Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, committee, for the invitation to contribute to your discussions on the Canada Elections Act.
My name is Eve Gaumond. I am a lawyer and Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Law at the Université de Montréal. My research focuses in particular on the Canada Elections Act and preserving the integrity of electronic voting. I served as guest expert at the citizens' assembly on democratic expression in relation to the work of Élections Québec and during consultations between Canada and the Netherlands on the Global Declaration on the Integrity of Online Information. I have also taught courses on the protection of personal information at Université Laval.
Bill C‑25 is a good bill, but it isn't perfect. In terms of the protection of personal information, it is by no means adequate, and improvements could be made as to the transparency of online political activities. Nonetheless, at a time of eroding trust in public institutions, I want to stress something. While there is always room for improvement, the current legal framework is robust and resilient, and it has served to protect the integrity of elections thus far.
My remarks will focus on two aspects of the bill which, in my opinion, should be improved: the regime for the protection of personal information and the transparency mechanisms designed to enhance the integrity of online political activities.
Since my time is limited, I will quickly run through each of the areas for improvement. I have submitted a written list of recommendations to the committee and can elaborate on each of the suggestions during the question period.
Regarding the protection of personal information, a line must be drawn between matters that fall under the Canada Elections Act and those that fall under privacy legislation. These two legal instruments serve different purposes.
The purpose of the Canada Elections Act is to establish the basic rules to ensure the integrity and proper functioning of elections. It is entirely appropriate for it to include offences relating to certain practices that are problematic politically. Those often involve personal information from a party or personal information that is disclosed to harm someone, for instance. In other words, subclause 36(1) of the bill is relevant and is warranted in the act.
On the other hand, the Canada Elections Act cannot create a complete, national and exclusive regime for the protection of personal information. The right to privacy is a complex and technical field that cannot be addressed incidentally in legislation on other matters. It is therefore imperative that sections 446.2, 446.3 and 446.4 be repealed so that existing provincial privacy legislation can apply to federal political parties, at least until a real and complete national framework is created.
The federal Privacy Act is due to be reviewed soon. The government should take the opportunity to include federal political parties in the regime. It is concerning that political parties are the only entities in Canada that are not subject to basic privacy rules, especially considering that the Cambridge Analytica scandal primarily involved the use of personal information to exert political influence.
As to transparency, the Canada Elections Act is in large part based on the idea that transparency fosters integrity. That principle works well in the real world, but three changes are needed for activities conducted in the virtual world to meet equivalent transparency standards.
First, some of the existing regimes need to be adapted to the realities of artificial intelligence. When a party uses so-called robocalls, it has to register with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, provide a list of the phone numbers used and a copy of the recorded message or the script that was used.
Parties that use chatbots to communicate with electors should at the very least be required to provide the queries used to program the chatbots and a list of the electors they communicated with. Parties should also be required to disclose information related to advertising that is generated or considerably altered by an artificial intelligence system.
The second change relates to influencers who are playing an ever-increasing role in politics. Right now, they often operate outside of traditional transparency rules. Consideration should be given to adding a regime that specifically governs contributions offered in exchange for endorsements. The regime could require influencers to label their sponsored content and disclose any significant link to a political entity, including benefits and incentives.
The last change pertains to digital platforms. Section 325.1 should be amended to require major platforms to play a bigger role in transparency. Specifically, that means that government should work with digital platforms and researchers working on election integrity issues to codify broader transparency requirements. Those requirements must guarantee that researchers will have access to the necessary information to study the information ecosystem, regardless of the political stripe of those who head up those platforms.
Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to your questions.