Thank you very much, Chair, for this opportunity to speak before the committee on this very important bill, C-25, changing the Canada Elections Act. This is the eighth or ninth time I've been before the committee concerning this bill. I will make my presentation in English.
I have to practice my French, and there are a lot of technical terms in this area.
I filed with the committee a list of the recommended changes to the bill that I am summarizing today, changes to close the huge loopholes in Canada's election law that allow for secret, dishonest, unethical and undemocratic interference and influence by foreign governments, businesses and organizations, and by wealthy interest groups and individuals in Canada's nomination and party leadership contests, elections and by-elections. I also filed a detailed report on changes needed to close these loopholes with this committee in February, during its study of foreign election interference. If you want even more details, you can find my Ph.D. thesis online, but I warn you that it's more than 900 pages, so that's a lot of detail to absorb.
Unfortunately, the provisions in Bill C-25, in its current form, are incomplete, weak and ineffective and will do much too little to close these huge loopholes. Flaws and gaps in the bill mean that, among other failures, it fails to fix election dates. Snap elections are fundamentally unfair in many ways, including that pre-election spending limits do not apply when a snap election is called.
The bill also still allows most of the disinformation posts on social media, because the prohibition in the bill is much too narrow and unenforceable. It applies only to some false claims that a person knowingly posts with an intent to affect the outcome of the election or by-election. The Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner of Canada Elections testified before this committee and in the Senate in 2018 in regard to Bill C-76, and both said that proving intent is essentially impossible, so if you require it, it makes the measure unenforceable.
The bill also still allows donations that only wealthy voters can afford. The total annual donation limit currently is a combined $3,550, which is much more than most voters can afford. Seventy-five per cent of donors give only $75 each year.
The bill increases secrecy around fundraising events by lobbyists and people who want something from party leaders, making it essentially impossible to determine whether a lobbyist is helping organize or holding a fundraising event for a party, riding association, candidate, nomination contestant or party leadership contestant. It does nothing to require disclosure of other fundraising activities. All that secrecy is a recipe for corruption, waste, trading of favours and other abuses.
The bill fails to require disclosure of donations to and spending by third party interest groups during nomination and party leadership contests, unlike the U.S., which does require disclosure.
It also continues to allow third parties to use their own funds to influence elections, which hides the actual donors of the money, because the measures in Bill C-25 are easy to get around. That's also unlike the U.S., which requires disclosure during primaries and election years of all donations to third parties, known as political action committees in the U.S. To be clear, our measures in Canada are weaker than the U.S. measures during an election year for third party spending and donation disclosure.
The bill fails to set lower spending limits for third party spending by individual voters, businesses and organizations that are supported by only a few voters.
The only effective way to close these loopholes to ensure free, fair and democratic nomination and party leadership contests in elections and by-elections is to prevent, prohibit and penalize disinformation and secret, unethical and undemocratic influence. Bill C-25 does almost nothing to prevent these activities and much too little to clearly prohibit them. It is good that the bill is increasing the penalties significantly in all these areas.
If you are in favour of and support and approve of Bill C-25 in its current loophole-filled form, you support and approve of unfair snap elections called at a time that favours the ruling party and foreign government and foreign entity-funded front groups continuing to interfere in Canada's political system by secretly spending unlimited amounts of money to influence nomination and party leadership contests.
Foreign government and foreign entity-funded individuals continue to interfere in Canada's political system by spending millions to influence a federal election. If this bill passes, a single voter or a number of companies supported by very few voters will still be allowed to spend millions of dollars of their own money directly or by funnelling donations to interest groups, most of it secretly, with no disclosure of the individuals, the entity or the people behind the numbered company.