Information & Ethics committee  I think privacy protections for voters are important. It is fair for political parties, though, to say that they need some mechanism to weed out frivolous or vexatious demands that are simply there to take up all the political parties' resources. You can imagine another political

Information & Ethics committee  Elections Canada has an interpretation note on political advertising online. It says that to count as election advertising, the item must have a placement cost. The legal question is whether there was money and transmission, but there also has to be a placement cost, which is dif

Information & Ethics committee  I would want to know more about the facts, but I don't believe so. The placement cost regime doesn't work perfectly when we're talking about bumping up posts and sharing through bots or cyborgs.

Information & Ethics committee  The public policy issue is that voters might feel deeply offended by the specific search terms that were used to target them. Part of the reason that has purchase is that those individuals don't necessarily know what data the entities that are advertising to them have. It's ver

Information & Ethics committee  I think the proposition that anonymity can be important in facilitating political expression is a really good point. I think that applies in Canada too, in certain circumstances. I would draw the line where, if you're spending money on something that counts as election advertisin

Information & Ethics committee  There is a definition of advertising in the Elections Act: advocacy for or against a political party or a candidate, directly or indirectly, or on an issue they are associated with. We can work from there.

Information & Ethics committee  Some systems, a federal one, has a monetary amount, so Bill C-76 is going to eliminate that for foreign entities' advertising but it would still be there for domestic entities. B.C. did not have a monetary amount and there's a recent case in front of the Supreme Court of Canada t

Information & Ethics committee  I don't have any information about that particular case. I believe C-76 requires third parties to have their own separate bank accounts, so that is one technical way of addressing the transfer of funds. Constitutionally, you're on very solid ground to restrict spending. The Sup

Information & Ethics committee  If you have contributions being made in really large amounts and you have pre-restricted spending limits that are well enforced, then there's only so much money that can actually be used in that campaign. There's an interaction between the contribution limits and the spending lim

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for your question. I'm going to answer it in English in order to be very precise. Bill C-76 closes one of the loopholes that was still existing for foreign interference. It was already illegal for foreign entities to interfere in a Canadian election, but there was a

Information & Ethics committee  That would be my pleasure, madam.

Information & Ethics committee  One solution might be that political parties should have more consistent information. As you said, the Elections Act provides basic information about name and address. One option would be to provide other information. You suggested phone numbers. It makes me a little bit uncomfo

Information & Ethics committee  Regulating fake news is the hardest issue. My fake news might not be your fake news. Voter suppression's already illegal. Foreign interference is already illegal, and C-76 takes some really good steps toward closing the final loopholes that are there. C-76 would put in place an o

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not critiquing Ms. Bradshaw. I think she made a good point on that, but that's the broader constitutional implication.

Information & Ethics committee  You make a very good point that the scenario in 2019 is very different from what it was in 2015. Things move very quickly, and the risk is that you could put in regulation that is overly intrusive, or that doesn't actually achieve what you want or has the wrong consequences. I'm