Evidence of meeting #134 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like some clarification. I'm not sure whether I understood all the remarks, which were quite informative.
Mr. Bennett, you spoke about clause 444.1 of the bill. You also said that 90% of companies worked for political parties.
Could you please remind us of the context in which you brought this up?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Mr. Bennett, you're on mute, sir.
Mr. Bennett, sir....
Can he not hear me?
Mr. Bennett, can you hear me? You're on mute.
Prof. Colin Bennett
I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you.
OpenMedia did some work on a number of the companies that were employed by political parties at federal, provincial and municipal levels. It came out to be about 90 different enterprises.
My point is this: Those companies have to comply with federal and/or provincial privacy law, principally PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, at the federal level. Many of them will not be processing personal data from political parties, but some will, so they have to ensure that this information is provided with appropriate consent, typically. That has been stated by the federal and provincial privacy commissioners in a decision involving AggregateIQ, which was the company that was implicated in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
My point about Bill C-65 is that however much you amend it, it's still going to be inconsistent with the rules that companies are going to be having to abide by. Therefore, it is not providing the uniform regime for political parties and the use of personal information in political campaigning that the bill claims to achieve.
I hope that's clear.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you.
In your remarks, you also talked about British Columbia and Quebec. What was the context? Are these provinces examples to follow?
I want to make sure that I took good notes.
Prof. Colin Bennett
Yes, in both B.C. and Quebec now, provincial political parties are obliged to abide by provincial privacy law. I was making the point that this is not really a threat to political parties. It is perfectly possible, in those provinces and, indeed, in the majority of democracies—in Europe, in New Zealand and elsewhere—for campaigns to exist and for political parties to communicate with the electorate while, at the same time, complying with basic privacy principles.
In B.C., as you probably know, there has been litigation on the question of whether B.C.'s provincial law should apply to federal political parties to the extent that they capture personal data in B.C. Earlier this year, a judge in the B.C. Supreme Court said that the answer was yes. All three political parties are currently appealing that decision to the Court of Appeal.
I hope that's clear.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Pal, I'm worried about artificial intelligence.
Just last Tuesday, I asked the clerk, the Sergeant‑at‑Arms and the law clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons to identify the global challenge that should most concern us on a domestic level. The first answer was artificial intelligence.
By the way, I just came back from an international conference attended by over 50 countries. The topic of the day was artificial intelligence.
To act, we need tools with teeth. It's fine to make changes to legislation. However, we need the tools required to take action. This isn't about quality or innovation.
As a legislator, I'm concerned. Of course, we must keep up the pace, but real life also comes into play. The general election process is extremely complex. With digital technology taking up more and more space, what can be done to help people vote?
I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Ms. Gaudreau, you don't have much time left.
Professor, you have about 20 seconds, please.
Prof. Michael Pal
Artificial intelligence in elections is a very serious issue. The big picture to me is that it makes all of our problems worse—disinformation, misinformation, campaign finance issues and foreign interference. I don't see Bill C-65 addressing that directly, so I think there's much more to do on artificial intelligence in elections.
Liberal
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I think I'll pick up from Madame Gaudreau's line of questioning.
Professor Pal, you co-edited a book about cyber-threats. It's about the larger impact of the dangers they entail in how information, disinformation and misinformation get to voters, as well as the protection of voters.
I wanted to ask about the extensive use of AI within partisan advertising. What are the limits currently placed upon that advertising by election law?
Do changes need to be made, considering that we know now that in marketing, it's down to a science in how people are manipulated for consumerism?
If you look at electioneering as that same kind of taking in of a product, how could we change the laws or keep up with it when we see it in advertising? How is it being used against people with that AI? What are those dangers?
Prof. Michael Pal
Thank you very much, and thank you very much for referencing the book I edited with my colleague, Holly Ann Garnett, at the Royal Military College. Royalties for academic books are very modest, so it's nice to have it mentioned.
Prof. Michael Pal
In terms of partisan and election advertising, the strongest tool that exists in the Elections Act is spending limits. I believe the Chief Electoral Officer mentioned that there are quite generous spending limits for third parties in the pre-writ period. They're stricter during the writ period.
Spending limits have been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme of Canada on multiple occasions. There's the Harper case, the Libman case and the B.C. FIPA case. There are a number of cases.
The tool is, in some senses, less effective because technology has made it so much cheaper to engage in political communications. That is a positive thing. It has democratized people's ability to communicate with large numbers of voters, but it means that the third party spending limits and the political advertising and partisan advertising spending limits are less effective when entities are using technology to communicate at a very low cost.
Part of the reason why we have these offences about false statements and other things is that they are trying to target the communication in the advertising, rather than the amount that is being spent. I think where it puts us is we need to come up with new mechanisms for the responsible use of technology. Parliament did so in relation to social media companies in the Elections Modernization Act. We didn't know what ads were being run on Facebook, so now there's a repository of ads.
I think we need similar updating of election laws in relation to artificial intelligence and other new technologies. There is some of that in Bill C-65, but I think there's a lot more thinking, frankly, that we all, as Canadian society, have to do to try to address that. The technology and techniques are changing so quickly that it's a matter of trying to respond in real time.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
When those marketing strategies are applied at such a high or sophisticated level, using AI, is democracy being undermined? Could it be considered an undermining of democracy in that regard because there's an idea of potential manipulation?
Prof. Michael Pal
I don't think simply the use of AI on its own causes harm to democracy. We might want transparency around it and disclosure that artificial intelligence is being used. That is a challenge when all of the software that people use also has AI built into it in various programs, but certainly, additional transparency would be beneficial.
There are not that many drawbacks to additional transparency, but because the AI tools can be used for positive, good purposes as well, we should be careful about restricting their use. There are some examples of U.S. companies with AI tools having internal rules restricting their use for political advertising, so I think we need to learn more about what the practices of those companies are in the Canadian political space, because they have an impact on elections.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you for leading into the next question.
I want to ask you about the comparative research you have done between different jurisdictions on that role or function within elections and election administration. Can you talk about other jurisdictions that are getting it right, in terms of electoral integrity? If this piece of legislation is on the right track or not, what could we learn from other specific examples in other jurisdictions, be they provincial or other international—
Prof. Michael Pal
For the sake of time, I would note that Australia's legislature has a new bill in front of it that is moving closer to the Canadian regime than it was. There's some evidence there that people view the Canadian regime positively.
Liberal
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Chipeur, I don't know if you know this or not. I had a private member's bill in the very first parliament with the current Trudeau administration, which would have significantly limited the amount of money that third parties could use from foreign sources.
I know my colleague, Mr. Cooper, has already asked you a question about this, but I'll give you a hypothetical example.
The Tides foundation, if you believe the information that's publicly available, has about $1.4 billion in assets. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has $6.7 billion in assets. The Pew Charitable Trusts has $6.7 billion. Those three organizations, alone, have just under $15 billion in assets. They fund organizations, not only in the United States, but also in Canada and elsewhere, through non-governmental organizations, not-for-profits and so on.
All of those organizations may choose to become registered participants in the election process when we have a federal election. Of course, they would align themselves with, potentially, a political party. I'm just using those three examples. We're not even talking about unions. We're not talking about foreign actors, state actors or anything like this.
There are billions of dollars that could be coming in from all manner of sources. The changes being proposed here may have helped, but it is illegal, in Canada, for any political party to accept money from outside of Canada. Why is it still illegal?
In your opinion, do you think it should be legal for any registered party that wants to participate in an election to receive any funds from outside of Canada, full stop?
Lawyer, As an Individual
When you make the case that clearly, the answer is clearly no.
Why is that the case? I think the reason is that it would dilute, in section 3, the right that belongs to the citizen to make these choices.
I do note that in the last election in the United States, the party that spent about 50% more than the winning party lost, so money doesn't necessarily buy you an election. However, the influence is what is inappropriate, in my view, under section 3, because it is a right of citizenship, and that right should be defended aggressively by Parliament. I think that's Parliament's duty.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
If that's the case, then do you think it should be an offence for third parties to knowingly accept contributions from any foreign entity for any regulated election activities?
Lawyer, As an Individual
I think it should be.
I also agree with what the Chief Electoral Officer said earlier, that it should be an offence for that third party, who is outside of the country, to make those donations, because it seems that both state actors as well as private actors have been bragging recently about how influential they have been in the Canadian election. I think that is something that, in my view, should be an offence. This Parliament should be offended by those kinds of reports being published.