Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-25. I will be sharing my time with the member for Carleton.
This bill that has been put before the House by the government House leader is intended to strengthen our democratic process and the election process in Canada. I am certainly glad that there seems to be widespread support for it from throughout the House. I will focus my comments on the changes to the Elections Act.
I am very content with the riding name Kingston and the Islands. It goes back quite a way in my riding, to former Progressive Conservative Flora MacDonald, Edgar Benson and much further back than that.
The bill, and in particular the changes to the legislation as it relates to our elections, would implement recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner of Elections Canada, and it would reintroduce and expand on the measures that were in the original Bill C-65, which died on the Order Paper in 2025.
There are five main components to the bill that I will speak to briefly. The first is with respect to the protections for elections. We have heard others speak in the House already about the long ballot, and we are dealing with that issue. As the member who spoke previously said, this seems to be from a good place in terms of people trying to protest and make their voice heard on a particular issue they are trying to advance, which is why so many names are being put on the ballot. At the same time, I think there are other ways to do that and to advocate for change, whatever that might be.
I am glad to see that we would change the legislation to require only one nomination form, and each candidate would have to have their own official agent. Doing this would, in my opinion, significantly reduce the number of additional names being put on a ballot. At the end of the day, what this really comes down to is making the democratic process as easy as possible, while still allowing as many people as possible to run who justifiably are doing it for the right reasons, namely to be elected, not just as a way of protesting government policy or legislation.
Some of the other protections in the bill would include setting new rules with respect to foreign influence, bribery, misleading publications, etc., to apply year-round. There would be new offences: knowingly spreading false information to disrupt or affect an election, tampering with computer systems to disrupt elections, and false information on nomination papers. All these offences would be extended to outside Canada as well.
The second part of the legislation would focus on protections for leadership and nomination contests, in particular, extending election period offences, be they foreign influence, bribery, impersonation, misleading publications, or unauthorized computer use, etc., to leadership and nomination contests as well.
I think this is really important. One thing we have heard a lot about in recent years, and I can recall this from my time sitting on the procedure and House affairs committee, is the lax rules that exist at the nomination contest level. Some nomination contests can get quite heated and have a lot of political participation. It is critically important that we make sure participation is kept domestic and is not influenced by foreign actors, so I am very glad to see strengthening around that.
The third area that the bill would attempt to tackle is stronger political financing rules. It would ban anonymous or untraceable contributions, such as cryptocurrencies, prepaid cards, money orders and things of that nature. It would also ensure that third parties could use contributions only from Canadian citizens or permanent residents, or that their funds are not greater than 10% of annual revenue. It would also expand bans on foreign contributions and foreign-provided property or services and extend foreign funding prohibitions to leadership contests.
The fourth area the bill attempts to strengthen is enforcement tools. It would expand who can be investigated, including conspirators, accessories and counsellors. It would broaden offences to include attempts, conspiracies and counselling. Also, it would expand the administrative monetary penalties, which I think is extremely important, for individuals from $1,500 to $25,000 and for entities from $5,000 to $100,000. This is very important because if the penalties can just be seen as a cost of doing business, then they are not going to be effective tools of deterrence or proper penalization. I am very glad to see that the bill also includes that.
In addition, there would be higher penalties for foreign-funded third party violations. The bill would give new powers in this regard, to compel testimony, documents and preservation orders. It would allow for MOUs with federal agencies in co-operation with international bodies and would expand prohibitions on foreign entities conducting regular activities.
The fifth and final area where the bill attempts to create safeguards is physical security and privacy protection. It would remove the five-day advance notice requirement for regulated fundraising events. Post-event reports would list only municipalities and provinces. The returning officer's home address would no longer be published. Parties would have to meet criteria to access the preliminary voters list. Also, it would raise reimbursable personal security expenses for candidates to $3,250. Again, this is very important. One of the unfortunate realities of the democratic process today is that candidates need to think more about their personal security and employing and contracting people to assist with that. Knowing that would be reimbursable is extremely important. It would allow for people to take those matters extremely seriously and have the proper resources they need.
Finally, in regard to strengthening those, there would be new privacy obligations for political parties. It would include stronger safeguards for personal information, mandatory breach response steps, ensuring third party processors meet equivalent standards, an annual meeting with the Chief Electoral Officer on privacy, and prohibitions on misleading individuals about data use, selling data or disclosing it improperly.
To summarize, I would say that a number of the measures, in particular, the five themes I touched on today, would contribute significantly to strengthening our democracy and the election process. We know that during an election, it is very easy to overlook things or not pay as much attention to various things that might be going on with respect to foreign interference, etc. Knowing that these things would be treated seriously, and that those responsible have the right tools in their hands to deal with things as they are happening, is extremely important. It speaks volumes to ensuring that our democratic process and, in particular, the electoral process are upheld.
I will again say that I am encouraged by the fact that I am hearing many in the House in agreement with this. I hope we can pass this quickly, send it to committee, take care of any necessary amendments, if there are any, and then have it come back to the House so we can vote on it, make sure it is in place and give those responsible for executing the legislation ample time to prepare to do that prior to the next election.
I look forward to any questions.