Elections watchdog says it should be illegal to spread misinformation about voting

Canada's chief electoral officer has issued a wide-ranging report on the last two federal elections that calls for action to crack down on hate groups, improved regulation of third parties and new laws to make it illegal to spread disinformation about elections and voting.


© Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press

Canada's chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault has made a number of recommendations to change how elections are run in Canada.

"This report … is the beginning of an important conversation with parliamentarians and Canadians on ways to improve our electoral process," Stéphane Perrault said Tuesday. "It is a critical exercise that we must periodically undertake to ensure the vitality of our democracy in the face of evolving circumstances, challenges and aspirations."

Perrault's report calls for an amendment to the Canada Elections Act to make it illegal to spread information that disrupts an election or undermines its legitimacy.

Specifically, the report says "prohibit a person or entity, including foreign persons and entities, from knowingly making false statements about the voting process, including about voting and counting procedures, in order to disrupt the conduct of the election or to undermine the legitimacy of the election or its results."

The report is not calling for the policing of policy messages from candidates or parties. It says action must be taken now because the continued spread of disinformation could "jeopardize trust in the entire electoral system on which democracies rest."

"To me this is about drawing a line in the sand on a matter of principle," Perrault said. "It is not OK to deliberately undermine our electoral process by spreading information a person knows to be false and to do that for the purpose of undermining the process."

The report calls on online platforms to publish policies explaining how they will address the spread of disinformation "that inaccurately depicts election-related procedures during the election period."

The report also calls for stronger transparency in political messages from political parties, candidates and third parties, arguing there are drawbacks to regulating only those messages defined as advertising when social media and other online platforms are able to spread political messages that do not meet that definition.

Perrault said he wants the rule that requires ads by political actors to identify who authorized the message to be simplified and extended to text messages, YouTube videos and other social media messages that may now be spread anonymously.

All political messages must disclose their authors and tell voters how they can get more information about those behind the messages, the report said


To get there, Perrault recommends that websites operated by political entities — such as political parties, candidates and third parties — be required to link to a searchable registry of paid digital communications to improve transparency.

Policing hate groups

To crack down on hate groups seeking to register as political parties, Perrault wants to allow voters to ask a court to determine whether the primary purpose of an organization seeking to register as a political party is the promotion of hate against an identifiable group.

"There is currently no mechanism in place right now to address this issue," Perrault said. "If there is a hate group that wishes to register right now as a party, it could do so and in so doing would gain access to a number of benefits."

Among those benefits, he said, are access to lists of registered voters, free television air time and tax credits on contributions which hate groups should not enjoy.

Perrault said that voters should challenge such organizations in the courts because it's not appropriate for him or the commissioner of Canada Elections to have a role in choosing which political parties should be registered.

 
Third party financing

In order to ensure that foreign entities are not funding third-party advertisers in an election, Perrault's report says that any third party that claims to be self-funded should prove that it gets no more than 10 per cent of its funding from donations.

Perrault said a distinction should be made between third parties — such as corporate entities and labour unions — that use revenue raised in Canada to fund political communications and smaller third parties that rely partly on donations to survive.

He said that there is no way currently for Canada's chief electoral officer to track where smaller groups are getting their money from, and that's a problem.

"What I am proposing is a mechanism to make sure that only contributions of Canadian citizens or permanent residents would go in terms of financing third parties," he said.

The report also calls for the regulation of "issue-based" communications that do not name a party or candidate but "can reasonably be seen as having the purpose of promoting or opposing a party or candidate during the election and pre-election periods."

The report also calls for a number of other changes, including:

Allowing candidates to register earlier to permit Elections Canada to better manage its communications regulations.

Enhancing the protection of voters' personal information by granting them the right to opt out of receiving electoral communications.

Extending the minimum number of days in a non-fixed election from 36 to 44 days to allow Elections Canada to reduce the number of late ballots.

Allowing voters to register for a special ballot 45 days before voting day.

Permitting special ballots to be marked with just a political party name rather than a candidate name.

Requiring the head of Elections Canada to recommend an election date that does not interfere with religious or cultural days of significance.