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Results: 1 - 15 of 23
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to both of our guests tonight. I appreciate your presentations.
Professor Brady, you did a presentation to the New Zealand government on interference with elections in 2017, I think. Can you tell us a little bit about the nature of that interference? What form did it take, and is it something that we can or should be looking out for? What can we do about it, if there is anything?
Anne-Marie Brady
View Anne-Marie Brady Profile
Anne-Marie Brady
2021-04-19 20:09
For each national election and also each local government election, the New Zealand Parliament does an assessment afterwards to see how it went and if there were any concerns about it.
My government held two separate inquiries into foreign interference, with an overall review of those elections in 2017 and then local body elections in the years that followed. We found that CCP proxy groups or individuals had given donations to our local and central government politicians.
This is why the public conversation is very important. You can be sure that our MPs and our mayors were not willingly receiving money from the CCP. They did not understand who their partners were. They do understand it better now. In our report to the electoral commission this year, we did not see any donations like that for the central government elections.
We saw inappropriate donations, and there are several investigations in our Serious Fraud Office at the moment into particular cases of this. The process of doing these cases has led to better education. We also saw in the Chinese-language media in New Zealand that in previous years there was an attempt to get the Chinese public to bloc-vote for a certain party that had a candidate who was very much a CCP proxy. We also saw some disinformation within the Chinese-language media about the elections. We also saw disguised political advertising, which breaks our electoral law.
The problem is that we have very weak measures to deal with these problems. We need to go back and look at our electoral legislation. We need to put Chinese-language speakers into our electoral commission.
We need to change our press laws too. One of the hardest things to fix in New Zealand, which we haven't yet worked out how to fix, is how our New Zealand Chinese diaspora are being targeted by the CCP, which regards them as a resource and a tool for their foreign policy. They are mostly the victims of these activities. Also, their media must now follow the same censorship guidelines as domestic Chinese language media.
Our government hasn't yet worked out how to remedy this problem, although I would highlight that yesterday our foreign minister did something very good: She praised a non-CCP, non-united front ethnic Chinese community group in her important speech on New Zealand-China relations. We need to provide better support for our local Chinese communities and show that they're diverse and not all as much under the control of the CCP as they would wish.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
Let's look, for example, at Belarus, where there was not a fair, transparent, free election and the winner is not recognized. You would not recognize that Parliament; therefore, you would not examine.... If anything were brought up about that Parliament, it would not be recognized by your group, then?
David Cunningham Carter
View David Cunningham Carter Profile
Sir David Cunningham Carter
2021-02-02 19:12
When I was involved on the committee, there were, going from memory, two or three cases from Belarus, so the short answer is, provided they've been duly elected and can prove to us that they are duly elected members of Parliament and then they suffer abuse, that case is eligible for us to do further work on.
View Anthony Housefather Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thanks very much, Ms. Ien.
I want to come back to a couple of other questions that I didn't get a chance to ask.
Facebook recognized that there were foreign actors who sought to interfere in the U.S. elections in both 2016 and 2020. Is Facebook aware of any foreign actors currently seeking to influence the next Canadian election?
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-01-29 14:26
Obviously we had that top of mind for the 2019 election. I can tell you that to date we have not found any such foreign interference or coordinated inauthentic behaviour on our platform with respect to the 2019 federal election.
We are certainly turning our minds to the next election, whenever it may come. We have already begun conversations with the various lawful authorities to be ready. Again, however, we don't have any specific information that would lead us to believe that the posture in 2021 or 2022 would be different from that of 2019.
View Anthony Housefather Profile
Lib. (QC)
In the last U.S. election, Facebook assisted in registration of voters and recruitment of poll workers and helped to provide voter information. Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife actually donated $400 million to help support safe voting.
What is Facebook planning to do by way of supporting voting in Canada? If there's $400 million somewhere to give to Elections Canada, I'm sure they would be very grateful.
Kevin Chan
View Kevin Chan Profile
Kevin Chan
2021-01-29 14:27
I don't think I'm in a position yet, obviously, to announce what our integrity measures will be for the next federal election, but I can tell you that the team has already turned its mind to this subject, both internally and externally with external partners.
Again I think this speaks to the need for us to work across sectors to make sure that we get what we all want, which is free and fair elections.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Green brings up some excellent points. To me, it's a bit about the efficacy of some of the subsidies. Are we subsidizing larger, more successful businesses, when we should be focusing on tourism, the small mom-and-pop shops that are really getting creamed? It would be important for parliamentarians and all Canadians to see how much was going to each company and exactly where it was going.
Before I get back to some transparency, and return on investment, Mr. Giroux, there are many rumours about an upcoming spring election. We know the government could fall at any time, or perhaps it could engineer its own fall.
Is the PBO prepared to do the election costing as is required in your mandate?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 18:29
Yes, we are fully prepared. Especially considering that it's a minority situation, we have kept a state of readiness that has been ongoing—not since the last election, obviously, but for the last several months. We have been getting ready for it, getting ready to cost electoral proposals from parties even in a pandemic setting.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
You're prepared, but let me ask whether the departments that you're dealing with are prepared to provide the information and costing to you for the follow-up, so that you can do your job?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 18:29
I am in the process of having memoranda of understanding with key departments be signed, such as we had in the last electoral campaign. So far, they haven't been signed yet.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Is there a reason they haven't been signed? Have they gone out?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 18:30
They've gone out to a couple of departments, but some ministers were quite busy with the pandemic and their business. I've asked ministers' offices again, if they have no concerns with the MOUs, to please sign them as soon as possible.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Is this a stumbling-block? Do you worry that this is not going to be done, or do you think you will have these in the next two weeks, three weeks, one month?
Results: 1 - 15 of 23 | Page: 1 of 2

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