Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 7th, 2025

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

First of all, I don't have anything mixed up. What I have is a YouTube video—

[Tomas Szuchewycz]

Respectfully, you do have that mixed up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

If I may, for a moment, Mr. Szuchewycz, we operate here on a position that members of Parliament are honourable. To accuse a member of Parliament of doctoring images.... I think you should tread very carefully on that. I don't know about these images, but I'm giving you a warning that I don't find it funny, sir. I don't think you should find it funny either.

Mr. Cooper is correct in what Parliament can do. Perhaps you don't have respect for the individuals sitting in these chairs, but please have respect for the institution and the electors who put us here.

I'm sorry, Mr. Cooper. I think we stopped at about 30 seconds.

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

Go ahead.

[Tomas Szuchewycz]

No, we have never collected signatures with blank candidate names. The Chief Electoral Officer has already testified to you that there's no credible evidence of any wrongdoing—

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

In his testimony, the Chief Electoral Officer said that your committee initially got caught doing precisely that. That was his testimony.

[Tomas Szuchewycz]

Respectfully, Mr. Chair, that was not his testimony. His testimony was that we collected “without an identified candidate”. That is true; we wrote “all candidates” in the candidate field. We got people to sign. We asked them if they would be willing to nominate any and all candidates —

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

It was a blank nomination form. That's what you did. You just admitted it.

[Tomas Szuchewycz]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

We'll now turn to Mr. Louis for six minutes, please.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate it.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for being here today.

Professor Loewen, I'm going to start my questions with you.

Ultimately, we're talking about protecting democracy and our elections, which is something that's very important. I know that you've done work as a professor in the department of government at Cornell. You've also done work with the Canadian election misinformation project.

I wonder if you can expand on how AI can be weaponized to distort democratic discourse. Do you believe that Canada's current legal framework is sufficient to address the risks posed by AI-generated disinformation and misinformation during elections? What specific reforms would you have in mind?

[Peter Loewen]

Thanks very much for asking, Mr. Louis. I appreciate the question very much.

Let me give you a quick insight. I actually spoke on this with the committee in November, so it's quite nice to revisit it. Canadian election law has, over time, restricted how much can be done by so-called third parties to participate in our elections. We're talking about advocacy groups, unions or business associations advertising and being active during political campaigns.

The reason we've done this is that we've come to believe that political parties should be the principal vehicles through which our elections are contested. The longest ballot committee is actually an interesting example of a group that's acting like a third party, or maybe like a political party, but not putting itself into that regulatory framework. That's something for you to consider.

On the issue of AI and misinformation, I'll give you the following intuition, perhaps. We regulate the participation of third parties through two things. One is that we regulate how much they can spend, as a way of trying to limit how much they can speak. There are very strict spending limits on how much third parties can spend and thus engage in speech. The second thing we regulate is individuals. We make individual humans legally responsible for what third parties do.

The challenge with artificial intelligence is that it can bring the cost of communication down to zero. The spending mechanism limit on third parties isn't as effective when the cost of doing something is approaching zero. That's problem one.

Problem two is what you might call the agentic problem. We're not far away from people effectively creating non-human agents that will perpetuate speech during elections. Fake Twitter accounts are one example of this, but you can imagine an AI agent that's designed to create political advertisements and then put them out onto the web. It's not an individual putting them on; it's an autonomous agent. It's doing it at essentially zero cost, as it uses social media to spread itself.

What's needed in the legislative framework to address that is acknowledging that the human-centred spending limit approach to limiting third parties doesn't work as well, potentially, in an AI world.

I hope that's helpful to you.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

It is. Thank you.

Is there a way to require, let's say, possibly labelling AI-generated content during election time? Can that be enforced without stifling legitimate political expression? Is there a way of doing that and balancing that during an election campaign?

[Peter Loewen]

There is, I think.

I would say that you already have labelling of political ads. The way the Canada Elections Act framework works when we're regulating speech during elections is that parties have to take accountability for the ads they put in place by indicating that they've been approved by the agent of the party. Third parties that are operating within the law also have to disclose who's behind the advertisement, and they have to subject themselves to limits. The way you do that is to make the broadcasters and platforms comply with certain restrictions when labelled content is put out, with the requirement not to post unlabelled content that is an election advertisement. You could extend that part of it, I think, relatively easily.

The second thing you can do is pass legislation that would similarly prohibit the platforms and networks from disseminating information that looks like election advertising by third parties, even if it is produced by agents rather than by humans.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

In the time I have left.... In your opening statement, sir, you referred to the longest ballot committee and the fact that “the management of our elections is highly localized.” The concern I have on this committee is the right of people to vote. Can you explain that point, that “the management of our elections is highly localized”, and the challenges that were faced, along with the possible challenges to people's right to vote?

[Peter Loewen]

Yes. What's remarkable about Canadian elections is how amateur they are and how well run they are. All of our local polling places are staffed by people who are paid, but they're essentially temporary people working to serve our democracy. They're doing kind of the most important civic activity that we do. I've always found that interesting.

The challenge is when voters walk into a polling place and are confronted with 200 or 1,000 names on a ballot. It makes it challenging for election workers to explain the ballot to them, and it makes it challenging for them to help the voters do what the voters intend to do. Voters are not there to cast a ballot for some person who got onto the ballot through a signature-harvesting exercise. They're there to vote for one of the major parties, maybe a real independent local candidate or a local notable, or a small party that's trying to break through.

When voters are being told, “Look, voting is straightforward; trust us that you can do this”, and then suddenly they are confronted with a metre-long ballot, it erodes, at least at the margin, their sense of democratic efficacy, and it makes it hard for the people running elections. I'm sure it's frustrating to explain where to look on that ballot for the people who are actually running for office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

If I could interject—and I do apologize—Mr. Louis is over time.

Thank you so much.

Madame Normandin.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank both witnesses.

Professor Loewen, in your opening remarks, you mentioned that the Long Ballot Committee is to a degree violating the spirit of the election process. I would like you to talk to us about the balance that must be struck between a person’s right to be a candidate and, at the same time, to present their ideas, and the right of citizens to have elections whose spirit is primarily aimed at electing someone who would be able to represent them well.

How can we strike this very delicate balance between the right to run for office and present ideas and the right of the population to elections that reflect the spirit of elections as we know it?

[Peter Loewen]

I think ballots in Canada most certainly should have a place for non-major party candidates. I think it's really wonderful that people step up to run in elections when they probably know they don't actually have much of a chance of winning, depending on their party and their geography. I think that is an important part of our democratic exercise. These are sincere people.

Other people will often step forward because they're animated by some issue that really matters to them and they want to express that issue. That's different from people who are not running to be a contestant in the election as their principal motivator but who are, instead, adding their name to the ballot because they want to make a larger point. I think that is the animating spirit of the longest ballot committee. They want to gum up the ballot with as many names as possible to make a point that's different from staying in an election because you have certain views.

I think you can certainly strike a legislative sweet spot that makes it possible for local people who want to run for the sake of running, even if they're not a part of a major party, to get on that ballot by earnestly seeking a large number of signatures, while tailoring the rules not to allow for the monkeying of ballots by allowing, for example, one individual or one group to capture signatures for hundreds of people.

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

I would like to discuss the notion of balance, which you just mentioned. There is a difference between the ideas that a person holds and using the ballot as a means of communication or pressure. You mentioned that there may be less serious candidates in an election. I am thinking of certain parties that say themselves that they are not serious. For example, the Rhinoceros Party presents rather zany ideas and offers the population the opportunity to protest. Rather than cancelling one’s vote, one votes for a more amusing party.

How can one judge what is simply amusing versus what is unacceptable in an election? I would like to know your opinion on this matter.

[Peter Loewen]

It's a great question. Like many things, you know it when you see it.

Let's contrast the Rhinoceros Party in its heyday with what's going on here. The Rhinoceros Party would run candidates across the whole country and do the work of getting a single candidate on the ballot. They would then put out a platform, which was rather satirical and funny, such as putting up a wall to keep killer bees from coming from the United States or removing the Rocky Mountains so you could coast from coast to coast on a bicycle. All of these ideas are funny. I don't think they ever impaired the ability of other voters to cast ballots and find their candidates.

This is something different. This is not even about the idea of elections. This is a committee that believes we should have a different electoral system, despite constant demonstrations that Canadians don't want that and constitutional affirmations that our electoral system is democratic. Because they're not getting it, they've decided to gum up our electoral system at the level of the ballot.

Part of the distinction is that it's having a material cost on how ballots are designed and experienced. Also, it's not actually about the election, is it? It's not about making fun of the process of whatever election we're in or some particular issue. It's about gumming up the process. That strikes me as being different from putting a satirical candidate out to get a laugh.

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

Considering that the idea promoted by the Longest Ballot Committee is to call for electoral reform, could one way of promoting this idea have been, for example, to create an electoral reform party and systematically field candidates in all ridings during the election for the 45th Parliament?

[Peter Loewen]

That's a great party platform to run on if you think it's an important issue that will then be taken up in Parliament. I don't think you'll win, but sure, someone could try to start that party.

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

In that case, would it be more appropriate to consider the public’s appetite for electoral reform and see what percentage of the vote such a party is capable of garnering, rather than proceeding in the manner in which that committee operates? The public has a more or less clear understanding of the committee’s objectives.

[Peter Loewen]

If a party wants to test a single issue, an election is one way to do it. If a party wanted to run purely on electoral reform, it could give it a go. It would certainly be a more sincere effort than this one.