Next week we're meeting with the parties, and we will have with us the Communications Security Establishment and CSIS meeting with them, and we will be reinforcing some security measures, including basic training.
You mentioned the American example. It was simply a phishing attempt that got the Democratic database. You know, I said parties don't have the resources that we have, and it's true, but resources aren't everything. Training is probably even more important.
11:35 a.m.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
You have in all of the campaigns huge numbers of volunteers and paid workers, and the question is: Are these people, the ones who have access to the hardware and the software, trained? There's work that can be done.