PROC meeting 8 · 2025-10-23 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

The Procedure and House Affairs Committee continued its study of the actions of the longest ballot committee in recent Canadian elections, hearing from Stéphane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer of the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer.

Stéphane Perrault reiterated his recommendation that voters be limited to signing a nomination paper for only one candidate, arguing that the current system allows organizers to collect signatures from the same electors to support multiple candidates, which undermines the spirit of the nomination process. He proposed administrative fines, not criminal sanctions, for those who encourage electors to sign multiple papers, but stressed that candidates' nominations should not be invalidated if duplicate signatures are found. He opposed increasing the 100-signature threshold or requiring a cash deposit, citing constitutional concerns, and agreed with limiting the number of candidates a single official agent can support, but only within the same electoral district. Perrault also highlighted a gap in the Canada Elections Act regarding false or misleading information on nomination papers, noting that there is no provision to sanction deceptive practices like collecting signatures before a candidate is named, and urged the committee to address this. On broader electoral integrity issues, he recommended updating the impersonation ban to cover deepfakes and synthetic content, requiring AI chatbots to point to authoritative sources of information, and prohibiting foreign entities from giving contributions, not just third parties from accepting them. He disagreed with the idea of cancelling a nomination due to duplicate signatures, citing tight timelines and fairness concerns, and did not support prohibiting an official agent from serving multiple candidates in different ridings.

During questioning, Perrault acknowledged that a complaint from Ryan Davies about potential violations by the longest ballot committee was caught in Elections Canada's security filters and not immediately forwarded to the commissioner, though he noted the commissioner was eventually seized of the information through other complaints. He committed to examining the issue and reporting back to the committee. He also undertook to provide a chronology of the complaint's handling, but declined to provide data on sworn affidavits from the last election, citing logistical challenges.

AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.

Witnesses · 1

Stéphane Perrault

Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak with the committee today about its study of the actions of the longest ballot committee in the recent Canadian elections. As you know, in September 2024, I wrote to the former minister of public safety, democratic institutions and intergovernmental affairs to ask the government to consider an amendment to Bill C‑65 in order to limit voters to signing the nomination paper in support of only one candidate. I suggested the same when I appeared before this committee to discuss the bill last fall, and I did so recently as well. As I noted in the past, Elections Canada heard from electors and accessibility stakeholders that longer ballots present challenges for some electors, as they can be difficult to handle and navigate. It also heard that the multiple columns required to accommodate a large number of candidates can create confusion. From an operational point of view, once folded, only about 100 of these long‑format ballots can fit in a single ballot box, compared to 1,000 regular ballots. This significantly increases the number of ballot boxes that have to be managed by election officers. The long ballots also increase…

Full testimony ↗