Liberals introduce legislation updating Elections Act, in keeping with NDP pact
The Liberal government has tabled legislation that updates the federal Elections Act as part of its political pact with the NDP.
The minister responsible for democratic institutions, Dominic LeBlanc, said the changes “will enhance Canadians’ ability to exercise their vote while strengthening protections against foreign interference in our elections.”
The bill, if passed, would add two more days of advance voting, make a campus voting program permanent and “take steps toward” allowing voters to cast their ballots at any polling station in their riding.
It also proposes to add dedicated on-site voting for people who live in long-term care homes and improve the process for mail-in voting.
LeBlanc, who is also public safety minister, pointed out that the amendments come out of a collaboration with New Democrats.
MP Daniel Blaikie negotiated the bill for the NDP. He appeared alongside LeBlanc for what he said would likely be his last media availability on Parliament Hill before his resignation at the end of the month. He is headed for a job with Manitoba’s premier.
“There are often Canadians who are struggling to balance the obligations of work and family in a day as well as get to polling stations in order to be able to vote,” Blaikie said.
“And that’s why we felt it was very important to try to expand access and have more days upon which Canadians could vote.”
The bill includes a study to expand federal elections to a three-day voting period rather than a single election day.
That falls short of the LiberalNDP agreement, which promised that the parties would work together to make that a reality.
LeBlanc said the intention was to have elections fall on a Saturday, Sunday and Monday, as well as for people to be able to vote from any polling place in their riding right away.
But Elections Canada “identified some reasonable concerns,” including the challenge of finding “suitable locations” for polling places over a threeday period.
“Elections Canada came to us with some thoughtful operational challenges,” said LeBlanc.
“We think that they need to be mandated by Parliament to come back with a precise timeline of how we can get to that. We thought it was a very reasonable objective.”
The bill also updates the Canada Elections Act to account for new technology, such as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.
It clarifies that deepfakes, realistic simulations of public figures such as politicians created with AI technology, are covered under existing offences in the act. Those offences include publishing false statements to affect election results and impersonation.
LeBlanc said the deepfakes “are certainly something that the security services have talked to me about in terms of strengthening our ability to resist foreign interference.”
He said if a foreign state or hostile actor was using “artificial intelligence in a way that is designed to sabotage an electoral process, we think Elections Canada should properly have in the legislation the tools to deal with that.”
The act will also prohibit contributions in the form of crypto-assets, as well as money orders or pre-paid gift cards. The idea is to ban contributions that difficult to trace, the government says.
The bill introduced Wednesday would also include a new prohibition on statements about activities related to the election or voting process if the intent is to disrupt the election. It would apply in cases where the person knows the statement is false or misleading.
The bill also includes new requirements for privacy policies of federal political parties. They will have to put in place “physical, organizational, and technological security safeguards,” the government says.
Political parties will also have to have protocols for notifying individuals if a serious breach takes place, examples that illustrate how they collect and use personal information, and prohibitions against selling personal information, among other rules.