Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 26th, 2026

[Duff Conacher]

Even in a snap election mandate, they'd just make the donation now—it's highly unlikely there will be a snap election in the next year—and this would allow one voter to donate millions to several interest groups, knowing that they're going to spend it during the election in a way that this voter likes. Then, they themselves could spend millions of their own during a pre-election period—up to the two months if it were a fixed election—right up to the election campaign period, and then spend $1.6 million. The only disclosure would be of the $1.6 million spent, or, if it's a snap election, only $630,000 of the spending. All of the rest of the spending would be done by someone we don't know, and there would be no disclosure of that. Again, the U.S. rules are much stronger in terms of disclosure during an election year.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

The notion that 10% or less of the third party's revenue comes from contributions...that could be millions and millions of dollars of foreign funds.

[Duff Conacher]

Yes, it could be millions of dollars.

Also, government grants and contributions are not counted, so governments could fund groups that they support, that they know will support them, and that will not be counted amongst the 10%. Therefore, even that increases the loophole in terms of where the threshold is. It's just a huge loophole that will facilitate foreign interference as well as unethical and undemocratic domestic interference.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

One way to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I'll pause your time, Mr. Cooper.

I also speak with my hands, Mr. Conacher. Just watch, when you are speaking with your hands, that you do not hit the mic.

I apologize, Mr. Cooper. Please continue.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

One way to close the loophole for foreign funding is to require all registered third parties to set up a separate bank account for regulated activities, with the requirement that contributions to such an account come exclusively from individual Canadians. Does that seem like a reasonable amendment to you?

[Duff Conacher]

Yes, it does, very much so. That's what should be done.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

What about the argument that, somehow, this infringes on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and that there are charter implications? Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Duff Conacher]

No. Disclosure requirements have been upheld as entirely constitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada. The only issue has been with the limits, and this is not about the limits.

I think the limits also need to be changed. It's crazy that one voter is allowed to spend up to $1.6 million during a pre-election and election campaign period, which is the same amount that a citizens' group with 100,000 supporters is allowed to spend. I mean, that's not democratic. It allows one wealthy Canadian to have as much influence as 100,000 Canadians.

That's something that also has to be done, and I think it would be upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court, based on its most recent ruling in the Working Families case.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

On spending limits for third parties, you recommended lowering spending limits. In contrast to your position, we heard Professor Garnett speak about spending limits for third parties in other jurisdictions. She stated that in the U.K. it's 700,000 pounds, I believe, and in Australia there are no spending limits. It's an open-ended question, but would you care to address that point?

[Duff Conacher]

Yes, right now you have one blanket spending limit. If it is a fixed election, then you have about $1 million during the pre-election period and just over $600,000 during the election campaign period. It's crazy to have one spending limit for many different types of third parties.

Democracy Watch's position is that businesses should be prohibited from spending. They already have economic influence. The executives who make the decision on the spending are not representing either the shareholders or the workers. One voter should be limited to spending a very small amount. Citizen groups or any type of interest group should be allowed to spend a multiple of the amount that one voter could spend, based on the actual number of voters who support them. Someone can have a numbered company supported by very few voters, or one voter can spend $1.6 million to influence the election—the same amount as a citizen group with 100,000 members. It's not democratic at all. It's not egalitarian. I think it violates the Supreme Court standard, but it just hasn't been tested in court.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to Ms. Vandenbeld, for six minutes, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for your expertise.

I would like to start by talking about something we heard about earlier today, namely, some questions about clauses in the bill relating to the spreading of false information. Obviously, as you have mentioned, the bill does say that the person must know that the information is false and that their objective and goal in spreading it is to undermine trust.

I know that all three of you have previously testified, spoken and written about this. I'd like to start with Professor Tenove and then hear from the three of you about whether or not you think this is a legitimate way to address it and whether it would impact freedom of speech.

Professor Tenove, go ahead.

[Chris Tenove]

The bill, as it's currently scoped, does protect freedom of speech, in that it requires proof both of the intent to deceive and of the existence of false claims made with the intent to undermine the conduct of or affect the results of an election.

In truth, in narrow time periods during campaigns, it does pose difficulties to regulators who want to try to identify and take action on false claims that are spreading about election processes. In the recent B.C. election, there were a few cases of false information being spread about the election. In the end, Elections BC didn't use its authority to require transmission of that information to cease but found other ways to address it.

It is a significant burden, but an appropriate one to protect speech and freedom of expression.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Dr. Conacher.

[Duff Conacher]

Thank you.

What's strange about the bill is that some false claims are prohibited, so why not prohibit all false claims? It does make sense to require that the claim was made knowingly, because then you're targeting only the poster—not the people who share it, who may not know that it's false.

The commissioner of Canada elections and the Chief Electoral Officer said in 2018 that if you require proof of intent, it makes it unenforceable. Just say that for anything related to the election you make a false claim about—and I would extend it right through to the period between elections—and any statement you make about any policy-making process that is false, you will be sanctioned. It will be removed from social media.

As Professor Tenove mentioned, it's very difficult during an election campaign period to react quickly enough and to have it judged as false and removed, but it still needs to be there to discourage the rampant disinformation that we're seeing.

It can be done. The key part—which is not set out in the bill—is that we need to make the enforcers of this entirely independent from all political parties and all politicians. It cannot be seen, or even appear to be seen, that anyone connected to any party or government is deciding what is false and sanctioning and removing posts from social media, but this needs to be done; otherwise, rampant disinformation that misleads voters will continue to undermine elections.

Everyone should realize that elections are usually decided by a vote margin of only 5% to 10%, so disinformation has to fool only 2.5% to 5% of voters to have an effect on the election. A very small percentage of voters being fooled and changing their votes because of disinformation can affect the result of an election, which is why this needs to be dealt with.

If it's not dealt with in Bill C-25, we need another bill very soon—before the next election.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Professor Garnett, what's your view on this?

[Holly Ann Garnett]

The bottom line up front is that the current bill, as it is written, strikes a really good balance.

One thing that we want to be very concerned about is that we're not stifling debate or discouraging people from entering the debate for fear that they accidentally end up being prosecuted for that.

The other challenge that I found in some of my research on disinformation is that the line between what is true and what is false is not always clear. The issue that Mr. Conacher brings up about who is adjudicating that, who is adjudicating what is a true and false claim, is very delicate. It can be very easily weaponized, and we do see it being weaponized in other countries.

To that end, keeping it within the limits of false information about the specific electoral process strikes the right balance. It encourages accurate information available to voters and, at the same time, ensures that we're not stifling any of the sort of debate and open contestation that is required to have a free and fair election.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Professor Tenove, on the issue of whether you can determine intent, you mentioned in your statement about the way that you could look at generative AI and how it's used to determine the intent of the false information.

Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Chris Tenove]

There are different ways to determine intent and different standards that could be used to judge whether there is sufficient evidence. One way is to look at past histories of posting material, which might show that there have been repeated and strategic efforts to promote falsehoods. If there is evidence that someone has deliberately mis-characterized synthetic or AI-generated content as real, it could also be interpreted as evidence that they are being deceptive about the message that they're putting forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I'm going to have to intervene. I do apologize.

I will now turn to Madame Normandin.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you once again to all of the witnesses.

Mr. Tenove, in your remarks, you touched on the protection of citizens' information.

Can you elaborate on the weaknesses of the bill as regards the protection of citizens' information and your recommendations to improve matters?

[Chris Tenove]

There are others who have commented on data protection, and I would defer to some of them.

The one thing I would add on the conversation that occurred in the previous session is that my sense is that the concern is not just the voter lists per se but all the data that parties accumulate about citizens linked to that voters list. It's this complete set of data that people may legitimately worry about, as these could be used in ways that are either manipulative or exposed to being lost through cybersecurity incidents or inappropriate transmissions, sales and so forth.

I think the essence is to ensure that citizens' data is being protected as a statutory right, that there's some oversight, and that it's not entirely up to the discretion of the parties.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Conacher, you talked about the publication of funding activities, noting that not all activities are well covered and that we do not always have all the information about those activities.

Were you referring to specific activities of political parties?

Or were you referring to third-party activities, for instance?

Please speak to these two types of activities.

[Duff Conacher]

The bill introduces a loophole in the current fundraising event disclosure regime, in that the exact location of a fundraising event will not be required to be disclosed, just the municipality. This will make it essentially impossible to determine whether a lobbyist or someone who wants something from the government is the one organizing or holding the fundraising event. It's a huge step backwards, and it's a recipe for corruption and waste of the public's money, trading of favours and other abuses.

Democracy Watch's position is that nomination contestants, party leadership contestants, parties, riding associations and candidates should all be required to disclose their staff, their top volunteers and campaigners, and their fundraisers. That is in order to be able to track the conflicts of interest that are created by the political favours done by these people.