Elections Quebec wants to tighten advertising rules

Photo: Graham Hughes The Canadian Press Élections Québec also wants to impose new offences relating to disinformation, manipulation and intimidation.

Patrice Bergeron – The Canadian Press in Quebec City

Posted at 18:02 Updated at 18:30

• Québec

In the interests of “fairness” and “transparency,” Élections Québec wants to ban government advertising and cap party spending during the period leading up to the election campaign.

This is one of the recommendations in a dense report tabled Thursday in the National Assembly by this organization responsible for the integrity of the electoral process in Quebec.

It is up to the government and opposition parties to ensure the follow-up.

Élections Québec also wants to impose new offences relating to disinformation, manipulation and intimidation, without however suggesting precisely what this sanctions regime might look like.

The organization seeks to regulate party and third-party spending in the period leading up to the election campaign, but does not clearly set out how long this “pre-election period” would be.

Under current law, party spending is strictly controlled and capped during the campaign, but is poorly regulated in the months leading up to it.

However, parties have changed their strategies since the first fixed-date elections were held in 2018, following the adoption of the law that makes polling dates predictable.

Élections Québec found, based on incomplete data, that party pre-election spending jumped 400% in 2018 compared to 2014.

“The nature of the pre-election expenses declared tends to demonstrate that some political parties are conducting a real pre-election campaign,” the report states.

A pre-election campaign “could have an impact on fairness between political parties and candidates as well as on transparency in political financing and pre-election expenses.”

Élections Québec also targets third parties, other players on the political scene, organizations, unions, etc.

Equity

Élections Québec notes that fixed-date elections allow third parties to “plan high spending in order to influence electoral debates up until the vote is taken.” decree” to trigger elections, while these organizations could not engage in such expenditure in the middle of an election period.

Furthermore, aware of the advantage enjoyed by the party in power thanks to the government’s entire communications machine, Élections Québec suggests banning government advertising and announcements for a certain period before the election period.

This would ensure “greater fairness between political parties,” it is argued.

There would be exceptions for “emergency situations related to public health or safety.”

Finally, the organization is proposing significant changes to the process of revising the electoral map and the delimitation of constituencies, following the parties’ rejection of the last revision proposed by the Commission de la représentation électorale earlier this year.

In total, the organization is presenting some thirty recommendations, which would require a reform of the Act current election.

These proposals were developed following exhaustive consultations with parties, experts, groups and a citizens' table.

It will be up to the government to decide whether it wants to table a bill to implement these recommendations, which will also have to obtain a consensus from the other parties in the House, as is agreed for changes that affect institutions.