Evidence of meeting #20 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was elections.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
It provides investigative tools. When we have investigative tools, when we have prohibitions, we can get search warrants, for example. There's work that could be done that couldn't be done otherwise.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Perrault, I'm just following up on the line of questioning of Mr. Jackson. To be clear, is the only database that Elections Canada has to verify if someone who is on the list shouldn't be on the voters list the IRCC database, or are there other sources of data?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
We have roughly 40 data partners such as drivers' licences and income tax returns, for example, and provincial electoral management bodies that share information that allows us to update the register of electors. Whenever people enter the register, at some point in the process, they will have had to have made a sworn statement to the effect that they are qualified as an elector.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
Right, so someone can declare that they are a citizen, but the question is: What verification processes are in place to ensure that it is, in fact, the case? You have said that you have data sources. If someone, for example, is identified as someone who appears to not be eligible to vote, what is the process? What would happen next?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
They are removed from the register of electors, and they no longer receive the voter information card, for instance. If it is found that they have voted, if they do register and vote, then they are referred to the commissioner of Canada elections..
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
What if, for example, someone who was removed from the list showed up at a polling station and someone vouched for them or, if they're not on the list at all and someone vouched for them, are there any checks and balances or processes in place to ensure that someone who shouldn't be voting doesn't end up casting a ballot?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
They are required to provide documentary proof of their identity and address or have somebody who's provided such proof of their own to vouch for them, so this is about identity and address.
In terms of the citizenship, it is a sworn statement. This is the rule across most democracies in the world. Very few, and for very good reason, do not require documentary proof of citizenship. It's important to understand that such requirements can lead to the exclusion of vast numbers.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
We certainly wouldn't want anyone to be excluded, but we're talking about one vote or four votes. If someone who votes shouldn't vote, that cancels out a vote.
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
The reverse is also true.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
I'm going to move on to another issue, which is third party financing.
Commissioner, there are significant loopholes with respect to the financing of registered third parties that participate in our elections in terms of the possibility of foreign sources of funding. As I understand it, as the law currently stands, a foreign entity or source could donate to a Canadian entity, and that Canadian entity in turn could donate those funds to a registered third party, and they would be treated as having been made from that Canadian entity. Is that right?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
That's correct.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB
It seems to me that the most straightforward and effective way to stop the use of foreign money influencing our elections through third parties, which has happened, would be to require third parties to set up specific bank accounts for the purpose of engaging in activities during elections in which the funds donated to those accounts would be restricted to individual Canadian citizens. That would close any loophole, and it would put third parties on par with registered political parties to the extent that registered political parties can accept contributions only from individual Canadians.
What are your thoughts on that recommendation?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
I would say that it is close to the recommendation I've made, but there's an important nuance.
My view is that there are groups that have money from different sources whose main purpose is not to participate in an election. They may find out at election time that there is an issue in the election that is of deep concern to them or their members, and they may wish to participate. To completely prevent them from using any of their existing funds could be an overly restrictive regime.
My recommendation is to allow those that are not fundraising groups to use their own funds as well as individuals, but I understand your point of view. It's a matter of striking the right balance.
Liberal
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you.
Thank you, Monsieur Perrault, Monsieur Caron and Madame Villeneuve. Your repeated testimony and work shows that Elections Canada has an important role in safeguarding the integrity of our electoral process and maintaining that public confidence in democratic outcomes here in Canada. I appreciate that.
Monsieur Perrault, you mentioned there's a constant battle countering digital misinformation. You mentioned steps that you take, calling it out and debunking, for lack of a better word, doing outreach and posting. Can you expand on some of the ways you're doing that?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Certainly.
We've moved from debunking, which we continue to do, to also pre-bunking. What we do, first of all, is we seed as much correct information in the system, the ecosystem, as possible prior to an election. We want to make sure that there's as much understanding of the rules and process as possible. What we began to do ahead of the last election was something called ElectoFacts, where we singled out false narratives ahead of time—because we monitor across jurisdictions and across events—identified them and provided the correct, factual information on them. We proactively tell Canadians to beware of these narratives, this is the correct information.
Then, of course, during the election, we can correct and we do correct information. In some cases, we speak to platforms. For example, in the last election there was a fake Journal de Montréal article saying, for seniors, people over the age 65, the vote is on a Tuesday not the Monday. It was posted, I believe, on polling day, so we immediately contacted platforms and they did take it down. We didn't have to ask them to take it down. They moved quickly on that.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
I can see speed and the need to move quickly is a challenge.
Another challenge might be that people on social media are, in a way, in echo chambers. They might not be in the same circle where you're posting and debunking or pre-bunking the information. What challenges do you have to reach people when social media today seems to be so segmented that people are seeing the news they want to see?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
It does raise challenges. We have to think about what platforms we want to be on. Some platforms may not be as reputable as others, but if Canadians are there, then we have to decide whether we should we go there, whether we should be on those platforms. We tend to err on the side of being there and sharing as widely as possible correct information.
While there are echo chambers, it's fair to say that we've also seen people correcting each other and people using some of our information that we put out. It was very encouraging to see people actually using our information to respond to other participants in a conversation.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Then during, let's call it off-season or non-election time, is there outreach that can be done to Canadians? Let's use this as a public service announcement. How can Canadians find out where to turn if there are any questions?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
There is a range of tools. Of course, they can contact us, but we do have a lot of information on our website. We also have documents and information products that we provide to a network. I spoke about that a bit earlier. The program is called Inspire Democracy, and we have over 900 participants. These are civic groups that use that information. It includes political parties. These groups in turn can share that information with their members or people who are close to them.
You're quite right this is not something that can only happen during an election. We really need to be ahead of the curve.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
A new phrase, “inspire democracy”, I shall be looking that up. That sounds like a motto of Elections Canada.
I was going to ask a question about you discussing with other countries, what information sharing happens, and what we can learn when elections in similar countries happen. Is there communication? Then, at the same time, you mentioned that our system is so robust and strong. Is it possible other countries are also learning from us?
Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer
Yes, one forum that I like to attend, it's very informal, is called the Four Countries Conference. It brings together Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and Canada. We're very much alike in terms of where we are in terms of mature democracies. We share our concerns and practices and how we're evolving.
The example that I gave of ElectoFacts, which pre-bunks, is a takeoff from what elections Australia did previously, though they did it in a different way and in a way that we probably wouldn't do it. There are cultural differences. However, we do talk about what we do and learn from each other.
