Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation.
Before I begin, I want to congratulate the previous speaker on having referred to himself by his name more than I have ever heard any other member of Parliament do in any speech, ever. I congratulate him on that.
I am going to be dealing largely with foreign interference. Before I do, I just want to say that I strongly support the strong and free elections act going to committee. There is nothing more important in our society, in a democratic western nation, than having the ability to vote and choose our representatives.
I agree with what the previous speaker said. People vote and choose a person to represent them here in Ottawa, and that person, each and every one of us, is accountable to our electors for the decisions we make during the course of our term. The bill makes it far more sure that people are going to be voting based on real information, not misleading information, not deepfakes and not false information coming from foreign sources.
To me, what is most important is that our elections remain free, fair, transparent and impartial. That is the bedrock of our system. When Canadians step up to the ballot box, they quite reasonably expect to cast their vote without interference, manipulation or threats from inside or outside the country. Across the world, however, election threats continue to grow through sophisticated disinformation campaigns, new kinds of foreign interference and digital security attacks, while technology continues to evolve quickly and bad actors switch up their interference tactics.
Canada is not immune to these global realities. While we are fortunate to have a strong and resilient electoral process supported by the trust of Canadians, we must not take that trust for granted. To maintain that trust, we have a responsibility to adapt and strengthen our electoral safeguards by ensuring that our system remains prepared to defend itself against new and emerging threats in a constantly changing world. With the introduction of this bill, the Government of Canada is taking decisive action to achieve this. This bill takes a forward-looking, evidence-based approach to address the vulnerabilities identified by the public inquiry into foreign interference in federal electoral processes and democratic institutions, conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner of Canada Elections. The bill aims to improve existing safeguards for our electoral system and introduce new ones so that Canadians can continue to have confidence in the fairness and transparency of our federal elections.
More specifically, this bill recognizes two fundamental truths about modern elections. The first is that democracy must be protected at all times, not just during election periods. The second is that threats to democracy are not confined by geographical borders. The bill tackles these challenges head-on by applying existing and new electoral safeguards at all times, not just during elections, and by ensuring that these safeguards apply wherever in the world such breaches may occur.
In order to ensure that Canadian elections are protected year-round, not only during the formal election period, the strong and free elections act would apply at all times. This would include current rules against undue foreign influence, specifically attempts by foreign individuals or organizations to influence someone's vote or prevent them from voting at all.
Additionally, the ban against offering or accepting a bribe to influence someone's vote, as well as against misleading publications falsely pretending to be from trusted electoral voices in order to mislead voters, would no longer to limited to the election period. Furthermore, using a broadcasting station outside Canada to influence whether or not an elector votes during an election, and the candidate or registered party they vote for, would also be prohibited at all times.
Together, these measures would help Canada assume a proactive posture, protecting electors and the integrity and fairness of our elections throughout the year, not only once an election is called. Importantly, these measures would also come into force immediately upon royal assent so Canadians could benefit from these additional protections as soon as possible.
As I said before, threats to our democracy can occur at any time, but they can also occur from anywhere in the world. Indeed, aided in part by increasingly inexpensive, sophisticated and easy-to-use technology, malicious actors are not limited by international borders when seeking to undermine confidence in or affect the outcomes of our elections.
The bill would ensure that six new and enhanced rules under the Canada Elections Act would also apply outside Canada. This includes prohibitions against obstruction of the electoral process or an investigation, impersonation, misleading publications, false statements regarding election activities in the voting process, and the unauthorized use of a computer. There would also be new protections for nomination and leadership contests.
Beginning with the issue of obstruction, let me explain further. Under the bill, the prohibition against obstructing the electoral process or obstructing an investigation would apply equally inside and outside Canada, instead of just in Canada as is currently the case. Similarly, the current prohibition against impersonating certain electoral actors would apply outside Canada, as would the ban against misleading publications falsely pretending to be from trusted electoral actors.
Recognizing the severe harm that may be caused by the intentional spread of false or misleading information, the bill would ensure that knowingly making false statements about election activities and the voting process to disrupt the conduct or results of an election would apply, even if the contravention occurs outside Canada.
This includes statements someone might make that they know to be untrue but that they spread anyway in order to affect the conduct or results of an election, such as intentional falsehoods regarding who may vote in the election, for example telling people they cannot vote unless they are aged 35 or over; about the voting registration process, such as falsely telling people they cannot register from outside the country even if they are Canadian citizens; when, where, and how to vote, and we have all seen text messages where people have sent information saying that people are supposed to vote in false locations; who an individual can vote for, for example text messages saying that people are required to vote for a certain candidate; the process to become a candidate; how votes are validated and counted; or, of course, the results of an election.
As is currently the case under the Canada Elections Act, good-faith arguments, opinions or honest mistakes would not be captured by the measures. Additionally, the existing prohibition against the unauthorized use of a computer to affect the results of an election by intercepting information or hacking into a system would also apply to efforts to use a computer to disrupt the conduct of an election inside and outside Canada.
Finally, the bill would apply key protections that help keep our elections and electoral participants safe and secure in nomination contests and leadership contests, recognizing these contests as important democratic events within our broader electoral process. These key protections would include bans against foreign individuals or organizations improperly influencing how or whether someone votes in a contest, offering or accepting a bribe to influence how or whether someone votes in a contest, publishing misleading information falsely claiming to be from a nomination or leadership contest, using deepfakes, and using a computer system to interfere with the conduct or results of a contest.
There is nothing more important than electoral law when we talk about all parties working together. No changes to our process should ever be made if there is not a real consensus in the House of Commons and the Senate. This is where, more than ever, we need to come together at committee, with targeted amendments as needed, to make sure we can all agree on what the best way forward is to keep our system as free and as fair as possible.