THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL FINANCE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, April 30, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 9:30 a.m. to study the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2020.
Senator Percy Mockler (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning. My name is Percy Mockler, a senator from New Brunswick and chair of the committee. I wish to welcome all those who are with us in the room and viewers across the country who may be watching on television or online.
As a reminder to the public, witnesses and those watching, the committee hearings are open to the public and also available online at sencanada.ca.
[Translation]
I would now ask the senators to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: Mobina Jaffer, from British Columbia.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator Pratte: André Pratte from Quebec.
Senator Gold: Marc Gold from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Duncan: Pat Duncan, from Yukon.
Senator M. Deacon: Good morning. Marty Deacon, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Forest-Niesing: Josée Forest-Niesing from northern Ontario. Good morning and welcome.
Senator Eaton: Nicole Eaton from Ontario. Good morning.
[English]
Senator Marshall: Elizabeth Marshall, from Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu from Quebec.
The Chair: Thank you.
I would also like to note that we have the committee clerk, Gaëtane Lemay, here, as well as our two analysts from the Library of Parliament, Alex Smith and Shaowei Pu, who together support the work of the Senate Committee on National Finance.
[English]
Honourable senators and members of the viewing public, the mandate of this committee is to examine matters relating to federal estimates generally, as well as government finance.
Today, honourable senators, we begin our consideration of the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2020, which were referred to this committee from the Senate of Canada on April 11.
[Translation]
This morning we welcome two organizations to discuss the funding they are requesting under the Main Estimates of Canada.
We are pleased to welcome Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer; Hughes St-Pierre, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Internal Services; and from the Leaders’ Debates Commission, Michel Cormier, Executive Director; and Bradley Eddison, Director, Policy and Management Services.
Mr. Perrault, the floor is yours.
Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer: It is a pleasure to appear before the committee today to discuss Elections Canada’s Main Estimates and plans for 2019-20.
Elections Canada is funded by two separate authorities: an annual appropriation that covers the salaries of its indeterminate positions, and the statutory authority that allows it to draw directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for all of its other expenses. This allows access to the funds required for elections that may occur at any time and ensures its independence.
Today, the committee is studying Elections Canada’s annual appropriation totalling $39.2 million and representing the salaries of some 440 intermediate positions. Combined with our other expenditures, our 2019-20 Main Estimates total $493.2 million.
Our Main Estimates include some $398 million for the October 21 election. This represents the direct election costs that will be incurred in this fiscal year. More recent estimates indicate the total expenditures for the 43rd general election will be some $500 million. The expenditures may vary due to various factors, such as the duration of the campaign.
I note that while preparing our budgets last fall, we estimated the cost of the election at some $470 million. The difference is mainly due to Bill C-76 — $21 million — which had not been passed when we were preparing our estimates.
The agency’s priority for this fiscal year was the preparation and delivery of the 43rd general election. This includes the implementation of the legislative changes enacted by Parliament under the Elections Modernization Act.
While the act provides for a general implementation period of six months, it allows me to bring provisions into force earlier if the necessary preparations are completed. As such, a number of provisions have been brought into force. On May 11, changes for electors residing outside Canada will also come into force; the remaining provisions will come into force June 13.
All of our guidance materials on the new political financing rules will have been finalized and published prior to the beginning of the pre-writ period on June 30.
[English]
With respect to the operational delivery of the election, we are currently in the final stages of our preparations. We recently completed an extensive simulation exercise over a period of three weeks in five electoral districts across the country.
The objective was to test our new IT systems, updated business processes, manuals and training material in a setting close to that of an actual election. As a result of the simulation, we will be completing final adjustments this spring. This exercise gave me a high level of confidence in our state of readiness and our tools to deliver the election.
A key priority as part of our final preparations is to further improve the quality of the list of electors. Every year, some 3 million Canadians move, 300,000 pass away, over 100,000 become citizens, and 400,000 turn 18. This translates into roughly some 70,000 changes in any given week.
To ensure the accuracy of the register, Elections Canada regularly draws on multiple data sources from over 40 provincial and federal bodies, as well as from information provided directly by Canadians. This will be facilitated by recent improvements made to our online registration systems to capture non-standard addresses and upload identification documents.
With the enactment of Bill C-76, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is now able to share information on permanent residents and foreign nationals. This provides Elections Canada with a much-needed tool to address the long-recognized issue of non-citizens appearing on the Register of Electors. This spring, we expect to remove approximately 100,000 records as a result.
We have also recently done a targeted mail-out to some 250,000 households where we believe we have records that require correction. Efforts to improve the accuracy of the list of electors will continue and be supported by a new pre-writ campaign to encourage Canadians to verify and update their information over the course of the summer.
Since 2015, Elections Canada, in collaboration with its security partners, has made some important investments to improve the protection of its IT infrastructure and databases. We are also providing IT security training to all our personnel at headquarters and in the field, those who have access to a computer.
To address misinformation about the voting process, we will have a dedicated team and tools to monitor the environment including social media to detect inaccurate information and quickly correct it.
Finally, we continue to work with the Commissioner of Canada Elections and security agencies. Together we are conducting exercises using multiple scenarios to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear and that proper governance is established to coordinate our actions should it be required.
Overall, Mr. Chair, I believe we are in a good position to deliver the next general election in a way that meets the high expectations of Canadians.
[Translation]
Michel Cormier, Executive Director, Leaders’ Debates Commission: Good morning. Thank you for welcoming me here today.
[English]
Thank you for inviting the Leaders’ Debates Commission to review our Main Estimates. Let me start by saying that Commissioner David Johnston expresses his regret for not being able to be here. He is a very busy man, but he would welcome the opportunity to return to speak to you if the occasion presents itself.
As you know, the mandate of the commission is to put on two debates, one in each official language. Within that directive is also a commitment to important elements such as transparency, accessibility and reaching as many Canadians as possible.
[Translation]
Since my appointment as executive director earlier this year, the commission has focused on achieving its objectives and giving Canadians the debates they deserve.
[English]
I would like to begin with a brief overview of the 2019-20 Main Estimates. The commission is seeking a total of $4.63 million overall for its core responsibility, which is to organize two leaders’ debates for the 2019 federal election, one of course in each official language. Before I tell you about how we plan to use that funding to fulfill our mandate, I’d like first to tell you a bit about what we have done so far. We are a new kid on the block and I know no one is totally familiar with what we are actually up to.
Since work began in December 2018, the commission has completed the first phase of its mandate and is consulting with over 40 groups and individuals with a wide range of expertise and views. This includes accessibility, youth, Indigenous, academic and journalistic groups. We have been pleased with the positive responses from these groups on the establishment of the debates commission and our mandate. Our consultation process will continue throughout the mandate. We have also met with the leaders of the Bloc Québécois, Conservative, Green, Liberal, NDP and the People’s Party. Overall there was positive response to the commission and to our mandate from these party officials.
[Translation]
We have also established our communications infrastructure and begun the process of selecting a debates producer by issuing a letter of interest and a request for proposals.
We have also appointed an advisory board of seven Canadians, individuals whose stature and quality will greatly contribute to the success of this enterprise.
[English]
We are now entering the second phase of our mandate which will bring us well into the summer. This consists of initiating an outreach program through partnerships with different groups and enterprises to make sure there is interest and knowledge about the debates in the population; choosing a debates producer; engaging with the political parties and producers to ensure successful negotiations, this is crucial; and finally, developing a research strategy that will enable us to measure the impact and engagement of the debates. This is important because we have to report to Parliament, as you may well know, on the experience of the debate. So this will give us a unique chance to gather some metrics and information on the impact and the interest of the debates. There is not a lot out there on these issues, so this is a very important occasion for us to actually gather some useful information on the impact of the debates.
The third phase, which will start with the election call, will consist of ongoing consultation on the production of the debates, raising public awareness and national outreach initiatives that foster a wide understanding of the importance of the debates.
[Translation]
We will also take advantage of this period to assess Canadians’ interest in and commitment to debates and to gauge the influence of those debates. Lastly, in the fourth and final phase of our mandate, we will make recommendations to Parliament.
[English]
Our deadline is March 31 of 2020, but Mr. Johnston hopes we can finish the work earlier.
This brief summary of the commission’s 2019-20 Main Estimates touches on how the commission intends to fulfill our mandate to provide Canadians with the debates they deserve. Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide you with the context in which the Leaders’ Debates Commission operates.
[Translation]
Now we are prepared to answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentations. Senator Eaton will begin the period of questions.
[English]
Senator Eaton: How will you monitor third-party groups? I think that has been a big concern and we’re hearing a lot about foreign influence, digital media influence, Facebook. How do you take on all those giants before the election?
Mr. Perrault: Well, there are two categories in your question, one is the third parties, the other one is the platforms that support partisan activities or advertising and content. With respect to third parties, what we have done so far — because as you know, third parties are basically any entity, any person, any group, so it’s a wide open field and we don’t necessarily know who those are.
What we have done is identified all of those who have registered in a provincial election and federal election in the past cycle and we will be reaching out to those groups ahead of this election. Right now, we are preparing some guidelines for the third parties. We will reach out to them proactively to alert them to the rules. We don’t know whether or not these groups will be third parties during the election, but we will proactively reach out to them should they want to be a third party.
Senator Eaton: I’m thinking of fake news. I hate to use a Trumpism, but third parties and —
Mr. Perrault: So on that particular issue, I think it is important to draw boundaries around our roles because we cannot monitor truth on the Internet. That is not our role. That would be highly contentious from a political point of view.
We do have an important responsibility to make sure that information about the voting process is not inaccurate, and this is why we will have a dedicated team both to monitor and to respond to any inaccurate information, whether it’s disinformation or misinformation. We are acquiring tools to monitor social media in multiple languages, and we’ll use key words and try to identify any information that relates to the electoral process. If there is misinformation, we will quickly respond to that. That’s a key aspect of our role during this election.
Senator Eaton: Can I ask Mr. Cormier a question?
Mr. Cormier, the debates we all know are so important in an election, I would think your biggest challenge is the format of the debate. So it appears and is fair; do you agree with that?
Mr. Cormier: The format is a very important part of it. We think also making sure that Canadians have access to the debate and actually can get information from it that helps to make an informed choice is also important and they are related, of course. Now, the mandate of the commission doesn’t give us the power to define the format or decide who the host will be. What the questions will be —
Senator Eaton: If it doesn’t, who decides that?
Mr. Cormier: No, we leave that to the producers who will produce the debate. But in the requests for proposals that we are publishing in the next few days to invite groups to apply to produce the debates, it says clearly that it has to reflect the values of inclusion, of civility, of information, of a useful political debate. So we hope that this will help to create a context that will be different than other times, where these things were negotiated at the last minute in a few days when the election was called. We hope the fact that we have been able to create a context and public awareness and interest and support for this will bring most players to operate in a different way.
Senator Eaton: It will be interesting to see if at the end of this series of debates you don’t have to take over the format in choosing the producer.
Mr. Cormier: That will be for the analysis and recommendations.
Senator Eaton: The results will tell. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Pratte: My questions are for Mr. Cormier.
The commission’s mandate contains criteria respecting the party leaders’ participation. Where do those criteria come from?
Mr. Cormier: The criteria were developed based on consultations conducted by Minister Gould, and I must say we partly contributed to them when I worked at Radio-Canada. At CBC/Radio-Canada, the former consortium, there were clearly defined rules regarding participation criteria. We drew on them, although ours aren’t identical.
As you’ve seen, the parties must meet two of the three criteria in order to take part in the debate. The first is that their party must be represented in the House by a member elected as a member of that party in the last election; the second is that they show they intend to present candidates in 90 per cent of ridings; and the third is that the party’s candidates received at least 4 per cent of the votes cast in the last election or that the party has a reasonable chance of electing members in the next election.
Those criteria require a certain amount of discretion on Commissioner Johnston’s part.
Senator Pratte: I was going to question you on that exact point as well. How will that be determined? Some of the criteria are mathematical and quite simple: you either have a member or you don’t; you have candidates in 90 per cent of those ridings. However, assessing what is a reasonable chance of electing members in the next election requires a certain amount of judgment. How will you determine that?
Mr. Cormier: We’re trying to establish the most comprehensive instruments possible so we can conduct an accurate assessment of the parties’ chances of electing members. When you consider the recent history of the polls, it’s not always very encouraging. On the other hand, we can conduct consultations. We have access to experts who aggregate the polls, which at least gives us a general idea of the situation. We use all those instruments to make the most informed decision possible.
Senator Pratte: What are the respective roles of the producer and the commission? Is it really the commission that decides on the criteria?
Mr. Cormier: It’s the commission that decides on participation. The producers have nothing to say about that.
Senator Pratte: I have a brief question for Mr. Perrault. Your total budget for 2019-20 is $493 million. Correct me if I’m wrong, but $39 million is allocated to salaries and another $398 million to elections. What do the several residual tens of million dollars represent?
Mr. Perrault: I’ll let my colleague answer that.
Hughes St-Pierre, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Internal Services, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer: The election budget is spread over several fiscal years. In the estimates you have before you, Elections Canada will use the $358 million for the fiscal year starting on April 1. The rest is indeed allocated to salaries, which are a parliamentary vote, and to Elections Canada’s current expenses charged to the statutory authority. They include rent, employee salaries and things like that.
Senator Pratte: Elections Canada has a somewhat special status in that you can request funds. What is the Treasury Board’s role in that respect? You have some discretion regarding the funds you request.
Mr. Perrault: The Treasury Board plays no role in the matter. We could theoretically withdraw funds without informing it in advance. This is the second time since we’ve had fixed-date elections that we’ve announced a cost estimate for an election in advance. We didn’t previously do that. However, we have to take that into account at all times. That’s why it was important for us to come and meet with you today. We are here to talk to you about the $39.2-million amount voted, but I’m taking this opportunity to put all the figures on the table in order to be as transparent as possible. It’s not the Treasury Board that plays that role; it’s Parliament directly.
[English]
Senator Marshall: My first question is for the Chief Electoral Officer, and it’s regarding an article that was in the news this morning — I don’t know if you have seen it or not — but it talks about the names of SNC employees and executives behind thousands of dollars in illegal donations to a political party. I won’t be partisan and name the party. How do you ensure that donations are made legally? That would be my first question.
My second question, on the heels of that, is that, in the article I just read, it appeared that Elections Canada was aware of the issue and had entered into some sort of agreement with SNC-Lavalin but it hadn’t been made public.
So two questions: How do you monitor it and how do you ensure that, with the issues you identify, parties are treated equally and that the information is reported publicly?
Mr. Perrault: On the first point, we publish all the contributions that are reported, and we do what we call a horizontal audit. One person may have made a contribution to the party, to the district association for the candidate or nominations. Some of these limits are cumulative. We run horizontal audits to make sure, over the full contributions, that all the rules are respected.
We don’t have many tools to identify whether a contribution has been made from the money that belongs to that individual. In the case of the article you referred to this morning, this is a case of persons being reimbursed by their employers to make contributions. That is illegal.
Senator Marshall: Would that have been identified by Elections Canada? It sounds like the news media picked it up that about three years ago there was some sort of agreement between SNC-Lavalin and Elections Canada. It seems like your office identified it because there was an agreement.
Mr. Perrault: I need to distinguish between the work of the Commissioner of Canada Elections and my work as Chief Electoral Officer. The Commissioner of Canada Elections conducted an investigation several years ago. That investigation brought to light the fact that illegal contributions had been made. There was a compliance agreement — I can speak more about that — published in 2016.
The role of my predecessor at that time was to make sure that parties, district associations, or any political entity that received illegal contributions which were not obvious on the face of it because they were declared as their own contributions, that money was reimbursed to the Receiver General. They had a 30-day period to do that. I was there but not in my current capacity. My role was to ensure that those monies were reimbursed, and they were. That’s the extent of our role in administering this.
Senator Marshall: How do you ensure consistency? This is not just one example. There have been several examples over the years. It seems like some people are treated differently than other people, or some organizations are treated differently than others. How do you ensure consistency? To an outsider looking at it, it looks like you’re letting someone off in one case, but you’re not letting someone off in another case.
Mr. Perrault: I can’t speak for the commissioner in that regard because he is the one who makes those decisions. I can say things that are on the public record. First of all, in deciding to do a compliance agreement as opposed to a prosecution, he will look at several factors. One of the factors is the seriousness of the offence, but that is not the only factor, including whether there is evidence that can be used in a court to prosecute.
The offence may be serious, but if he does not have the evidence to support a prosecution then that avenue is cut off. That’s an important factor. There are several factors.
At the time of doing his investigation, he did not have the power to compel testimony which he now has pursuant to Bill C-76. He had the tools that he had at that time.
If you read the compliance agreement, Minister Côté was quite at pains to articulate some of the considerations that led to his decision to do a compliance agreement. One of those considerations was the fact that SNC-Lavalin essentially volunteered evidence of the illegal contributions.
That was the entire context in which this needed to be looked at. In other cases, the context may be different, and that may explain why in some cases you have a prosecution and in other cases a compliance agreement.
Senator Marshall: In your initial response to this question, you mentioned the horizontal audits. Are they published? I looked at your website and the most recent audit information related to 2011-12, I believe. Is there a policy that your audits would be put on your website?
Mr. Perrault: The audit does not produce a document. The audit team will look horizontally and try to identify through names and addresses contributions from the same individual. If they find that a contributor has over-contributed — sometimes by mistake, sometimes it’s a small amount — that may be referred to the commissioner. But the entity that receives an excessive contribution would be communicated with and asked to make a reimbursement to the public treasury and that reimbursement is public. That is recorded in the transactions that are published by Elections Canada. What you will see are these individual rectifications through the reimbursements and that is published.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you for being here. I’ll start with Mr. Cormier, if I may. I come from British Columbia and we always have this time lag issue. I understand that the debates will be available online, however, for people living in rural Canada who do not have access to high-speed Internet, is it within your purview to see how access is given to all Canadians? And will you also be broadcasting on radio?
Mr. Cormier: It’s part of the conditions that we will be asking the producer of the debate to make it more widely available on more platforms, in more ways and on different viewing possibilities, not only live but also that you can view it later on different platforms.
One of the central parts of the mandate is to make sure it’s accessible. For remote regions, right now we are looking to see what are the best ways to make sure everybody has access to it, whether it’s through Internet or radio. In some places, such as the Far North, radio is still the best way to actually reach people. Of course, conventional television, despite what we hear, is still very potent and important.
We also have the mandate to make it accessible to Canadians, and not only to remote communities but to people of different language communities, people whose first language is not French or English who may not get all they can from the debates. The debates will be translated in more languages than in the past, including Indigenous languages for Indigenous communities.
We’re making it as widely available as possible. For people with disabilities, we’re making sure they will have full access to the debates. Last week we met with the advisory group of Mr. Perrault, Elections Canada, and people with disabilities. They told us things that are obvious for them but may not be for other people, that when leaders talk over each other try to follow the discussion when it’s closed-captioned on television. These are small problems that we’re going to be working with.
Also, we know that people listen differently so we want to make sure it will be available online after the debates so people can go back and look at it, even in different formats, YouTube capsules or thematic capsules, and breaking it up so it’s not a two-hour thing you have to watch from start to end. We’re now in the process of mapping all that out and this will be one of the important points we will discuss with the producer of the debates to make sure it’s as widely available and accessible as possible.
Senator Jaffer: We in Canada speak many languages and obviously you can’t provide broadcast in all languages. For example, will sign language also be available?
Mr. Cormier: Sign language will be in the contract.
Senator Jaffer: What about the criteria of which languages?
Mr. Cormier: We’re looking at what is realistic in terms of composition of groups. We have hockey in Punjabi and Cree, so those two will be in the debates. We’re looking at how many languages. Is it eight Indigenous languages? Is it more? Is it less? How much does it cover? We’re in the process of evaluating all this. For example, in Chinese communities, what is the range we can get, what is the reach in different communities also? So we’re evaluating all that.
Senator Jaffer: I have a question following on what Senator Eaton was saying, which is that Canada’s national cybersecurity agency has indicated that it is very likely that Canadian voters will encounter foreign cyber influence before and during the fall federal election. What mechanisms have you put in place to deal with this?
Mr. Perrault: We’ve done a number of things. In a way, I think there was a good opportunity for us. From an IT security point of view, we had a very large number of systems and data centres that were obsolete and needed to be rebuilt. Right after the last election we embarked on a modernization of IT infrastructure. Given the context in the 2016 presidential election and in other countries, it was a good opportunity to reinforce our cybersecurity protections.
We have worked quite closely with CSEC, the Communications Security Establishment of Canada, to make sure we’re doing the right things in terms of our IT infrastructure. That’s one key aspect.
As I mentioned, we are also doing training. If you look at what is happening in other jurisdictions, often it’s the small things. It’s the clicking on the link that you shouldn’t click as an employee that really kills you. So we’ve made sure there’s security training to offer all of our staff in the field and at headquarters.
In terms of disinformation or misinformation, we have to be careful. Our focus is on misinformation about the voting process, as I indicated. That will be our focus. In the lead-up to the campaign, we will provide public awareness messages in the campaign on social media literacy and make sure people check their sources. Again, like cybersecurity, it’s the very basic things: check your sources, make sure you’re aware of where you’re getting your information, and go and vote. These are pretty basic but powerful messages.
Senator Jaffer: Will you have an education campaign on that?
Mr. Perrault: We will have an education campaign on that in the lead-up and during the election, yes.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I’m not used to sitting in on this committee; I’m replacing Senator Neufeld, and, given his abilities, I hope to be equal to the task.
Welcome to our guests. I have two questions, one for Mr. Perrault and another for Mr. Cormier. My first question is for Mr. Perrault, and it’s further to my colleague Senator Marshall’s remarks on what we learned about the SNC-Lavalin case last week. Did the investigation you conducted into seemingly fraudulent contributions take a long time?
Mr. Perrault: I can’t talk about the investigation. It’s really the Commissioner of Elections who investigated; I don’t have any information on its actual duration. Only he can testify on that point.
Senator Boisvenu: So you don’t have any idea either about the number of persons involved in that investigation.
Mr. Perrault: Absolutely not.
Senator Boisvenu: Mr. Cormier, for the commissioner who was just appointed, that is, for you, I believe a budget of $4.5 million was allocated to creating that position.
Mr. Cormier: In total, it’s $5.5 million over two fiscal years.
Senator Boisvenu: Can you tell us to what those amounts will be allocated for the purposes of administering your commission and allocating money to the media institutions that will be broadcasting the debate?
Mr. Cormier: As regards the administration, we are a small team of six. We wanted to put that money into producing and promoting the debates, researching programs for engaging Canadians and for working with groups that develop interest in politics and public debate. We have access to government technology and accounting services. We haven’t hired anyone for any of those administrative services; that would have been counterproductive. The money will really be allocated to producing the debates and ensuring that expensive items such as sign language translation our funded. Those are things that the producers don’t usually fund, but we’ll take charge of that.
We will also be working with groups to ensure people really know about the debates. We would like to develop a spirit of citizen engagement in the debates because we believe that’s important.
For us, and election campaign is one of the rare moments when people have an opportunity to see the party leaders together for two hours. That information isn’t subject to manipulation on the Internet and isn’t covered by the media in any other way. During the debates, everyone receives the same information, and the purpose of that is to help people make a choice. We’re working with that goal in mind.
Senator Boisvenu: I’m trying to understand what the $5.5 million is for. In 2011, Radio-Canada informed everyone who might be concerned that the leaders’ debate had cost $250,000, excluding sponsorship losses. Did Radio-Canada demand budgets to establish an electoral commission? You say a large part of the budgets will be allocated to the broadcasters.
Mr. Cormier: Radio-Canada didn’t ask that an electoral commission be established. That decision is made by the government, which wants to ensure there’s an infrastructure that encourages production of the debates. We’re going to spend money on things the television networks don’t usually do. As part of a public engagement campaign, we’ll be establishing partnerships with groups working in the schools to promote public debates and democratic literacy.
Senator Boisvenu: You’re saying you’ll be going into the schools to promote the debates?
Mr. Cormier: The debates, yes, and to promote the idea of the debates.
Senator Boisvenu: With regard to the role of the electoral commission, does that encroach on any responsibilities? There’s an educational mandate that must be carried out on the other side. Will you be doing that too?
Mr. Cormier: We won’t be doing the same thing as Mr. Perrault. For example, other groups promote democracy to young workers who normally aren’t involved or interested in politics. Those are possibilities, and that’s where the work involved in our partnership with the various support groups begins.
Senator Boisvenu: One of the major elements we studied when we reviewed the Elections Act was the education mandate. Are we scattering responsibilities? Why isn’t Mr. Perrault’s organization alone promoting the debates to young people rather than another organization that goes round to the schools and does the same thing? It seems to me there’s a bureaucratic duplication there.
Mr. Cormier: No, I don’t think so. Mr. Perrault explained what he does, but there’s a very clear distinction between his mandate and ours. We use non-government groups to support their efforts. In a context of disinformation or an Internet bubble, every effort to ensure people have a good relationship with democracy is welcome.
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you, Mr. Cormier.
The Chair: Mr. Perrault, do you want to add a comment?
Mr. Perrault: We have a mandate to deliver civic education to young people, to non-voters. It’s a long-term effort. We’ve produced a whole new range of tools for teachers that don’t concern the upcoming election.
For the next election, the purpose of our campaign is to inform voters about available voting tools and how to register. I think the perspective is somewhat different. Could the two mandates be twinned, if necessary? I think that’s something we’ll have to look at in future.
Senator Forest-Niesing: Unlike my colleague, I don’t take a dim view of the possibility that there may be overlap or duplication in transmitting an important message. Doing it once is commendable, and sometimes doing it twice helps people absorb the information better. We know that youth are extremely important to our electoral process.
My question is for Mr. Cormier and concerns the preparation of the report for the 2015 election. Has some sort of report been prepared? If so, and even if not, what lessons have you learned from the debate process in 2015 that you’ll consider in anticipation of the next election?
Mr. Cormier: I’m not speaking on behalf of the government, which decided to establish this commission following the experience of 2015, when no English-language debate was widely seen on CBC/Radio-Canada.
The basis we operate on under the mandate is that it’s important to make the idea of the leaders’ debate a basic, regular and accepted part of the electoral process. That’s what we strive to do, and we’ll draw conclusions at the end of the exercise.
However, having done some research outside the country, we realize that there are a lot of emerging democracies and that debates among the parties are a fundamental aspect of the electoral process and of the development of democracy.
Many people, seeing the commission Canada has established, are encouraged by the fact there’s a commitment to making the debates more permanent, more adaptable and easier to organize. That’s what we’re trying to do. Furthermore, although all kinds of post mortems have been conducted in the newspapers, the government hasn’t prepared a final report, apart from a few analyses that have appeared in specialized journals. I could send them to you, if you’re interested.
Senator Forest-Niesing: I’ll try to follow up on that.
Mr. Cormier: Very well.
Senator Forest-Niesing: Mr. Perrault, here’s my question for you. We’ve looked at my concerns, which related to the influences that can be anticipated and how to safeguard the integrity of our electoral process. What are the other risks? We talked about false information, incorrect information and influences that require an extensive cybersecurity reform. What other risks have you identified?
Mr. Perrault: A whole set of risks have emerged from our various activities. We’ve developed a risk register because we, at the agency, have spent a lot of time discussing risks with partners.
I’m going to take advantage of your question to add a few comments on what I said in response to previous questions. One of the new things we’re doing during this election is we’re working closely with security partners, and more so than in the past. That’s something new in the culture of Elections Canada, which is an independent agency.
At the same time, our security partners are essential to the election’s success. It doesn’t all depend on Elections Canada and electoral operations. Our various security partners have a role to play for Canadians and for the conventional media. Most of our work in recent years, and up until the next election, involves ensuring that efforts are coordinated and that there’s a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities.
For example, there must be coordination and a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities if a political party’s information has been leaked, a system that isn’t our responsibility has been hacked, if disinformation has been spread, as we’ve seen in other countries, from either domestic or foreign sources, or if there has been an attack on our activities and operations. This is a fairly new concept.
In short, we prepare well in advance, we run scenarios based on our risk register, and we determine what the roles and responsibilities of each organization would be in each of those scenarios.
Senator Forest-Niesing: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Boehm: Thank you to the witnesses for their excellent presentations and candid responses.
A question for you, Mr. Perrault. The critical election incident, public protocol and the five senior officials who would be mandated to invoke this, I’m assuming, or recommend it, what exactly is the relationship that Elections Canada would have with this group? You’re not on that particular team, and I think we understand the divisions there and why it has to be. But could you elaborate a little bit?
Mr. Perrault: Certainly. On the divisions, I think it’s important to remember that anything that has to do with the electoral process, it is for me as Chief Electoral Officer to speak to. So any interference with the ability to vote, if we need to relocate polls, if we need to inform electors about how they vote, that’s my responsibility and it would not be the role of that group.
Conversely, any issues related to the foreign nature of the activities, that is not something that is within my mandate. National security is not part of my mandate, so that group would speak, for example, to that kind of issue.
Events are fluid during an election, and you don’t necessarily know what is happening. Is it technical breach? Is it a hack? Is it foreign? Is it domestic? That’s why the agencies that feed the decisions have to work closely and exchange information, whether it’s informing me, the deputy minister or the senior officials that would eventually and could be called upon to make a public pronouncement of some sort.
So right now we are working with these underlying organizations; the security agencies, the RCMP, CSIS, CSEC, the security adviser to the Prime Minister. As I said, we’re doing scenarios, and from that, we would see what would be the roll out of the events.
Senator Boehm: So the five-member panel would be a rapid reaction team that would recommend decisions and take decisions?
Mr. Perrault: I can’t speak on behalf of that group. I’m not part of that group. My understanding is it’s not really a rapid-decision team. I think it’s a group that is designed to inform the public where it is useful to do so, where there is a very significant breach of the context in which democracy operates. But in terms of the rapid response, it may be more the individual agencies. Certainly in terms of electoral operations, that would be me at Elections Canada.
Senator Boehm: In your work, are you speaking with your counterparts in other countries where there has in fact been some electoral interference? I’m thinking particularly of France in the last presidential election, right on the eve of the election.
Mr. Perrault: And Australia there have been breaches, and the U.K., of course. We have relationships with different electoral managed bodies. In many cases, they’re structured quite differently, so our exchanges vary.
We have regular meetings with colleagues and counterparts in the United States. We have the four countries; Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. There is a forum I’ll be attending this summer in London. We also exchange information between those meetings.
We, of course, attend international events and follow what’s going on. We share best practices and align ourselves. It gives us a good idea of what’s happening out there in terms of practices and threats.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for your presentations this morning. They are absolutely timely, for sure.
Some earlier discussion and conversation, first for you, Mr. Perrault. As we reflect back on the hustle and bustle of the fall and getting Bill C-76 passed in December, I’m trying to think about your way of doing business and what some of the biggest or significant changes you’re making as you’re going into this election process that we will have this fall. Do you have an idea of the cost of those changes?
Mr. Perrault: I’ll speak about changes specific to Bill C-76, but there are other changes we’re making in terms of improving the services. For example, at the last election we saw a significant movement of electors from polling day to advance polls. That’s a trend we’ve seen across jurisdictions in Canada and around the world. In New Zealand, there are over 50 per cent or just about 50 per cent voting in advance polls. We were at 25 in the last election, but it’s growing.
One of the things we’ve done is increased a number of advanced polls by 20 per cent across the country. But one of the changes that comes from Bill C-76 — they are intertwined — is the fact that these advance polls will operate from morning to evening, from 9:00 to 9:00, rather than only in the afternoon, so we’ll almost double the number of voting hours as a result of Bill C-76.
A lot of the big changes in Bill C-76 are related to the political financing regime, quite an extensive review of the third-party regime, pre-writ spending limits for parties but more extensive limits on third parties. That’s a comprehensive change.
Many of the changes related to Bill C-76 are creating flexibility in terms of how we operate at the polls, for example. And given the timing of this election and the passage of the bill last December, not all of these flexibilities will be leveraged. Bill C-76 is a modernization bill in the sense that it empowers Elections Canada to design procedures in certain ways that are more flexible. We will be doing some of that at the election, but we will be building on that over the years.
In terms of the cost, $21 million is the cost of the additional activities related to Bill C-76 at this election. That is mostly longer advance polling hours each of the four days and some anticipated reimbursements for disability expenditures by parties in this election.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you. The term “trending” is important as we look at this and knowing what we’re backward mapping from. Right now in Canada, we have a percentage of voters who come out. We are always looking to increase the percentage of our population that votes. And you know all the metrics of the different demographics and groups.
The reason I’m bringing this issue up this morning is the debate process is portrayed as an important, critical, informative and essential part of the election experience. But is it? We continue to put a lot of resources into the debates and into improving the debates. Are we looking at other ways that have more bang for the buck? Should we follow our technological advances over time, our goal to get more millennials and young people out voting? Is a debate the answer? My question is are we also going after the metrics of this time saying: Is this really our best way of doing business? Is your team looking at perhaps another diversified way of getting at the same thing?
Mr. Cormier: That’s a very good question. Of course, this is an experiment. We will have to evaluate what we’re doing as we do it, and then take stock of it to see if this was the best way to go at it.
The two debates are not the only debate game in town, either. We’re not here to discourage others to actually hold debates or town hall meetings in local ridings, debates on specific issues, be it international affairs, the economy, the environment or other stuff. We’re not here to prevent people from actually participating in debates.
But, if you have two major debates to which the major political parties commit to, I think it gives an importance and gravity to the idea of the debate as central to the electoral process. But we’re certainly not the only debate game in town or the only way to reach people.
You’re right about metrics, millennials and other groups. We’re working hard on that to find the right format to repackage or present the information that will be in the debates to reach and interest other groups who don’t have a cable subscription, who watch stuff in a binge manner or who will want a three-minute YouTube summary. So we’ll be working with the producers of the debate and with other groups to try to make the experience as wide and varied as possible so that this information actually reaches people. But we’re not facetious enough to think we’re the only conduit for this information to the voters.
Senator M. Deacon: I see an app. Thank you very much.
Senator Gold: Thank you, witnesses, for your presence and testimony. I have a follow-up for Mr. Cormier and then for you, Mr. Perrault.
Given that there are other debates and methods of diffusing information to the population, is your mandate large enough, the day after the election, to take all of the experience into account, the two debates that you’ll organize, but all the other debates in order to arrive at — will you have the mandate to make recommendations on a more global basis rather than simply to evaluate the experience for which you’re responsible in the narrow terms of your mandate?
Mr. Cormier: At this point, I don’t know, but I don’t think we would want to take the responsibility to be responsible for all the debates in the electoral process, if that’s what you’re leading to.
Senator Gold: My question, as is often the case, was not clear enough, so let me be even more precise.
I wasn’t suggesting that. In terms of learning lessons from the upcoming debates, including the role of the two debates, will it fall to you to be recommending how we might consider structuring, organizing or letting happen the debates in future elections? Will that be part of your follow-up mandate?
Mr. Cormier: I guess peripherally. One of the main points of what we are up to and in the evaluation that I think is not usually done because it was not part of the environment before, I will be able to actually do research on Canadians to see what their expectations were of the debates, what they got out of it, and if it had an influence. Maybe it will come out that the debates didn’t make a difference at all. People didn’t care. They weren’t interested. Maybe it will be that people changed their vote because of the debates, or they felt they got a better experience during the election because of that. We don’t know that.
What we are putting in place is a way to measure this. I think this will be the most valuable information we get to make recommendations for the next round.
Senator Gold: I certainly agree it would be valuable and could be an interesting Senate study in the next Parliament, just to follow up and see where we are at.
Mr. Perrault, part of Bill C-76 was the insistence that political parties have privacy policies and that they publish them. Could you comment on where we are in that process? I know we’re approaching the deadline for that to be in place. Will your office have a role in monitoring that?
Maybe this is the la question qui tue, and I would understand if you weren’t comfortable answering it, but is it sufficient that there just be policies in place regardless of the content or their enforceability?
Mr. Perrault: I haven’t been shy from saying that it is not sufficient to just have policy in place. In terms of where we are, the provisions requiring parties to have a privacy policy are in force as of early April. They have until July 2 to have that prominently posted on their websites. The requirement is to cover a number of areas of privacy but not all areas. For example, they are not required to have a policy on consent.
What they do with their policy is up to the parties. That’s one of the areas where it’s lacking. For example, the law requires them to have a policy on training. Doing no training is a policy on training, and doing some training is also a policy on training, but there is no threshold or level and no monitoring.
The only monitoring role I have, and it’s very limited one, is that they have a policy, including a policy of the nature I just mentioned. Obviously, that’s not what we are hoping for.
On several occasions, I have shared with the parties my preoccupation about the importance of having robust privacy policies. I think this is about trusting the electoral process. Trusting the electoral process is not only about trust in Elections Canada. It’s also about trust in how the parties deal with voters and voters’ data. I’ve made the point quite clear with them.
I have worked with the Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Therrien, to articulate some guidelines. He has the expertise in that area and has produced some guidelines to, hopefully, raise the bar and have the parties have policies that go beyond the minimum areas and, perhaps, are good policies. That is not for us to enforce. We can only encourage parties to have the most robust privacy policies.
Senator Duncan: I’d like to thank the panel for their presentations this morning. My first question is following up along the points mentioned by my colleagues regarding the leaders’ national debates.
I wasn’t here for the debate on Bill C-76. Will this commission information flow down to the local level? After all, while the national leaders’ debates are important, there are more than four members of Parliament. It is about your local MP as well, who is also going to be faced with this invitation to participate in debates.
Is it your anticipation that the format of this commission and the questions and establishment of it might also flow down to those local town hall meetings?
Mr. Cormier: We have said, in consultation with groups, that we’re open to be in touch with anyone who wants to organize a debate and see if we can lend a hand. We have established a website that will give a lot of information. We haven’t produced a kit on how to produce a local debate. That could maybe be for further consideration.
The mandate this time is to make sure there are two national debates in French and English. If we manage to succeed in that, I think it will be a certain victory, but it opens up the door to all kinds of debates and to the fact that debates become a central part of democracy. It can be at the local level, the municipal level, the school board level, and the provincial level. Debates are associated with national leaders or leaders of provincial parties very much.
If the culture of debates can be developed and people buy into this and develop it, I think that will be very positive. I don’t think this will happen for the next election but we’ll see.
Senator Duncan: Perhaps in the follow up to this experiment, as you termed it, we could assess what difference it made at the local level as well.
Mr. Cormier: We’ve been in contact with people in local ridings who do have debates, and we’re trying to see how we can partner with these people to measure debates in local elections or in local ridings without being part of the organization of this, because that’s not part of the mandate. But we’re certainly in contact with people who are actually doing stuff at different levels to see how it can inform the recommendations of the commission.
Senator Duncan: Mr. Perrault, I noted in your presentation — and there have been discussions; notably, Senator Jaffer raised the point about rural Canada — you said that there were recent improvements to the online registration system.
I’m very concerned about what I will call the vulnerable sector. That includes the homeless, the elderly who may be suffering from social isolation, and those folks who may not be in that income strata but make the choice to live off grid. There are any number of individuals who do not have access to computers and the Internet.
How are we reaching those folks? How are we finding them to start with?
Mr. Perrault: I will recognize at the start that it is a challenge. The way to reach out to these people is to reach out locally, not from headquarters. We have a program called the Community Relations Officer program. In every electoral district, the returning officer has a number of Community Relations Officers, and it will depend on the makeup of the community. Sometimes it will be minority-linguistic Community Relations Officers, relations officers for seniors or for the homeless, as you mentioned.
Each returning officer has to establish a plan to reach out to their communities, and is allotted resources to hire Community Relations Officers. They go out and go through the hospitals or the homeless shelters.
It’s on-the-ground work because, as you say, these people are not connected, not watching the news or not receiving mail, in many cases.
Senator Duncan: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: Thank you for your presentations.
My question is for Mr. Perrault. Could you tell us about your degree of preparation for the changes regarding voting outside the country.
Mr. Perrault: Yes. Those provisions will come into force on May 11. I should point out that the Supreme Court rendered a judgment in the Frank case in February.
Immediately following that decision, voters were allowed to register to vote in a by-election outside Canada, without regard to the length of their stay outside the country, provided that they had resided in Canada. Consequently, for by-elections, including those currently under way, we find ourselves caught between two regimes because people may vote, and the former rules determine where they vote, since the new rules are not yet in force. Voters have some choice under the old rules — place of residence of a relative, former place of residence, a place to which they would return if they were returning to Canada and so on. So there’s a degree of flexibility there.
With the coming into force of the new provisions, scheduled for May 11, the forms have been amended. They include warnings about being honest in order to be clear about potential offences if voters request a ballot they aren’t entitled to receive, but that flexibility will stop. Voters will have to register at their last regular place of residence in Canada. We’re prepared to implement that. That will occur on May 11, and it will apply to the next general election.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Frank, approximately 2,000 voters have registered from outside Canada, some half of whom have been living outside Canada for more than five years. There has been some registration, but it doesn’t suggest there’ll be anything very different from what we had determined. It’s very hard to assess it, but we expect an increase from 11,00 to 30,000 voters outside Canada. There may be a few more, but there are no signs suggesting a major change.
Senator Moncion: Is the burden of registering on the voter, not on you?
Mr. Perrault: The voters have to register. They have to submit a passport or a birth certificate. We can’t accept just anyone who makes a request; they have to submit proof of citizenship in the form of a passport or a birth certificate in order to register. Currently, if voters have registered before the electoral period, we can send out a special ballot voting kit as soon as the writs are issued.
Senator Moncion: Mr. Cormier, as regards the leaders’ debate, you talked about the French debate and the English debate. You mentioned the criteria individuals must meet in order to take part in the debate, that there must be representation in the House, meaning they must be elected, that their party must have candidates in 90 per cent of the ridings and that it must have received 4 per cent of ballots cast in the previous election.
However, that excludes some groups currently represented in the House. Is that deliberate? Can you explain that to me? It seems to me that must rule out two or perhaps three parties.
Mr. Cormier: Which ones?
Senator Moncion: The Green Party, the Bloc Québécois and Mr. Bernier’s party.
Mr. Cormier: We’re monitoring that, but we think five parties currently qualify. For Mr. Bernier, we’ll have to look at the polls because he wasn’t elected as a member of the party he now represents. So he’s disqualified under the first criterion. If he manages to gain enough support to have a chance of electing members and running candidates in 90 per cent of the ridings, that would be enough to qualify.
Senator Moncion: How can the Bloc Québécois, which is represented only in Quebec, meet the criteria?
Mr. Cormier: By tradition, the Bloc Québécois takes part in the anglophone debate, even though it only runs candidates in Quebec. We’ll have to assess that. There’s a precedent whereby the Bloc could take part in the English-language debate, even though it doesn’t attempt to elect members in all regions of the country.
That’s also part of the report regarding assessing the criteria to determine whether they’re suitable. We’re looking at how we’ll apply those criteria as fairly and equitably as possible. We’ll definitely conduct an analysis after the election to determine whether they were appropriate.
Senator Moncion: Thank you for that clarification. You’re telling me that five of the six parties that are represented —
Mr. Cormier: I’m not talking about Mr. Johnston because he’ll have the final decision, but, off the top of my head, we currently think that’s accurate. As regards Mr. Bernier, it’s a bit early to tell what real support his party has. At some point, we’ll also have to decide on the date on which we have to decide the matter. We’re considering the possibilities.
As the saying goes, we’re building the plane as we fly it. This is a new organization, and we’re trying to do things as fairly as possible for everyone.
Senator Moncion: I understand, but were there previously any criteria, or was everyone invited?
Mr. Cormier: There were criteria that had been developed with the media because there had also been lawsuits. So people came up with criteria that these ones are based on, although they aren’t identical.
Senator Moncion: Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, we have on the second round six senators who want to ask questions. We have two minutes each, so if you can be succinct in posing the questions and succinct in answering —
[Translation]
— the six senators will of course have the opportunity to ask their questions.
[English]
Senator Marshall: Mr. Cormier, when you’re speaking about the commission and I know when you responded to Senator Moncion and you’re trying to treat everyone fairly, there was some controversy when the commission was established. There were some negative comments from I think the NDP, the Conservatives. I think Ms. May was positive. But there is a perception out there that the commission is or could be politically biased, so that’s there.
How are you going to overcome that? You’re trying to be fair but the perception is there that the birth of the commission probably wasn’t a fair process. How are you going to close that gap?
Mr. Cormier: Well, I don’t know how widespread that feeling is. I mean, from discussions we have had with people I think there is a willingness to give this a chance.
I can only vouch for Mr. Johnston’s credibility and my own. I would not have, after 35 years in journalism, left that to jump into a partisan exercise. We have total independence, arm’s length from the minister and from PCO. They help us with IT and accountability, but I think the commission is structured in a way that structurally it is independent from the government and that’s very important for us. We have no contact at all with the politics.
Senator Marshall: When you go back to look to make the commission permanent, is it after the election? Is that the plan?
Mr. Cormier: We don’t know if this will be recommended to be permanent. If it’s not useful we’ll say so, but we have to keep an open mind about this and we are really intent on doing that.
The Chair: A little less than two minutes.
[Translation]
Senator Pratte: My question is for Mr. Perrault and concerns misinformation and disinformation. A very common tactic among those commonly used is to spread false information about where people have to go to vote on the day of, or the day before, the election. It used to be done by telephone, but now it’s much faster by email or social media. Are you equipped to inform people quickly and correctly and to assist them in distinguishing between correct and incorrect information?
Mr. Perrault: Yes, that’s very important. One of our priorities between now and the election, and especially during the election, is to reinforce the message that voters must get their information from Elections Canada. We’re going to monitor that. Sometimes mistakes are made in good faith; polling stations change at the last minute; if flooding occurs somewhere, the polling station has to be moved. When candidates and parties distribute information, they don’t necessarily have the most recent information. Sometimes confusion is caused in good faith.
Our role is to ensure that the players have the right information so it’s not misinformation or disinformation, and we’ll be monitoring all that very closely. We have social media, and there’s a branding aspect; we have to send the message that Elections Canada has the information voters should rely on.
Bill C-76 also creates new offences for anyone seeking to impersonate Elections Canada personnel. That can reinforce our message. We’ll have quite a strong team in place to address disinformation issues promptly.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: I have a question for you, Mr. Perrault. How do we reach the young people? Do you have a special campaign using the medium that young people use? That’s a big challenge.
Mr. Perrault: There is not one single way and that is not unique to the young. We’re equipping groups that do outreach or work with communities, whether it’s new Canadians, Indigenous communities or various groups, with information about the voting process. That’s one strategy.
Our information campaign will include messages, if you watch it throughout the election, that will vary in format and style in ways that attract different groups. We will have a pre-writ influencer campaign, which is something new at Elections Canada, to motivate young Canadians in particular to register for this election. We want them to register ahead of the election, so that’s a pre-writ campaign and we are working with university campuses. For example, in the last election we had voting kiosks in 40 campuses. Right now we’re at 117 campuses where they will be voting on campus.
There are different strategies to reach out to youth because we know that’s one segment of the population that tends to vote less and we also know that those who do not vote when they are young tend not to vote during their lifetime. So it’s not just about the youth vote, it’s about building the voters of tomorrow, including the senior voters.
Senator Jaffer: I’m assuming you will be doing this in many languages as well.
Mr. Perrault: Correct. In our outreach programs the main languages, of course, are English and French, but I believe we have 21 ethno-linguistic community languages for the advertising, but I believe our basic products are available in 38 different languages, including various Indigenous languages.
Senator Eaton: Mr. Perrault, I was wondering about your reaction to the story by “The Fifth Estate” and Radio-Canada’s “Enquête” about the agreement by the Commissioner of Canada Elections not to prosecute SNC-Lavalin about the executives behind thousands of dollars in illegal donations. How will you counter that in the next election? For the commissioner to decide not to prosecute one company but to prosecute another individual, shouldn’t that be more open to the public?
Mr. Perrault: I want to be careful not to speak for the commissioner, but, as I said earlier, there are several factors in making the decision and one is the seriousness of the offence and that no doubt was a serious offence. But the other one is whether there is evidence available to the commissioner to prosecute and in some cases there is simply not evidence available to prosecute. There are multiple factors available.
I think what will be quite significant moving forward is now his ability to compel testimony, which he did not have when he did this or other investigations prior to Bill C-76. Now he can with Charter protections. No one can be compelled to testify against themselves, but with proper Charter protections he can, where there are reasonable grounds, compel testimony. And that makes a significant difference moving forward.
[Translation]
Senator Forest-Niesing: My question will be brief and concerns a minor matter arising from a discussion we previously had and from your testimony on the use of languages, more particularly in the context broadcasting the debates. You mentioned the language in which the debate will be broadcast and translated. With regard to Indigenous languages, I simply want to ensure that particular care is taken when broadcasting in First Nations languages.
Mr. Cormier: All that’s already established. We’re contacting all the people who can do that. For example, the CBC and Radio-Canada broadcast in eight Aboriginal languages. We want to ensure all communities are consulted.
We met the representatives of the Assembly of First Nations and the Inuit yesterday to ensure we’ve reached everyone.
Senator Forest-Niesing: That’s great. Thank you.
Senator Boisvenu: I’ll be very brief. Mr. Cormier and Mr. Perrault, it’s my opinion that we’re dealing with bureaucratic duplication here since Elections Canada launched this education kit in September 2018.
Mr. Cormier, could you provide the committee with details on your commission’s budget regarding its operation and the salaries of the people who work there? Is that possible?
Mr. Cormier: That will be possible as soon as we have the figures. We’re working on the budgets for each of the divisions, including the popular education and public promotion programs. As soon as we have the figures, we’ll definitely be pleased to submit them to you along with our strategic plans.
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you.
The Chair: Thanks to the team of Mr. Perrault and Mr. Cormier for being here and for all the information they have provided us. Please be assured of our full cooperation. Other questions may be raised as we approach the budget timeline. We might also ask you to appear before our committee again.
Thank you for your professionalism.
[English]
I wish to remind senators that the next meeting of the committee will take place tomorrow evening at 6:45.
(The committee adjourned.)