Evidence of meeting #75 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 information.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
I'm confident and it will be tested thoroughly, and we will be working with security partners of the Government of Canada to make sure it is satisfactory.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
You mentioned that the data will be stored on a secured database in Canada and accessed through a secure private network. Can you confirm whether or not any cloud solutions will be used to access that data?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
It is a private cloud solution.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Has this cloud solution been reviewed by any agencies external to Elections Canada?
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
It has gone through a very robust security assessment and it is monitored both privately and publicly in the sense that it's monitored by our private sector partner as well as by the Communications Security Establishment of Canada.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
To confirm, you're not yet comfortable with deploying it.
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
The solution needs to be fully tested before I can deploy it in a by-election.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Would you commit to coming back to this committee prior to deploying it?
Conservative
Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada
I would be happy to come back to this committee prior to deploying it.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Okay. I appreciate that commitment.
I'll now turn briefly to Monsieur Cormier and the Leaders' Debates Commission.
I think you probably undersold yourself a little bit in your comments about some frustrations, we shall say, with the 2021 debate.
I want to look a little bit further back in the past, to the 2019 debates commission, in which one of the moderators was actually actively suing one of the political parties at that time. Would you recognize that it was a mistake to have a moderator who was actively suing a political party at that time?
Executive Director, Leaders' Debates Commission
That has no relationship to the commission's work. The network had the rights to the material and decided to take litigation at the time, as they do in different situations.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
But wouldn't you agree there should be strict criteria delivered by the commission that anyone who's actively in legal proceedings with a political party shouldn't be part of that moderating panel?
Executive Director, Leaders' Debates Commission
That's not part of our mandate or the purview of the commission.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
Fascinating.
Have the criteria for participation in the next debate been established yet by your commission?
Executive Director, Leaders' Debates Commission
The commission has established the criteria for the last election. If a party gets 4% of the vote or elects a member to Parliament, they are qualified for the next debate. That's where we stand now.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
So that will be the criteria for the next elections debate?
Executive Director, Leaders' Debates Commission
I wouldn't want to actually talk for the next commissioner, but that's where we stand now.
Conservative
Executive Director, Leaders' Debates Commission
We'll have discussions with the commissioner. He has the final say on criteria, but we'll give them all the relevant information that's needed for that decision, of course.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
One of the challenges that we brought up—I was on the committee when this was first considered two Parliaments ago—was that once it becomes a government entity, it becomes subject to judicial review and to the courts. We've certainly seen in the last couple of elections instances where the commission was brought to court on this. One of the challenges, of course, is that the Attorney General is a member is a cabinet minister, where you're in a pretty clear conflict of interest.
Would you not agree it would be better if the commission were not a government entity and was therefore not tied to that apparent conflict of interest?
Executive Director, Leaders' Debates Commission
Our recommendation is for the commission to become a totally independent established commission through legislation. That's our recommendation. The litigation we have is above the commission's work, and we're trying to limit that litigation as much as possible moving forward.
Conservative
