Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 31st, 2024

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

This is debate.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

—was the only one in this room to be advantaged by this. Mr. Gerretsen was out of line.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

Okay, colleagues—

Do you have a point of order, Mr. Duncan? Go ahead.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

First, to be very clear, I would like an election now. I'm not worried about my pension. I want an election now, so that we can end all of that.

[An hon. member]

I have a point of order—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Secondly, if it's not a personal attack and you're not talking through witnesses, which witness's name is Eric?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay. Mr. Duncan, I don't think we're on the point of order anymore.

Colleagues, there are clearly differences of opinion. Emotions have elevated a bit in the last couple of minutes. I have heard on both sides of the table a degree of elevation in terms of aggressive tone. I would ask all members to be respectful of our colleagues around the table and to do their best to make their points, however adamantly, in a way that is becoming and expected of us as parliamentarians.

With that, I'm going to return the floor to Mr. Gerretsen for four minutes and 30 seconds, which is what was remaining prior to the point of order, and I hope that in the remaining amount of time in his line of questioning, we will be able to be respectful.

Thank you, colleagues, for your interventions.

Mr. Gerretsen, the floor is yours.

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

I plan to use my time to make a comment, Mr. Chair.

I've been sitting here for an hour, watching Conservatives utilize witnesses in this room to advance their own political partisan narrative and for potential gain that they perceive.

Don't point at him or anybody on this side....

My reference on that was specifically about Mr. Duncan and the way he's been engaging with the witnesses.

Listen, what I can tell you is that Mr. Duncan and Conservatives, and perhaps the Bloc, are unwilling to accept the reality that a date was chosen based on what the witnesses have told us. I've been sitting here, and they've said it was based on trying to observe religious holidays and getting as close as possible to the actual date. We all heard the same thing, and then somehow Mr. Duncan interprets that to be something completely different, which is completely false, so he's just trying to drive the narrative that they've been setting up.

I know I don't have to defend the NDP. They can do that on their own, but when the NDP decide to say, “Oh yeah, you know what? Maybe the Conservatives have raised a good point; we didn't recognize this and we agree that it should change,” Mr. Duncan's response is, “Well, you knew all along, so now you're trying to save face.” It's absolutely ludicrous and ridiculous, and Eric will sit here and demonstrate this kind of behaviour over and over to try to illustrate this point.

What I can guarantee you of, Mr. Duncan, is that there's never been a Liberal Party member who has been taken away in shackles and handcuffs for violating the Elections Act, okay? I do recall a Conservative in that position, so with all due respect—

[An hon. member]

Today's the anniversary, actually.

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

Is today the anniversary of that? Isn't that fascinating?

Perhaps you can just tone down the rhetoric a bit so that we can actually advance an important piece of legislation. If you're against the legislation and you don't believe in it, that's fine. Vote against it. Give us the reasons you're against it, but not everything is scandalous, Eric.

Not everything is scandalous, okay? I know that Conservatives like to try to make absolutely every single issue around here into some scandal, but that's just not the reality, and I think your hyped-up rhetoric is starting to catch up with you, so please, just tone it down. Ask questions about the legislation, and if you don't want to support it, don't support it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay, this is a great time for us to conclude our first round.

Are you raising a point of order, Mrs. Gill?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to check with you that, when a point of order is raised, it's usually the chair who disposes of the question, not the colleagues around the table. I have the impression that it was a colleague who answered me instead—Mr. Gerretsen—and not the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I think I've answered the question; I had not heard anything problematic in relation to the procedure.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you. It was out of respect for the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Is this on a point of order, Ms. Barron?

Okay, go ahead.

Colleagues, there's a bit of noise in the room. We haven't suspended yet, so please.... I'm having a little trouble hearing.

Ms. Barron, go ahead.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Carr.

On a procedural point of order, if the time is going to be reduced by 10 minutes, is there going to be a reallocation of time? How does that work out as far as the distribution of questions by each party?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

It's a fair question.

There would not have been, in that current plan I had, a loss of time for yourself, because the 10 minutes would have been the Conservative five minutes and the Liberal five minutes. That was prior to this elongated discussion we had, so, depending on resource availability and how quickly it takes us to get the testing done here, I'm not sure how far over we will go.

I can assure you that the plan was not and will not be to devoid you of your time. It would be the five minutes of Conservatives and Liberals combined that we were planning to cut. We'll see where we get, okay?

We're briefly suspended in order to transition.

Mr. Sutherland, Ms. Pereira, thank you very much for being with us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, we are going to resume this meeting.

We have four witnesses in the second round. Each will have five minutes to speak, so that's a maximum of 20 minutes we're about to head into, and then we'll go into our round of questioning. We'll see where we end up.

All witnesses appearing with us today are virtual. Hello to you from Ottawa.

They are Dr. Sara Bannerman, professor and Canada research chair in communication policy and governance at McMaster University; Dr. Jean-François Daoust, professor, school of applied politics, Université de Sherbrooke; Dr. Holly Ann Garnett, associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada; and Ryan Campbell, who is a board member from Fair Vote Canada.

With that, Dr. Bannerman, we are going to turn to you first. You have the floor for up to five minutes.

If you don't mind, witnesses, I would really appreciate it if you could time yourselves; maybe pull out your phone and get the timer going. It is helpful. Otherwise, I'm going to be waving frantically to let you know that we are at time. If you have the ability to keep yourself in that five-minute window, it would be greatly appreciated.

Dr. Bannerman, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Dr. Sara Bannerman, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance, McMaster University, As an Individual]

Thank you inviting me.

Today I want to discuss the privacy measures in Bill C-65 and my relevant research.

Bill C-65 purports to provide a complete personal information regime for political parties, but it's far from complete. It fails to subject political parties to the 10 privacy principles that are understood as core to privacy regimes. It's designed to undermine existing privacy law that applies to political parties. In its current form, it's a privacy-busting bill, a bill that would undermine existing privacy rights for Canadians.

Bill C-65 has many missing pieces. It doesn't meet a number of fundamental privacy principles. It doesn't meet principle 2, that the purposes of collection should be identified. Instead, it requires only illustrative purposes.

It doesn't meet principle 3, that knowledge and consent should be given. Instead, it gives near blanket permission to collect and use any type of personal information. Most Canadians that my team surveyed felt that sensitive information like ethnicity, religion and social media information should never be collected and retained by political parties, or only with an individual's explicit consent. Bill C-65 would allow any entity, which could be data brokers, tech companies, people search or foreign entities, working with a party to collect and use any breadth of personal information while they're working for the party.

It doesn't address principle 4 on limiting collection. There are no limits on the types of personal information that parties and entities can collect. My team's work suggests placing the most sensitive types out of bounds.

It doesn't address principle 5 on limiting use. While it incorporates two new limits, it doesn't prevent giving personal information to third parties like social media companies or others; using personal information to profile electors; making statistical inferences about personality types, interests, opinions, religion, sexual orientation or anything else; nor any uses involving AI.

It doesn't address principle 6 on ensuring accuracy, nor adequately principle 7 on safeguarding personal information. Instead, it allows tech companies or any other entity working with political parties potentially total unbridled access and use, with little or no meaningful protection or oversight.

It doesn't address principle 9, giving a right of individual access for electors to know what information parties hold about them, nor principle 10, the right to make a complaint or challenge a party's compliance with these principles.

Bill C-65 aims, according to Kevin Lamoureux's speech, to “engage more people and increase the confidence” of Canadians in elections. My team's work surveying Canadians raises the concern that failing to subject political parties to the 10 basic privacy principles may threaten both of those objectives.

We found that, first, respondents were not aware of parties' data collection and the range of data they may collect, particularly on political views, ethnicity, income, religion or online activities and IDs.

Our second finding relates to engagement. We found that awareness of parties' collection may reduce electors' willingness to interact with political parties online.

Our third conclusion relates to confidence. We found that increased awareness of datafied campaigning goes hand in hand with growing concern as opposed to confidence about collection.

Finally, very few respondents saw data collection as important to the democratic process. If collection is important to democracy, our respondents were not convinced of that.

Bill C-65 seeks to undermine the applicability of a complete privacy law, B.C.'s PIPA, that currently applies to political parties. It seeks to undermine a leading B.C. privacy case that recognizes privacy rights for Canadians in relation to political parties. It seeks to displace those rights.

Bill C-65 would undermine privacy, engagement and confidence. It would facilitate parties' exploitation of electors' data without limits, transparency or consent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Dr. Bannerman.

Mr. Daoust, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dr. Jean-François Daoust, Professor, School of applied politics, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd like to thank the members of the committee for their invitation.

My remarks today are based on my experience as a professor of Canadian politics and electoral studies at the Université de Sherbrooke and, previously, at the University of Edinburgh, as well as an academic researcher working with institutions such as Elections Canada, Elections Québec and Elections Montréal.

Today, I'm going to focus on two points. First, I'm going to focus on the one-week postponement of the 2025 general election. Second, I'll briefly touch on the addition of advance polling days.

Regarding the election date, I understand that the bill moves the election back a week so as not to overlap with Divali, the Festival of Light. I don't think we should be closed to this kind of religious accommodation, but it's very delicate, particularly in terms of the state's principle of secularism. So we have to ask ourselves whether accommodation brings more democratic advantages than disadvantages. Unfortunately, in this case, I see at least two major problems caused directly by the postponement of the date.

First, the postponement of the Canadian general election will result in an overlap between that election and Quebec's municipal elections. The latter, scheduled for November 2, 2025, are very important, as millions of voters are expected to cast their ballots. With the postponement proposed by the bill, the two election campaigns will overlap almost perfectly. In fact, only five separate days would remain for the municipal campaign.

In addition, advance voting at the municipal level would literally take place during the end of the federal election campaign. This situation is highly problematic for several reasons. Firstly, it would create even more electoral fatigue, and Quebec municipal elections would essentially pay the price. Voter turnout there is already very low, at around 38% in the last election. Secondly, it would affect the organization of elections. For example, it would be much more difficult for institutions such as Elections Montréal, among others, to secure available premises for the proper conduct of voting, particularly advance polling, which would take place during the federal election. In other words, the current bill would likely adversely affect turnout in Quebec municipal elections.

The second reason why postponing the date of the 2025 general election is problematic, in my opinion, is that it would most likely fuel voters' political cynicism. Postponing the election date will almost certainly be interpreted as an opportunistic measure to preserve the personal interests of certain MPs from several political parties, who would obtain a House pension thanks to a few extra days of service. This measure risks damaging public confidence in democratic institutions.

The research I've conducted, notably with André Blais in our book The Motivation to Vote, shows that citizens' attitudes are fundamental to understanding their decision to vote or abstain. The problem here is that the measure proposed in the bill will undermine political confidence and fuel cynicism, and could, in the short, medium and long term, harm voter turnout, which is already problematic in Canada.

In summary, I consider that the decision to postpone the date of the 2025 general election has the potential to have very serious consequences for participation in Quebec municipal elections, for the organization of this poll and, more generally, for the democratic attitudes and public opinion of Canadians towards parliamentary institutions.

The big question now is: is accommodating those who will be celebrating the Festival of Light reasonable?

People celebrating Divali will have the opportunity to vote in advance for six days, since there are usually four and it is proposed to add two. There would therefore be six opportunities for advance voting, in addition to other measures in schools. Given my previous findings, considering the problems I mentioned, and remembering that there are measures to accommodate the fact that there is a religious holiday on October 20, my answer is unequivocal: the committee should not push back the date of the 2025 general election.

I now want to briefly address the addition of two days of advance voting. I don't see it as problematic, but it shouldn't be seen as a quick fix. My research shows that the vast majority of voters, over 78% of people, consider that voting is already either fairly easy or very easy. If they abstain from voting, therefore, it's not because they consider it difficult, but for other reasons. I mentioned democratic attitudes. So it's not clear to me how going from four to six days of advance voting will change anything if the goal is to increase voter turnout.

In conclusion, I would like to mention that amending the Canada Elections Act is a delicate exercise that should ideally enjoy a very broad consensus, broader in fact than other bills, for reasons that seem obvious to me. We can come back to this during the question period if you wish.

So those are the two points I wanted to mention today. Once again, thank you for your invitation and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Daoust.

Dr. Garnett, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Dr. Holly Ann Garnett, Associate Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual]

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I'm an associate professor of political science and a class of 1965 professor in leadership at the Royal Military College of Canada. I also co-direct the Electoral Integrity Project, which is an international research network that focuses on the quality of elections throughout the electoral cycle.

In this work, I've had the opportunity to study the academic research and perspectives of electoral officials around the world on issues relating to the voting process. This includes what we often call in the academic literature “convenience voting measures”—methods of voting outside of the regular polling place on election day. The idea behind these measures is that they reduce some of the time and cognitive costs of voting for the general population. However, the reality is that convenience voting measures are sometimes less convenient than voting at a polling place on election day. Voting by special ballot here in Canada allows you to vote from the comfort of your own home, but it requires an additional point of interaction with Elections Canada to get a special ballot within a specific time frame, more effort to fill it out by figuring out your candidates to write in, getting the envelopes correct to ensure privacy, and getting it in the post on time.

Across the board, we don't see increases in voter turnout when more convenience measures are used. There's a lot of American research on this, showing that, in some cases, there's no increase in turnout when these measures are applied. Some show no effect at all. Other research has considered who uses these mechanisms and has found that those who take advantage of convenience measures are in population groups that tend to vote already: older, more educated and higher-income voters. My own research in the Canadian context shows the same.

Bill C-65 is designed to increase the actual convenience of these types of voting measures among population groups that are already the most vulnerable to being deterred from voting due to administrative procedures. My colleague Toby James and I would reframe these innovations. They're not “convenience voting measures” but rather “inclusive voting practices”.

We can consider a few examples.

Under the new provisions in this bill, an adult with social anxiety who would not normally go to an unfamiliar polling station could benefit from signing up for a special ballot before a fixed-date election and receiving it when the election rolls around. They could avoid confusion by writing in the party name, rather than the candidate. If they run out of time or change their mind about their preferred voting method, they could reach out to a returning officer to amend their voting method or attend a regular polling station to drop off their ballot.

Consider, for example, a post-secondary student voting for the first time, one who must use a special ballot to vote in their home riding while away at school. Under the new provisions, they would be given additional support through an on-campus voting office to guide them through their first voting experience using that more complicated special voting procedure.

In another example, an individual has recently moved into a care home. They no longer drive and do not readily have identification with their new address on it. Under the new provisions, they could take advantage of a poll at their residence and not need to show identification regarding residence by virtue of the fact that they live at their polling station.

In each of these cases, these individuals could vote without the additional measures proposed in this bill. There are legal ways to sort out these situations, but their circumstances could easily lead them to being dissuaded from even trying. Without additional support, the end effect could be the same as if they weren't able to vote—what we call their “effective disenfranchisement”. Beyond this, research suggests that a voter's experience of elections is impacted by how accessible they find the process. For potential voters who may find the voting process extra burdensome, inclusive voting procedures like these can enhance their sense of inclusion and their ability to meaningfully participate in civic life.

For all voters, the use of convenience measures can lead to a more positive experience of elections, something that has been empirically demonstrated in the American context. This is due to the additional convenience and to a less stressed workforce greeting them at the polls. Having more opportunities available to electors spreads out the burden on administrators, who are already short-staffed on election day. Positive experiences influence future behaviour and opinions about elections in an era in which trust in elections cannot be taken for granted.

For this reason, the inclusive voting procedures proposed in this bill—which may not increase turnout across the board for people like us, who have a stable address and identification readily in our wallets—will have a positive impact on some of the population groups most likely to already feel left out of the voting process. That reason alone makes those provisions worthwhile amendments to the Canada Elections Act.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Campbell, there are five minutes for you.

[Ryan Campbell, Board Member, Fair Vote Canada]

Thank you very much.

First of all, I want to acknowledge that I am on the traditional unceded territory of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Kwikwetlem and Semiahmoo first nations.

Thank you also for inviting me.

Fair Vote Canada is the largest electoral reform advocacy group in Canada. Our primary mission is not only to promote the adoption of proportional representation, but also more broadly to promote fair and meaningful participation in Canadian politics.

In general, we support this bill, with some reservations and some provisos there.

First of all, in this are the provisions for more voting opportunities, whether those are on campuses, in long-term care or for special ballots. That is what a previous witness was calling the “inclusive voting”. We absolutely support that. Anything that makes it easier for people to vote, whether it boosts turnout or not, I think is worthwhile, just in saving people time.

I'll also mention my personal experience. In 2017, my mother cast a special ballot for the provincial election from a leukemia ward. I know that it gave her a sense of agency and normalcy that she was lacking at the time, so it's worthwhile for people to vote, not only for the sake of government but also for the sake of their own sense of well-being, so I think it's very valuable from that perspective.

On the “vote anywhere” provisions, which are, I know, a work in progress, I can say, as someone who has done get out the vote on a lot of campaigns for a lot of parties, that it would be very appreciated. There's nothing more horrifying than realizing you sent your supporters to the wrong polling station, so just from the standpoint of not having accidents happen, it's quite nice, and it's very convenient. Anyone who voted in B.C. a couple of weeks ago would tell you that. The turnout wasn't great here necessarily, but that was also in the face of a torrential downpour that actually caused a mudslide that killed someone on election day in Vancouver, so take that as you will.

With the provisions around personal information, we are a little more concerned about that, echoing some of the previous comments. We certainly support any efforts to safeguard Canadians' personal information, but we note that the provisions here fall far short of the standards that we're held to as an advocacy group. I think if Canadians understood how much data and information political parties have on them, then a lot of people would not be very happy with that knowledge. Also, we feel that the right to have the knowledge, to know your data, to be forgotten and to have it removed would be quite worthwhile, as well as maybe some more robust standards on which third parties can access that data.

The foreign interference provisions are worthwhile too, but it was noted that they do not apply to nomination contests and leadership contests, and I think that's a major gap. Some of the personal information provisions do apply to those contests, but not including nomination contests, leadership contests and internal party contests in this legislation can actually come across as an invitation to foreign interference. I don't think that is the intention, but it's something I really strongly feel should be addressed.

The election timing seems to be the big elephant in the room. We certainly don't object to shifting the election by a week. The pension provisions and the cynicism associated with that are definitely a concern, but we also have, in case members of the committee aren't aware, some of the lowest incumbency rates in the entire developed world for our Parliament, and there are complex reasons for that. Part of that is first-past-the-post voting and an electorate that's very willing to shift its preferences. The consequence of that is that you tend to not last very long in office. There are a lot of people in swing ridings. You can imagine that if you were an MP from Quebec elected in 2008, most of those MPs were members of the Bloc. In 2011, most of those MPs were members of the NDP. In 2015, most of those MPs were members of the Liberal Party. There was not a lot of continuity across those three elections in who actually survived.

I don't think it's inappropriate that there be some kind of security and pension available. Maybe a solution to this would be to look at the vesting schedule of the pension and to be more gradual about it, instead of a more—I know it's not entirely all or nothing, but it's pretty close—all or nothing at the six-year mark.

In general, we want to note that the process here is one that we're encouraged by, and that most countries reform their democratic processes by multi-party agreements. A minority government means that's a necessity here, but it's something that we think should be followed in majority governments as well.

Thank you.