Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a privilege to appear before this committee. Thank you for inviting me.

My name is Connor Bildfell. I'm a lawyer at McCarthy Tétrault in Vancouver, and my practice includes both privacy and constitutional litigation. I appear before you today in my personal capacity. My remarks today will focus on two aspects of Bill C-65. The first concerns privacy, and the second concerns election integrity.

Starting with privacy, this bill proposes a national, uniform and exclusive privacy regime applicable to federal political parties. There are, of course, good reasons to have a uniform regime. For example, having a uniform regime ensures that voters across the country benefit from the same set of privacy rules. Equally, requiring federal political parties to comply with a series of privacy laws that vary from province to province could create compliance challenges, especially in today’s digital environment where personal information flows freely across borders.

Make no mistake—this bill engages complex legal issues, and questions remain about how those issues will play out. For example, in the province where I practise, both the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. and the B.C. Supreme Court have ruled that federal political parties must comply not only with the Canada Elections Act’s privacy requirements but also with provincial privacy requirements. Those rulings are now on appeal before the B.C. Court of Appeal, and the constitutional applicability of provincial privacy laws to federal political parties remains very much in question.

Moreover, as you heard from Dr. Bannerman last week, some Canadians have raised concerns that the proposed federal regime is not as rigorous as existing provincial privacy laws and the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Some have raised concerns that the regime is not subject to oversight by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The committee’s study of this bill offers an opportunity to consider these legal issues and engage with these concerns.

To turn to the second topic, Bill C-65 also includes election integrity measures, including provisions that target false or misleading statements about certain matters relating to elections. Most Canadians can agree on at least two things: First, freedom of expression is good; second, misinformation is bad. The challenge for policy-makers like you is to create clear and targeted laws that effectively combat misinformation without chilling legitimate political speech, which enjoys the highest level of protection under Canadian constitutional law. Striking this balance is not always easy.

While Bill C-65 proposes a number of measures designed to strike this balance, some of the existing statutory provisions that Bill C-65 does not address raise concerns. For example, paragraph 91(1)(b) of the existing Canada Elections Act prohibits, among other things, false statements about a candidate’s “education, professional qualifications or membership in a group or association of a candidate”. It also prohibits the same kinds of false statements about public figures associated with a political party.

The issue is this: Are these prohibitions sufficiently clear and targeted to avoid chilling legitimate political speech, or are they so vague that some individuals may self-censor to avoid potentially falling afoul of these prohibitions and facing serious penalties?

To illustrate, if someone states that a candidate is a socialist or a member of the alt-right, do they risk prosecution? If a candidate states that they worked as an insurance broker, but they never received their accreditation, do they risk prosecution? What about satire, parody or hyperbole? Are those off limits? Who falls within the class of public figures associated with a political party—for example, spouses of party leaders, former politicians or someone like Mark Carney?

These questions should be taken seriously because protecting legitimate political speech and election integrity are both important objectives that underpin the Canada Elections Act.

The committee's study of this bill offers an opportunity to consider these legal issues and engage with these questions. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to our discussion.

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