Evidence of meeting #22 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vote.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:45 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON
Just to say that in the event that the contract is long, I don't think we need to translate all of it. We just need to translate the pertinent parts, and perhaps we can rely on our clerk to make that decision for us.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Perhaps that's doable. That's a good point you have raised, Mr. Reid.
Let's move forward with the vote.
We'll have a recorded vote on this.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
1:45 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
I move:
That the committee order the House of Commons Administration to produce, no later than Monday, June 15, 2020, all contracts, master service agreements, licensing agreements and terms and conditions, including and in respect of data collection, use and disclosure of personal information and third party contractual arrangements that it has entered into with Zoom Video Communications, Inc. and any of its subsidiaries, affiliates or agents.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Has everyone been able to follow the language of the motion? I see nodding.
We'll proceed to a vote.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Madam Chair, can we use Mr. Vickery's device to vote on this?
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Maybe at a future time, Mr. Gerretsen.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you.
Sorry, Ms. Petitpas Taylor, I didn't see your hand go up. Would you still like to comment?
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ginette Petitpas Taylor Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
My only comment, Madam Chair, is that I want to ensure that all documents are translated. It's unfair to say that just parts of the documents are going to be. We need to have full translation of those documents.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
Thank you for that.
We will proceed, although we have lost quite a bit of time.
Mr. Gerretsen, for five minutes of questions.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to go back to Mr. Jourdan. To be clear on what you said earlier, you think a voting system that is web-based or application-based, something along those lines, would be more inclusive of all members, in particular those who might be struggling with Internet bandwidth issues. Is that correct?
1:50 p.m.
Professor of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
As I said, the system that is going to be the most hungry for bandwidth is a video system, so anything that is not video-based would be better.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Okay.
Mr. Vickery, you told us earlier not to rely on video. This is interesting because in the previous panel we had, most if not all the witnesses emphasized that their preference was video. At least one or two of them did make the point that this was notwithstanding deepfakes and the possibility of this stuff down the road, but they all seemed to put emphasis on video voting, as opposed to a web-based or application-based system.
You are taking a different approach. You're basically saying that we should be concerned about deepfakes because the possibilities of them only become more real as we go down the road, and that, therefore, we need something more secure. Is that correct?
1:50 p.m.
Director of Cyber Risk Research, UpGuard, As an Individual
That is correct. However, keep in mind the aspect of a necessary second or third band of confirmation, which is not involved with the video system. This could be added as a way to validate it or make it good enough. You have to have that other validation.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Let's keep in mind that absolutely every vote that we take in Parliament is open and public, with the exception of one or two circumstances like electing a Speaker and one issue that relates to private members' business that doesn't come up that often. Everything else is a public vote, so we're not worried about keeping that vote secret.
Does that impact your position? We'll always be able to know. It's not as though I vote and my vote can be changed and I'll never know about it. If there's a leaderboard or something displayed somewhere online, I can always look at that and say, “Hey, hold on. I voted no, but it says yes.” The fact that we're open and everything is public makes the accountability of it fairly reliable. Is that correct?
1:50 p.m.
Director of Cyber Risk Research, UpGuard, As an Individual
It does tend to help; however, the degradation in people's belief in the system being accurate, the very existence of the possibility that somebody could, even temporarily, be recorded in the wrong way tends to harm that system overall—
1:50 p.m.
Director of Cyber Risk Research, UpGuard, As an Individual
—and people's understanding that there are multiple layers of confirmation that always exist is a good thing.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
You made a comment in response to Mr. Genuis's questions advising us not to talk about anything private in these meetings. Again, anything we say in the House of Commons is public. The delay between our conversation now and what's streamed online for the public to see is less than 10 seconds, so everything is out there; everything is public.
When you talk about the security issues and your concerns about them, do you have some comfort in knowing that everything is public in using this platform like that? The worst thing that can happen is somebody getting in and trying to take over the meeting or something like that, but it's not as though there are going to be state secrets that are shared as a result of somebody hacking in.
1:50 p.m.
Director of Cyber Risk Research, UpGuard, As an Individual
I would say the worst thing that could happen is that somebody's individual device is compromised and the audio is being manipulated to make it sound like they said “no” when they meant to say or did say “yes”.
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
You don't even need the device compromised. A witness in the previous panel told us as an example that, in a city council meeting in Sarnia, somebody said “disagree”, and the person recording it heard “agree” but didn't hear the “dis” part. That created confusion.
1:55 p.m.
Director of Cyber Risk Research, UpGuard, As an Individual
That is absolutely a concern, and that's why multiple layers of validation are important.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
1:55 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
I have only one question for the three witnesses for my own knowledge. Aside from using an IP address to identify voters, we have talked about using biometric data. I would like to know what that implies.
Does the House already have that data? Is there a risk of that data being stolen and, therefore, a risk of identify theft. I would like to hear your general thoughts on that.
