Mr. Speaker, today we are debating the strong and free elections act, Bill C-25, the government's response to several recent developments, both local and international, that have challenged the integrity of and public confidence in one of our most important democratic institutions, our elections.
After the 2021 election, the federal government appointed the Hon. Marie-Josée Hogue as commissioner for the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions. It is a very long name and also a very long report of seven or eight volumes. The commissioner's final report came out on January 28, 2025, about 14 months ago. I am going to read a couple of quotations from the report because they set the context for what this proposed legislation is all about. This is what she had to say at page 3 of her report:
The first observation I would like to make from the evidence is that it is true that some foreign states are trying to interfere in our democratic institutions, including electoral processes. This is nothing new and comes as no surprise—states have been trying to interfere with each other’s business since time immemorial. What is new, however, is the means deployed by these states, the apparent scale of the issue and the public discourse on the topic.
Members can think about it. We have been talking about AI. We have been talking about the influence of social media on people and the ease of spreading misinformation and disinformation. All of that is affecting our democratic institutions. Today, we were talking about our Canada Elections Act.
In anticipation of the commissioner's conclusion at the end of seven or eight volumes, she wrote this at page 15: “I have found no evidence that the overall result of any election has been swung by a foreign actor and have identified only a small number of individual ridings where foreign interference may have had some impact.”
Reading between the lines, the report says that, with or without foreign interference in the 2019 election, we would have had a minority Liberal government under the leadership of then prime minister Trudeau, and we would have had the Conservatives being in the opposition with the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who was the leader of the Conservative Party, as the Leader of the Opposition. That would have been the result, and I believe that is what Madam Justice Hogue meant by saying that she saw no impact on the overall result of that election.
It was the same in 2021. With or without foreign interference in Canada's 2021 general election, we were going to have the Liberal minority government under then prime minister Justin Trudeau, and the Conservative opposition, with Erin O'Toole as the Leader of the Opposition.
I accept Justice Hogue's findings that, in those two elections, Canadians got both the government and the opposition that they chose, but I note that her report also says this, which is highly important in the debate going on today: “I...have identified only a small number of individual ridings where foreign interference may have had some impact.”
Therefore, at the macro level, Canadians got the government they chose, but at the local level, maybe they did not get the MP that the majority of people had actually wanted due to foreign interference in our electoral system. That is what we take out of this report.
Justice Hogue drills down and looks at the riding of Steveston—Richmond East. We were talking about that just a couple of minutes ago in debate. This is what the Hogue report says at page 33: “In 2021, Mr. Chiu, the Conservative Party MP for Steveston—Richmond East, was the target of false narratives related to his proposal to implement a foreign influence registry.”
If I have some time at the end, I will talk a bit more about the history behind the foreign influence registry, but for now, I am just going to continue with the Hogue report. It goes on to note that Mr. Chiu and the Conservative Party of Canada requested, very shortly after the election, that these issues be brought to CSIS.
CSIS took on the investigation, but it did not get back to Mr. Chiu and the Conservative Party until almost two years later in the fall of 2023, and then only after media reporting about alleged leaks of the CSIS intelligence report. CSIS dropped the ball. Did it do good work? It probably did, but it was just too late. It was delayed, and it did not keep Mr. Chiu and his party in the loop.
However, this story is not primarily about Mr. Chiu, my friend and colleague, and it is not primarily about the people of Steveston—Richmond East, although they are obviously players in the whole story. This is a story about the Canadian public and our confidence, or lack thereof, in our electoral system.
Justice Hogue did not pull any punches when criticizing the government's slow and inadequate response to these allegations. She stated, “I could not fulfill my mandate to help build public confidence in our democratic institutions if I minimized the ways in which efforts have come up short.” She was very critical of the government. She went on to list some of these shortfalls. There was slow reaction to issues that were very urgent and very serious and should have been given a much higher level of attention. There was the failure to get information to the right decision-makers and policy-makers, and when the information finally did get to those decision-makers and policy-makers, they did not know what to do with it. They did not appreciate the seriousness of it. This was obviously under the guidance and inspiration of the Liberal government that, at that time, was not taking foreign interference as a serious issue. Also, there was a lack of coordination. There was confusion about the roles and accountabilities. However, in the end, she summed it up with rather a positive tone. She said, “However, on the whole, I am satisfied that the government now appreciates the foreign interference threat that Canada faces and is serious about responding to it.”
It was 15 months ago that Justice Hogue wrote that, and here we are, finally, in the next Parliament, acting on it with the proposed strong and free elections act. It is a step in the right direction. We are going to support it to go to committee where I look forward to drilling down to see that it truly answers the legitimate concerns that have been raised in this report that Canadians have about the integrity of our democratic institutions.
Here is one more quote from the Hogue report that I think sums it up nicely:
Foreign interference—and our fear of foreign interference—has taken its toll. For some, their faith in our system has been challenged. I hope that for those who take the time to read this report, what they learn—what I have learned—will not only enhance their understanding of the foreign interference threat but also go some distance in rebuilding the confidence and trust in our democracy.
I hope indeed that Bill C-25 will do exactly that, and that it will go some distance in rebuilding the lagging confidence that so many Canadians have in our democratic institutions.
I would note that, in the last election, the voter turnout of younger people increased, and so that is a reason for optimism. A larger number of first-time voters came out, and once people vote the first time, they are probably going to vote in subsequent elections. Perhaps that curve is going in the right direction. However, unfortunately, overall, election turnout has not been particularly good. How much of that is tied to Canadians' skepticism about the integrity of our electoral system?
I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks that the bill before us is a response not only to international affairs, which I think I talked about quite adequately, but also some local issues that have developed right here in Canada. In the last few general elections and by-elections, a group of local troublemakers or pranksters have interfered with our elections. They call themselves the “longest ballot committee”. We have all heard of their tactics, most recently in the by-election in Terrebonne. They find loopholes in our election act that allow them to nominate large numbers of people, sometimes in the hundreds, to run in a specific riding. They present themselves as being on a noble quest of wanting to initiate a citizens' forum, as they call it, to review our age-old first-past-the-post electoral system, which they do not like. They found a number of loopholes.
One of the participants actually appeared as a witness at the procedure and House affairs committee a couple of months ago. What they have discovered is that, under the current Canada Elections Act, they can have the same 100 people sign 100 or even 200 nomination forms, nominating 200 different people. They can have the same person acting as a financial agent for all 200 or 100 or however many people they manage to get on the ballot. We want to shut that down. We are saying that this is inappropriate.
I want to go back to their comments about wanting a citizens' forum. I can say that, being a British Columbian, I have some experience with that. We have had quite a lot of experience with citizens' forums and citizens' institutions. Over the years, I think we have had two or three of them.
These were groups of responsible people coming together, appointed by the government, to have an intelligent and high-level discussion to review our electoral system, and to possibly come up with options with regard to the first-past-the-post system, which, over the years, has been challenged many times. The citizens' forum put the options to the voters in British Columbia on at least two occasions. Both times, citizens, after looking at it, studying it, trying their best to understand how the different options would work, said that they were comfortable with the first-past-the-post system and that they wanted to keep it.
The pranksters behind the longest ballot committee are very aware of this history. We put it to them. They know it. They knew that if they were to go through that process again, a rational process, a legal process supported by the government, they would be unsuccessful. They thought they would try something else, guerrilla war tactics, instead. That is what they are doing. They are not serious. They know that they will not succeed. They know that this is nothing more than a stunt that is making people angry. They must be stopped. That is what the bill would do.
I am happy to see that the drafters of the legislation have picked up the recommendations of the procedure and House affairs committee by implementing a couple of very important changes. There would now be a prohibition on a person signing nomination papers of more than one prospective candidate. There would be another prohibition on a person acting as an official agent for more than one candidate in the same electoral district.
We looked at this very carefully. We listened to experts. We wanted to be as flexible as possible.
We recognize that Canadians have a constitutional right, protected by section 3 in the charter, to be fully involved, in an unrestricted manner, in our electoral system. We want to encourage people to put their name forward and to be candidates. We want to encourage people to run as independents. One does not have to run for a political party. One does not need the endorsement of a party. Someone can just go out, be an independent candidate and get all their friends out to listen to them at the debate. This is all good for democracy.
We did not want to stand in the way of that. We made this as permissive as possible, and I am happy to see that the government has actually picked up on this. We heard from legal experts that these restrictions are reasonable limitations on Canadians' charter-protected rights to participate fully in the democratic process.
I agree that we need to put an end to the nonsense of the longest ballot committee. I also agree that these changes that we are proposing and which have found their way into Bill C-25 are reasonable and supportable. I want to send this to committee now for a further drill-down, to make sure that they actually would withstand the charter challenge and that they would provide the guidance that people need when they decide to get involved in the democratic process.
I want to go back to my comments about the foreign influence registry. Our former colleague from Richmond East—Steveston introduced a private member's bill. I remember him asking why the government side of the House was not doing this. Many other western democracies have implemented and set up and authorized a foreign influence registry. It is not only China or Beijing but there are other countries as well that like to interfere in western democracies.
Our trading nations, our fellow Westerners, have set up foreign influence registries. Why have we not done that? I believe it is because the Liberal government was not taking it seriously. It certainly was not at that time. Mr. Chiu took the brave step to introduce a private member's bill. I am going to go back to what Madam Justice Hogue said:
In 2021, Mr. Chiu, the Conservative Party MP for Steveston-Richmond East, was the target of false narratives related to his proposal to implement a foreign influence registry.
He was doing the work that the government should have been doing and he paid the price for it. I was very disappointed at the time. I still feel sad when I think about Mr. Chiu not being our colleague right now.
I just want to underline that this bill is a step in the right direction. Much of it is supportable. In some things, it does not go far enough. In some things, I think it requires a further drill-down at the committee to ensure the proposals are actually going to meet their objectives. Certainly, we need to also hear from experts to ensure that it can withstand any sorts of challenges in court or challenges by people who want to find loopholes to get around them and find ways to interfere with our democratic institutions. That is what this bill is all about. We want to stop that.
We want to support our democratic institutions. We want to support our free and fair elections. We want to ensure that Canadians are getting the government that they deserve and that they voted for. We want to ensure that Canadians are getting the local member of Parliament they want to choose and whom the majority are behind.