Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 5th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Gill.

Ms. Barron, welcome back again to PROC. The floor is yours for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses who are here.

Because there are many discussions around the election day, I just want to reaffirm and put members' minds at ease. There was an amendment, which we put forward in June, that removes this particular clause from the bill, so that would no longer be an issue if we have all members in agreement with that.

With that, I want to ask my questions of either Ms. Vipond or Mr. Luff, whoever is best able to respond to the question. There was a discussion, Ms. Vipond, and you mentioned how important it is to be able to communicate with members. You said specifically that the restrictions on your ability to communicate with your members is a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I'm wondering, through the chair, whether you could tell us a little more about why it is so important to be able to communicate with members, and why you feel it is a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Siobhán Vipond]

When we add hurdles to our ability to communicate with members, it means that we can't best represent them. We are democratic organizations, and our members lead where they want us to go, so we need to advocate on issues that often become issues in elections. That can be health care, things directly tied to the workplace or broader social issues.

Under the charter, we are protected so that we can represent our members and unions have a role to play there, but this idea that we're unable to do that because the work happens to fall within this period and we fall into this area where, suddenly, we have to be third parties when it comes to our own member communication, it really limits our ability to best represent our members. Quite honestly, it means we're also not doing what we're legally obligated to do, which is to represent our members. That's why it is so important that we respect that as well as respect the democracy. The exclusion for unions, as we laid out, makes a lot of sense.

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

Thank you very much for that response. Can you, through the chair, tell us a little bit more about surveys and why they are also important for you to represent the membership?

[Siobhán Vipond]

We have some unions that are quite large, and communication looks different in a lot of ways. Sometimes it's sitting down with a bargaining unit. Sometimes it's actually having to communicate in very modern ways so that we can get feedback from a lot of folks. That give-and-take is how we best represent our members.

Yes, the exclusion that, suddenly, we can't ask about that means we're not getting feedback, and it makes it harder for our members. In the same way that you are here finding out how we can improve our democracy, we are always looking for ways in which we can better communicate with our members so that we can have stronger democratic unions.

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

Thank you.

Just for context, we know that, unlike large corporations, unions function on the direction of their membership, and this is something that I heard from you over and over again. I'm wondering whether you can share, through the chair, a little more about your opposition to the—your wording here—“unwarranted prohibition against domestic unions from contributing to third parties.”

Can you please speak a little more around how unions differ from, say, corporations in this, and what those responsibilities look like?

[Siobhán Vipond]

Thank you for the opportunity to address this because so far the discussion around individual donations has really been talking about the size of them.

If you limit it to individuals, that means rich individuals who have a lot of money can participate in third parties. What we are really proud of is that we can bring together a lot of people. We represent three million people who don't have to have a large amount of money—and it's all very transparent what we do with our money during elections—and we are able to participate in elections on issues that are important to workers to improve the lives of workers.

We can only do that through our democratic processes. Taking the big money that is secret money out of it—we understand that and we're not opposed to that.

The idea that the money that unions collectively put together and then collectively decide what to do with is wrapped up in this is a kind of an underestimation of the importance of having social dialogue in our society and in our democracy.

That is why we're saying, when we talk about the contributions of Canadian individuals and making it so that unions and our organizations can't do this, that this isn't secret money. We're not funnelling money. We're following the rules. We're taking it there. We have democratic processes. I think it's going to accidentally sweep us into that. It's going to mean the voices of millions of workers, talking on behalf of all workers, can no longer participate in the democracy in a meaningful way.

When we talk about the expenditures, I just want to add that what we have to disclose in terms of the costs is all inclusive. It costs money to participate in elections. These aren't cheap things. We're very proud that we get our stuff from Canada and we make sure people are paid good wages. That means that the expenses are there, but we are collectively able to pay for that under the current....

This change will actually exclude that. We think that it is going to be a problem in upcoming elections if workers do not have a voice.

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

Thank you.

There were lots of good points in there.

Through the chair, just to clarify, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have 20 seconds. I'm happy to roll that over to your next round, if you like.

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

That would be great.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

All right.

Mr. Calkins, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll be directing my questions at the start to Professor Loewen and Mr. Conacher.

First of all, Mr. Loewen, it sounds to me like you've been upgraded to an Ivy League school. Is that a recent thing?

[Peter Loewen]

It is.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Congratulations on that.

I guess I have a philosophical question to start us off. There are a couple of angles that have been explored here. One is to have greater transparency by publishing lists.

Mr. Conacher, you've been talking about making sure that names get published. There's also been the discussion about putting controls or caps on investment.

Which one do you think would actually be more effective—the transparency or the attempt to put a control on?

[Peter Loewen]

Thank you for asking.

Yes, I'm not sure they're in trade-off, but thank you for asking.

My thinking on this has evolved. I was of the mind that elections should be kind of a free arena where anyone can speak and transparency solves that. I've since come to the view that elections principally are a contest between political parties and political candidates. We should try to, in a sense, clear the space for them to be the agents and the organizations that are channelling citizens' interests and citizens' preferences in elections.

Increasingly, I'm of the mind that elections should be fought between parties and that the role of third parties, including labour unions but also business associations, should be severely limited.

That's been, to be candid with you, influenced partially by looking at how cacophonous elections in the United States are as a result of the notion that anyone should be able to speak during elections.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Conacher.

[Duff Conacher]

I would disagree. I think the system should be based on the number of voters that actually support the third party. One person should be allowed to spend only a very small amount. A group with thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members should be able to spend a multiple of that.

Businesses are legally one person. Business executives are very few in number and don't represent shareholders or employees politically, so businesses should be very strictly limited in what they can do. Citizen groups that are supported by tens of thousands of members—many are supported by many more voters than parties are—should be allowed to spend a multiple amount of what one voter could spend.

That would be an egalitarian system that fits with the Supreme Court of Canada's egalitarian model.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

The next question I have is from my perspective. I actually had legislation before this House, Bill C-406, back in 2018-19 that was voted down. It would have forbidden foreign money from coming in.

There are basically two channels. One of them is clandestine money coming from a foreign government, and the other is interest through third parties and large foundations that have charitable status—some do and some don't, like not-for-profits and so on—that will share money between writs, during the writ period and, of course, when you start mixing money in a bank account. We've already had that discussion here.

This is what I'm wondering: Does the bill go far enough, in your opinions, Mr. Loewen and Mr. Conacher, to deal with the clandestine foreign government aspect of it? Do you differentiate that money from money that's coming from third party organizations, like charitable trusts? I can think of numerous ones. My colleague Mr. Cooper talked about Leadnow getting money.

Do they both need to be treated differently, and do you think the proposed changes do enough to make sure that...? It should be Canadian interest, in my opinion. Canadian money should be the only influence in a domestic federal election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

We have a minute left here, witnesses, so please do your best to be gracious in splitting the time.

Thank you.

[Peter Loewen]

I share your view, Mr. Calkins. I think we should limit spending on elections to citizens of the country, and then we can talk about what that mix is between parties and third parties. Whatever vehicles you create, if you don't have an outright ban on foreign money, it will find a way through, whether it's through charitable trusts or through some other form, absent an outright ban.

[Duff Conacher]

I agree it should be Canadian money participating in both policy-making processes and elections. Don't forget that half of Canada's largest thousand companies are completely foreign-owned, so they should be very strictly limited in what they can do. In terms of citizen groups, lots of citizen groups have programs. They should be able to receive money—international money—for those programs, but when it comes to money to influence policy-making processes or elections, it should be coming from Canadians, and the proposal in our written submission will show how to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Mr. Turnbull, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here today.

Professor Loewen, I wanted to direct a couple of questions to you. I'm particularly interested in Bill C-65's focus on limiting cryptocurrency and other forms of untraceable contributions to third parties.

Do you think that this is a good step forward that will enhance public trust in our election process?

[Peter Loewen]

Yes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I know that you've studied and done research on public reactions to foreign interference. How might public confidence shift if people are aware of these measures?