Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Probably the drafters at Justice would be helpful in that sense. We can definitely look at it and try to suggest something to the committee.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I must confess, I don't have an answer on this. I'll note, though, that in the Ontario general election that's happening right now, some members might have seen an article online on CBC today saying that there are some unregistered third parties that are carrying out online advertising with names that are generic, that don't really identify the group.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The provisions of the act as they are drafted apply to online advertising the same way as they apply to any other type of advertising.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. There's actually a provision in the act and in the Criminal Code. Our investigators are public officers for the purpose of obtaining search warrants or production orders to advance our investigations.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. If it's a foreign-based entity, it could raise problems. Again, we might have to resort to an MLAT in order to obtain the information.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  With respect to social media platforms, we have, and we started that even before the last general election. We've reached out to many of them and received their co-operation in a lot of ways.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It is, but it's also the courts. The British Columbia Court of Appeal relatively recently decided that a Canadian production order could be enforced to obtain information that's kept outside of the country if there's somebody in Canada, a person or an office in Canada, for that group.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  —Facebook Canada.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In the limited jurisprudence we have on the existing section 91 about false statements about candidates, the courts have recognized that it would include such things as allegations about criminality, which the bill does address, but also something else that they call “moral turpitude”.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think the courts have been very careful in excluding typical political spin from what is captured by section 91. They require a very high threshold, and it's totally incompatible with the role of an MP.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it would be to that level or it could be even a little higher. I will quote the wording the committee endorsed, “Views or behaviours fundamentally inconsistent with what is generally expected of an elected official, or feelings of hatred, contempt for or deep-rooted prejudice against an identifiable group”.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We had to interrupt some of the commissioner's investigations because it was impossible to obtain the evidence we needed. In the political world, there are often allegiances. People provide mutual support to each other and that is normal. An example comes to mind: it often happens that employers do not give their employees three hours so that they can go and vote, despite the fact that this is a legal requirement.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The power to obtain a court order to compel someone to testify is enough. In fact, the Competition Bureau has a similar power, but it does not need to use it often. The simple fact of suggesting that it will use it encourages people to speak. This power is a part of our tool kit and could be very useful in the future.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I intended to speak about that aspect in my statement, but I had so much to say that I dropped that part. As for your question on that particular case, unfortunately I cannot speak to the details of an investigation or a complaint we might have received.