Misinformation and foreign interference are two of the biggest threats facing Canada’s electoral system, and everyone will need to work together to counter them, says the Canadian Electoral Monitor.
In an interview with CBC News to mark the end of his 10-year term as Canada’s election commissioner, Yves Côté said online misinformation is one of the biggest challenges he has faced and noted that he can be difficult to be optimistic about the future.
“I think there are all sorts of challenges that are hidden and some of them may get worse as we move forward over time,” Côté said.
However, he noted that there is a solution if several groups can work together.
“No one should be discouraged and abandon the fight or abandon the project,” he said.
“I think a lot of people have to contribute and I think it’s a job of politicians of all kinds, of institutions, of the media, of academics. It’s all kinds of people who have to come together and say that this is a danger “.
TARGET | Yves Côté on the complex challenge of misinformation and foreign interference:
Misinformation and foreign interference are key electoral challenges, the commissioner says
Outgoing Canadian election commissioner Yves Côté talks about the main challenges facing Canada’s electoral system.
Misinformation against the worrying electoral system
Côté said he was particularly concerned about disinformation attacks on the Canadian electoral system.
“When people are trying to convince others that the way votes or ballots are counted doesn’t work,” Côté said.
“When they try to misinform people about where they can vote, how they can vote or where, they try to raise issues with the professionalism or competition, for example, of Elections Canada or our own office for reasons that have no basis for I find it very, very problematic. “
Côté said he has negotiated agreements with companies such as Twitter, Google and Facebook to help speed up the process of obtaining information when his office has to investigate a complaint, but said he has no agreements with other “foreign agencies”. “Like Tencent, the company that owns the popular Chinese application WeChat.
Côté’s departure later this month comes amid these new technological challenges that probably could not have been imagined 10 years ago, when headlines were dominated by the voter suppression scandal of the automatic call during the 2011 elections, when voters in several districts received automated phone calls with recorded messages directing them to the wrong place to vote.
His successor, Caroline Simard, begins on August 15.
Foreign interference “difficult to investigate”
In addition to the challenges posed by misinformation, Côté said Simard will have to face the threat of foreign interference in the election.
“For us, as an implementing agency, it poses all kinds of challenges, especially if these foreign countries do not have good diplomatic relations working with us,” Côté explained.
“It’s very difficult to investigate, very difficult to get the evidence you need to build a case, and then of course it’s very difficult to take these people to Canadian courts, assuming you’ve been able to gather the evidence you need to do so. “
In a recent interview with CBC Radio’s The House, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole revealed that the Security Intelligence Service of Canada (CSIS) informed her party during the last WeChat election attempts. to influence the race in a series of constituencies with false information. .
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Côté said his office has ties to the CSIS, the Canadian security establishment, the RCMP and various police forces.
“We’ve certainly heard about campaigns like this or complaints about campaigns like this, and that’s a topic we’re very interested in,” Côté said.
In addition to the attempts that Canada’s elections are aware of and that can decipher, he said things are also happening under the radar that they do not know.
“There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. So it’s a very complex thing where we have a role to play.”
Protection of voter privacy
Another challenge is to safeguard voter privacy.
Federal political parties are currently exempt from federal privacy laws. Côté said he had received several complaints about the misuse of private information by voters of political parties.
“Given the current framework, there was nothing we could do about it because the act is so open and so generous or not restrictive enough about what the political parties are doing.”
Côté pointed to new legislation in Quebec that will subject parties and candidates to privacy rules, which he hopes the federal government will adopt. He said he also supported a recommendation by election director Stéphane Perrault to restrict hate groups from forming recognized political parties.
Some voters have said in the past that they did not want to be on the electoral list to worry that their information might be accessible to people or groups who promote hatred.
In the end, Côté considers his term a success, increasing the independence of the Canadian commissioner’s election office and obtaining changes, such as the introduction of administrative monetary sanctions as an alternative to prosecution for some violations of the electoral law. .
“We have a good team and we certainly have a commissioner, an incoming commissioner, who is highly competent and highly qualified to take over from me and take the position to higher and better positions.”