Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 11th, 2020

[Dr. Guy-Vincent Jourdan]

I will begin.

I think this is an important issue to raise. The voter can be identified in ways other than through the video. If we just want to make sure that the correct person voted, a biometric identification through the device can be done at the time of the vote. Presumably, you all have in your pocket a telephone that knows how to do that. It knows how to recognize your face, your fingerprint or something like that. That can be done locally, and it is related to your identity.

Your actual identity is not sent to the server. For example, we can easily imagine a very simple application that, at the time of the vote, would ask you to select yes or no and to confirm your identity by putting your finger on the telephone or by looking at it. That makes it possible to link your identity to your vote without having to send a video in real time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Ghorbani, do you have a response to that?

[Ali Ghorbani]

I really don't. It's important to recognize that authentication to multiple layers, including biometrics, would add more security to the operation. As mentioned by Guy-Vincent, it's easy to implement it. In short, yes, this might be a good thing to consider, using biometrics to authenticate people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have.

Ms. Blaney, please.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I have just one question, and I would enjoy hearing from all of the witnesses.

One of the realities I've heard from multiple MPs is about living in family circumstances during this time and looking at other issues like being able to have that connectivity. These are some things they're concerned about. They want to make sure that voting is predictable and that there's a specific time, perhaps once a week, when all the votes happen so they know when they have to be there and they can make sure they're somewhere where they can physically vote with that connectivity.

I'm looking at it from that perspective of certainty. Are there any particular security concerns that we should consider if we're looking at having a time when we regularly vote?

Mr. Jourdan, we could start with you.

[Dr. Guy-Vincent Jourdan]

Off the top of my head, I don't see any particular security issue linked to the time of voting. I think that's what you mentioned here about family being around. Some obvious points would be not to share the device with the family and to make sure that you use only dedicated hardware and a secure link if you can. However, I don't see any obvious reason why we should worry about a particular time of voting.

Again, I would stress the fact that.... I think if the Chinese want to do something to us, they are not going to do that, try to change your vote from yes to no from time to time, because you will see that right away. No, I would not be too concerned about that.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Ghorbani.

[Ali Ghorbani]

I do not have much of a concern except that, of course, we are giving the malicious people a schedule, so they actually know and can be prepared. To some extent, if it is public and it is getting into the hands of everyone, those who are malicious are better prepared at the scheduled or planned time when the voting would happen. Other than that, it's not going to be a big deal.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Vickery.

[Chris Vickery]

I think that can be improved upon and is workable. If you have, for example, a period of one hour on a Tuesday every week when you take these votes, you can assign windows of time, so that during these five minutes of that hour, X, Y and Z members can send their votes in. That's not publicly broadcast; that's just decided in the moment. Then the bad guys will know the window overall, but they will not be able to predict these specific windows of a few minutes when it is valid for certain members to send their votes in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you. That's all the time we have for this panel.

I want to thank all the witnesses. Mr. Ghorbani, Mr. Jourdan and Mr. Vickery, you've all been excellent, and not just for this study. From time to time, some of you have helped the House of Commons and have advised us on how we can maintain a secure and safe democratic system. Thank you for that.

Now, if I can ask the witnesses to leave the meeting at this time, we can carry on with some committee business.

[Dr. Guy-Vincent Jourdan]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

All right. We're right at two o'clock, so I'm hoping we can move along really quickly.

I guess my first question to the committee is this. Last time I was sensing.... Well, I wasn't just sensing it. Quite literally, a lot of comments were made by people wanting to have an extension and not feeling that there was enough time in two meetings next week to work on the draft report and review it properly, and also, if there are any supplementary or dissenting opinions, not enough time for that. I know there were also comments saying that there was understanding for that.

I just wanted to know where the committee was at, and whether the whole committee.... Essentially, if that's where we're at and if that is what we're asking for, if we want an extension, I would like to table a report back, hopefully tomorrow, asking for a specific extension date because we would not be able.... Essentially, we need approval for an extension, so the House would have to concur, but because we don't have routine proceedings, the House will not be able to concur. Especially if we leave it until the 23rd, that will not be possible, but there is a procedure in place whereby the four House leaders can agree to give this committee the extension we require.

I want to be able to give them the appropriate time to give that to us so that we know what we're dealing with next week. Is there a date? Is there agreement, first of all, on having an extension past next week? If so, is there a date that you would like to see?

I believe there are some hands up from the previous dialogue. Could you take your hands down and then raise them back up for this?

Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Reid's hand is still up from last time.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I forgot to take my hand down, so just ignore it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you. You can raise your hand again if you'd like to participate in this portion of the discussion.

Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I respect the discussion and respect the comments that have been made, in particular by the opposition, about the need for rushing. I am certainly in the camp that wants to make sure we have a thorough report. I don't want to have the same scenario where we had an extremely long meeting last time, despite the fact that I was driving home from Ottawa during a lot of it.

I respect that, but I don't want to let this drag on and on. If we're going to be asking the House to do something—and presumably that would be for September—then we need to make sure that we give enough time to whoever has to do it. Therefore, I would propose that we ask for an extension until Friday, July 10, which would give us two and a half weeks more than what we currently have. I'm open to hearing what other people might have to say about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay. We discussed last time how from June 23 or 24 to July 3 we would not be able to have any meetings, either virtually or in any way, because there's testing happening. That would leave us a week at that point, but you would have all the other time that we are not able to meet in order to write and reflect.

We would have one week of meeting time, and we could have some meetings in there, too, if you feel that meetings are necessary. It all really depends, I think, on how far we get next week, to see how many meetings we would need in that coming week. Or we could propose another date.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

My thought, Madam Chair, was that it would be up to June 23, when we would conclude with any other witnesses or any other discussion we want to have about it, so that we can then have our time to go and craft our recommendations over that down time you mentioned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Okay.

Is there any opposition to asking for an extension until July 10? There were quite a few people who had comments about not having enough time and feeling that they were rushed, so would everyone be...?

Mr. Turnbull, I think you're putting your hand up right now. Is there something you'd like to say?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I just wanted to say I'm fully in support of that date.

I thought maybe I'd clarify. Last time, we had some discussion about witnesses, and I really felt like this Friday.... I think we have a meeting tomorrow for one hour with an additional witness. Is that right? I was wondering if that could be the end of the witnesses, given the fact that I think what I heard is that we're likely going to need four meetings.

Based on how long it took to write a report last time, and to avoid that eight-hour push at the end, maybe we'd have.... As you said, we can't meet from June 23 to July 3, so extending it to July 10 effectively gives us the ability to have two more meetings in addition to the two meetings next week, if I'm not mistaken. Is that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes, we can squeeze in the two. Depending on how many committees want to go, we could probably have more meetings than just the two that week, but I can't guarantee that, as it's not our dedicated time slot.

The House administration team has been quite accommodating in the past, so we could even do three, I would think.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

My only point was just to clarify that we probably need three, maybe four meetings to get through the recommendations and get some agreement on how to move forward. That was my thinking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. We would definitely have two next week. We could schedule two in that week. I'm just saying that if the committee feels it needs even more than the two meetings a week, I can at least request it. I just don't know whether there will be a time slot available, but sometimes they are able to accommodate.

[The Clerk]

Madam Chair, I just want to point out to the committee that a deadline of July 10 would actually enable the committee, if that were the will of the committee in terms of the consideration of a draft report, to have meetings on June 16, 18, 23 and 25, and then in the additional week, on July 7 and 9. Some of those dates, especially in the run-up to July 10, would obviously be needed for production purposes and translation purposes, to finalize the report and have it fully ready to be sent to the office of the Clerk of the House.

There may be some difficulty with meetings in the week of July 7 and 9, depending on outstanding production work that would be needed to finish off the report.