Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in the House of Commons to speak in support of Bill C-25, the strong and free elections act. This legislation represents an important step in protecting Canada's electoral process in a variety of ways, including from emerging challenges posed, as my colleague across the way just mentioned, by the efforts of the longest ballot committee to make things more difficult and more challenging for Elections Canada. The bill deals with the challenges posed by an official agent being able to serve as an official agent for more than one candidate. It also deals with the challenges that are posed by emerging technological threats, such as the misuse of artificial intelligence. For the sake of my remarks here in the House today, I would like to focus on the latter. Modern technology has transformed how we communicate and access information. It connects us, informs us and strengthens participation in our democracy, but it can be misused. Bill C-25 recognizes this emerging challenge and includes a clear and necessary response to a particularly challenging application of artificial intelligence. Of course, I am referring to deepfake technology. Deepfakes are artificially generated or manipulated images, videos or audio recordings that make it appear as though someone has said or done something, even if they never did. These fabrications can be highly convincing, and a reasonable person could be tricked into believing that they are real. Under the Canada Elections Act, it is already illegal to impersonate certain electoral actors, including, of course, the candidates and the chief electoral officer, with the intent of misleading voters. However, these provisions were developed before the rapid rise of modern technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and they do not fully capture the risk posed by deepfake technology. Bill C-25 would modernize this framework. It explicitly extends the existing impersonation offences to include the creation and distribution of realistic and misleading images, videos and audio of electoral actors intended to deceive Canadians. We have seen cases around the world where audio and video deepfakes of political figures have been used to spread disinformation. Canada is not immune to these challenges. Canadian cybersecurity experts made that clear in their recent assessment of threats to the democratic process. For example, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued a warning that AI is already reshaping the way that elections are being targeted. In just two years, we went from a few isolated incidents to more than 100 cases of AI being used to interfere with over 25% of global elections held between 2023 and 2024. This is no hypothetical risk, but a real and growing trend. Furthermore, the tools behind this trend are getting cheaper, faster and more readily available by the day. What once required sophisticated resources can now be accomplished using widely available, inexpensive software. Democracy is built on trust. Voters must be able to make decisions based on reliable information. If we do not take action, and take action now, what we will inevitably see in the years ahead is the erosion of trust in our democratic process. That is precisely the malicious objective of those who deploy these tools. It is because of our robust election laws and the general health of our democratic system that our cybersecurity experts have assessed that it is unlikely that disinformation from artificial intelligence would, on its own, undermine the integrity of our elections. It will not happen yet, and that is reassuring, but it is not a reason to delay action. The same experts emphasize that technology is improving and access to it is expanding rapidly. In short, we know the threat is growing and we need to take action. As Parliament has responded to evolving challenges to our elections on a regular basis in the past, we must act again. Through Bill C-25, we are doing exactly that. We are being proactive, as we should be, in addressing this rapidly emerging issue. By expanding the existing ban on impersonation to capture deepfakes, we are sending a powerful message that Canada will not allow technological mischief to undermine the integrity of our elections. Let me also emphasize that this addition reflects an appropriate balance between protecting free speech and combatting malicious interference. This bill would not restrict legitimate political expression, nor would it limit political debate or target opinion, criticism or satire. In fact, the Canada Elections Act explicitly permits parody and other forms of lawful expression that are an important part of our democratic discourse. Bill C-25 would not change that. Instead, what Bill C-25 targets is intentional deception, specifically the use of synthetic media to mislead voters about real people or events. To be clear, the Canada Elections Act already prohibits fraud and false statements during elections. Deepfakes are nothing more than a sophisticated version of the same practices, using technology to manipulate voices and images, rather than enlisting a person to pose as someone else. These examples are not expressions of opinion. They are tools for manipulation, and there must be clear consequences for using them. That is an important part of this piece of legislation that finds that balance to allow the electorate freedom of speech, especially during elections. Every single one of us in this room is here because we ran in an election. We debated. We perhaps had town halls and invited our citizens to challenge our ideas. Every one of us here has had somebody disagree with some of what we have put forward personally or with what perhaps our party or our leader has put forward as an idea or a policy. That is protected, and will always be protected. This piece of legislation would not change that. Bill C-25 proposes targeted priority amendments to the Canada Elections Act that would further protect and secure our elections. It aims to ensure that, when Canadians participate in an election, they can do so based on reliable information from trusted sources. This is about preserving the integrity of our democratic processes in the face of rapidly changing technology. Throughout our history, Canada has adapted its institutions to meet new challenges, and this would be no different. We have strengthened safeguards in response to evolving threats in the past, and we have done so while upholding the fundamental rights and freedoms that define us as a proud nation. The Canada Elections Act is renowned for its election safeguards, robust political financing rules and transparency requirements as a result of continual, gradual updates and improvements put forward by members on all sides of this House, from all political parties, on both sides of the aisle. Bill C-25 would add reasonable guardrails. It is measured and targeted to the challenges we face. It reflects the reality that the nature of electoral interference is changing and that our laws must change with it. I invite all members to support this legislation and, when it goes to committee, to add ways we can improve upon it.
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