Thank you.
Thank you to our witnesses as well.
I have a question regarding cybersecurity, but before I do that, I just want to follow up on the comments from Mr. Graham and Mr. Simms regarding the issue of people having unreasonable driving distances, particularly to advance polls. I did indeed have a problem in the last election with one particular part of my constituency where people who live in a place called Port Elmsley had to drive 45 minutes in each direction, passing a number of other advance polling stations.
First of all, when we raised the issue, Elections Canada was very businesslike about correcting that situation. I'll mention that, first of all. Second, I think the solution you're proposing is exactly the right one, so thank you for that. Starting by working out driving distances is clearly the logical way of handling it.
With regard to the issue of the problem of finding accessible locations, which ultimately is the issue, my understanding is that Elections Canada is under a court order, effectively, to only allow certain locations. This has the unintended consequence of eliminating a lot of public buildings that are accessible—and I think it's in five different ways—meaning that they become frequently inaccessible to everybody, disabled and fully able together.
The only way to solve that over a court order is legislation. If we think it's enough of a problem, then we'd have to suggest a legislative proposal. We could all understand how that could be cast as being against the rights of disabled people, so you'd have to be very thoughtful about how to do it. There would have to be multi-partisan support for anything of that sort. I think that's a good understanding of the situation there.
Finally, there's a question I want to raise about cybersecurity. The issue that concerns me— should concern you is a better way of putting it—is this: during an election, the most effective way of causing disruption would be to cause people to inadvertently give up their right to vote by sending them to the wrong location, by announcing that they should go to this location or that location rather than the real location, that polling times had been changed, or something else like that.
It's a modern version of the old theme where you'd announce that so-and-so had withdrawn his or her candidacy, but it wasn't true. I think it would be given out by people purporting to be Elections Canada. It would be given out retail as opposed to wholesale, making it hard to trace these things. That would be the way that would be logical if you were a foreign power trying to disrupt an election and make it uncertain who had won. I think that's what you should be protecting against. How you do that I have no idea, but that's where the danger lies, frankly.