:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will keep my remarks relatively brief.
I am pleased to be here as part of your study on electronic petitions, emanating from Mr. Stewart's motion, M-428, which instructs the committee to "recommend changes to the Standing Orders and other conventions governing petitions so as to establish an electronic petitioning system".
Thank you for the invitation. I am joined today by Soufiane Ben Moussa, Chief Technology Officer of Information Services at the House of Commons.
I will begin with a very brief overview of the evolution of the issue of e-petitions at the House of Commons, and then outline the themes and questions the committee may wish to consider with respect to this proposal. And, of course, I would then be happy to take questions.
Electronic petitioning was first discussed during meetings of the Special Committee on the Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures of the House of Commons in 2003, as part of its general mandate. In its fourth report, it recommended "the development of a system for electronic petitions in consultation with the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs". After the special committee ceased its work with the prorogation of November 2003, your committee continued this work on e-petitions.
[English]
On February 3, 2005, along with then-clerk, Mr. Bill Corbett, and then-deputy clerk, Ms. Audrey O'Brien, I appeared before this committee to discuss electronic notices and petitions.
At that time members of the committee raised important questions, many of which remain relevant in the current context, including how to validate an online signature, how to prevent frivolous or libellous petitions, and the role of members in the e-petition process. As a result, the committee concluded that the proposal required further consideration.
In addition, the key themes outlined by Audrey O'Brien in 2005, the uniformity of rules and practices with paper petitions, the authenticity of signatures, the level of interactivity, the culture of petitions, and the cost and infrastructure of an e-petition system, are still very relevant.
Today we will focus on the proposal at hand; that is, an e-petition system with a possibility of a take-note debate when a petition gathers more than 100,000 signatures and is sponsored by at least 10 members of Parliament.
[Translation]
We will try to address very briefly various related issues that could be of interest to the committee. The first one relates to changes to the rules.
As it stands, the proposal would require moderate changes to the Standing Orders. For the purpose of simplicity, the e-petition system should mirror, to the extent possible, the current procedures and practices in place for paper petitions.
[English]
For example, members should retain the role they have with respect to paper petitions for e-petitions. They could present such e-petitions in the House or with the Clerk on behalf of their constituents without being involved in initiating or in endorsing them. That being said, they could do it, as well.
The committee should consider what would be required for an individual to initiate an e-petition. For instance, what information should be collected from or about this individual and what level of responsibility will they assume for the content of the petition? The committee may also wish to consider whether multiple petitions on a similar topic can be published on an e-petitions website at the same time, and if not, what constitutes a substantial difference between two proposed e-petitions.
The idea of holding a debate, for instance a four-hour take-note debate—it could be less than four hours—was also raised. If the committee were to decide to include such a proposal, it would definitely require changes to the Standing Orders. As our Standing Orders are currently drafted, only ministers of the crown may propose motions of this kind. The committee should also give consideration to a mechanism to schedule these debates.
[Translation]
The timeliness for an e-petition is also important to consider. The proposal refers to a 90-day period for public petitioning on the Web site. This is certainly in keeping with the general approach followed elsewhere. Obviously, this period can be shorter or longer.
As well, the committee may reflect on what, if any, effect a prorogation or a dissolution might have. One could argue that the process should continue when Parliament is prorogued, but be suspended while Parliament is dissolved. That would be for the simple reason that you would not want to have a parliamentary petition system potentially used for electoral purposes. Also, procedurally speaking, the membership of the House has to be reconstituted.
[English]
The proposal at hand indicates that e-petitions be presented in the House of Commons only once a certain threshold of signatures has been reached. The committee may want to reflect on what would happen to e-petitions that do not garner the required number of signatures, or for which there is no member who agrees to present it. Perhaps they could be deemed withdrawn after a certain amount of time.
The procedure for presenting an e-petition in the House could also require consideration. For instance the committee could consider having only the certificate presented along with the text of the petition and the number of signatures rather than the entire list of names. This would also be in continuity with the paperless exercise. We can imagine with 100,000 signatures how many pages that would represent.
Now let us turn our attention to the issue of the authenticity of signatures. The current requirements for a signature and address may or may not suffice for e-petitions. While not offering the highest level of authentication, it appears that the basic e-mail confirmation system alluded to at your last meeting has proven to be a good, cost-effective measure.
During the last meeting as well, members also considered the monitoring of IP or Internet protocol addresses. Simply put, would a safeguard that detects the IP address of petitioners be effective at preventing a single person from submitting numerous signatures? It is to be noted that an IP address is a series of four numbers that identifies initiating devices and various Internet destinations making two-way communication possible. These days it is very common for a single organization to have a router with an IP address that corresponds to a number of computers on a local area network, as is the case at the House of Commons. Therefore, blocking multiple signatories from the same IP address may prevent legitimate signatures on e-petitions from people accessing the Internet from within the same organization, such as a public library or Internet café. That said, we could monitor the IP addresses, for instance, if IP addresses come from outside the country.
In conjunction with determining what information will be required from signatories to an e-petition, the committee will also need to consider in detail the key issues of security and privacy for petitioners. For instance, what level of detail should be displayed on the public website? Some systems display the name and the location of each signatory. For instance, it could be the name of the individual and the province. Others display only the name of the person who initiated the petition and the total number of signatories, so no names of each petitioner.
[Translation]
Also, how long should data regarding petitions and their signatories be stored on the site and in our systems? That is another question that will need to be answered.
Our unique culture and context will surely continue to shape this committee's discussions and decisions. For instance, all information posted on the parliamentary Web site is in both official languages. This should probably hold true for e-petitions.
That said, as is the case for individuals submitting briefs to parliamentary committees, it would be the House administration that could assume responsibility for translating the prayer of e-petitions. That way, they would be available in both official languages.
[English]
Finally, I would like to conclude with some information regarding the implementation and costs associated with an e-petition system. As you can imagine, they are highly dependent on the determined features and requirements, such as: the level of workflow complexity related to the initiation of an e-petition; the level of integration with our internal system—and I think you alluded to that at the last meeting; the extent to which we want to develop a mobile-friendly application—for instance, today close to 50% of the people who go on our website do it through a mobile application; the level of assurance of the signatory's identity; and the volume of e-petition participation. As of yesterday morning, before we proceeded with the petitions in the afternoon, during routine proceedings we had 3,797 petitions that were tabled in the House this year. Many more were certified, but close to 4,000 petitions were tabled in the House. We have a very high volume of petitions here at the House of Commons.
That said, we have some preliminary information for the committee, which is based on our evaluation of a solution that would offer generally the same features as the model used in the United Kingdom, which you alluded to at the last meeting as well. A high-level estimate would lead us to believe that an initial investment of $100,000 to $200,000 would be required. To this, you would probably need to add around 20% for ongoing technical costs. Furthermore, this does not take into account the extra staff that potentially—and we say potentially; we'll have to evaluate that—could be needed to manage the system.
In our estimation the development and implementation phases could take from three to six months. That would be three to six months after the approval of a business case, as you can imagine, by the Board of Internal Economy.
Observers will tell you that the e-petition system is not perfect. In fact, it simply reproduces, some would say even multiplies, the qualities and challenges of the system for traditional paper petitions. In that perspective, if it wishes to support the idea of e-petitions, the committee's task is to mitigate the difficulties enumerated and build on its possibilities. The administration of the House would be there to help the procedure and House affairs committee and the House of Commons to meet that objective.
We look forward to assisting the committee as it considers these important issues and will be happy to answer any questions.
Merci.
:
Thank you for being here today, gentlemen.
I have a couple of observations and questions sort of from a 30,000-foot perspective, although I want to get on the record because you never know when there's going to be an election.
This is one of the funniest things I ever heard. Every time I say 30,000 feet, it reminds me of Laurie Hawn when we were debating something. Laurie Hawn jumped in after I had made this great argument about what happens when you see things from 30,000 feet. He said, “I'm a former jet fighter pilot. You know what you see from 30,000 feet? Nothing.” Anyway it was one of the greatest comebacks, and I want to give him his due on that one.
Having said that, taking a sort of overall perspective of things, when we have these great ideas as politicians, as parliamentarians, that we think are just fantastic ideas and are going to make democracy hit the sweet spot, we meet with folks like you who actually have to turn these things into reality. Often we get a bit of a shock that you, the administration, are not always as enthused as we are about these brilliant ideas we get.
I have to say my sense in this case, though, is I'm not hearing a lot of pushback. I'm not hearing you saying, “Members, be very careful. There are very serious things here.” You're pointing out some issues that we need to come to grips with and questions that need to be answered, but my sense is that you're not sounding the alarm that we're heading down a road we may regret, but that this is doable if we answer the right questions and do this properly. It sounds like your thinking is that this is doable.
Now, those are all my words. Please respond in whatever way best reflects your thinking, sir.
:
Mr. Chair, it's a pleasure to be here today and to speak to Motion M-428. I thank the committee for the invitation.
This motion is, I think we can all agree, one that clearly cuts across the political spectrum, and we're happy to speak to it.
My name is Aaron Wudrick. I am the new federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We are a federally incorporated non-profit citizens' group with more than 84,000 supporters across Canada. Our advocacy is centred around three key principles; those are lower taxes, less waste, and accountable government. It's on this third principle, accountable government, that I appear here today.
The principle that citizens should have a voice in government in between elections is critical to our democratic tradition. One of the ways this has long been recognized is through the use of petitions as a means to measure popular support for an initiative, whether it be demands for government action or recognition or to voice opposition to particular legislation. It is a healthy and a useful tool to inform politicians about what is important to Canadians and to let Canadians stimulate debate on those issues.
We believe that politicians should welcome petitions and what they stand for, both as a guide and as a check on their instincts, and I'm sure that many members of Parliament, whether in government or opposition, have at least once or twice been caught off guard by the reaction from their constituents on some piece of controversial legislation that they either support or oppose. These petitions, when given formal standing by Parliament, are a way for Canadians to express themselves in a manner that is more powerful than simply speaking to their member of Parliament.
With respect to Motion M-428 specifically, we think it should be uncontroversial that we bring the mechanisms for gathering petition signatures into the 21st century. In most other ways, government has evolved and has adapted modern technologies that allow members of Parliament to do their jobs better. These include such simple things, which we take for granted now, as e-mail and social media, which allow MPs to communicate with their constituents. Also, the ability for witnesses to appear at these committees by video is of course a relatively recent phenomenon.
Moreover, as I caught from some of the previous witnesses, many other countries have embraced e-petitions, and we see no compelling reason that Parliament should not do the same.
If anything, we believe that Motion M-428 does not go quite far enough. In particular, we are concerned about the provision that requires a petition to be sponsored by five members of Parliament before it can be considered by Parliament. While on the one hand we certainly understand that it's reasonable that Parliament would want to avoid parliamentary business being hijacked by a flood of e-petitions, this provision gives rise to the possibility of a petition on an issue with potentially hundreds of thousands of signatures that would not be considered by Parliament simply because it did not have those five sponsors.
What we would suggest is something in this vein: that a petition beyond a certain threshold, perhaps a very high threshold, trigger a take-note debate with or without the requisite number of MP sponsors.
That being said, we do not wish to make the perfect the enemy of the good. This motion simply brings a well-established principle into the modern era. We believe that by supporting this motion, Parliament would be demonstrating its commitment to greater accountability and would be giving voice to thousands of Canadians who feel that the political system does not speak to their concerns.
Thank you.
:
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and ladies and gentlemen of the committee.
My name is François Arsenault and I am the Director of Parliamentary Proceedings at the National Assembly of Quebec. First of all, I would like to thank the committee for having invited me to appear, and I hope that what I have to say will be useful to you as you continue your work.
Since the 2009 parliamentary reform, it has been possible both to start and to sign an e-petition on the National Assembly of Quebec's Web site. This option is in addition to signing a paper petition. One reason for this reform was to make the National Assembly more accessible to Quebec residents and to make it easier for them to participate. It was also important to ensure that the e-petition process was secure.
An MNA who agrees to present an electronic petition must submit a signed notice to the Secretary General of the National Assembly and include the following information: the period of time during which the petition will be posted on the assembly's Web site to collect signatures, between one week and three months; the full name and contact information of the person initiating the petition; and the text of the petition. A ruling on whether the petition is compliant must be given within seven days of receipt of the notice submitted by the MNA.
An e-petition is non-compliant if it was not initiated and signed on the assembly's Web site, the text of the petition exceeds 250 words or it contravenes Standing Order 35 of the National Assembly. Standing Order 35 provides that a petition be rejected if it addresses a matter of sub judice—so a matter that is before a court of law—it imputes improper motives to a member, or it fails to use acceptable language—so it contains violent, abusive or insulting language. An e-petition is non-compliant with the Standing Orders of the National Assembly if it does not seek to redress a grievance that falls under Quebec jurisdiction.
Once a petition has been considered, if it is ruled admissible and compliant, it will be posted on the assembly's Web site to collect signatures. No other electronic petition with the same subject can be initiated during the time the first petition is posted.
Once the petition is available online, all citizens who wish to sign it must fill out a short form with their first and last name, city, province, postal code and email address. Once this information has been submitted, citizens will receive a confirmation email at the email address they provided. The citizen must then click on the URL link in the email to confirm their electronic signature. If they fail to click the link, their signature will not be recorded.
Thanks to a signature management software program called Gestion des signataires, the signatures are sorted according to various criteria. Assembly employees must verify signatures that the software program has flagged. It asks for verification in the following cases: if there are duplicates; if a name seems suspicious, as in the Mickey Mouse case mentioned earlier; if the citizen provided only their initials; or if the signature was confirmed using a National Assembly email address.
Once the period for collecting signatures for an electronic petition is over, the sponsoring member has 3 days to table the abstract of the petition in the Chamber. The relevant committee has 15 days following the tabling of the petition to decide whether to examine the petition or not. If the relevant committee chooses not to examine the petition, if, after the 15-day time limit, the committee has not agreed to examine the petition, or if the committee has prepared and submitted a report on the petition, the government has 30 days to respond to the petition in writing.
This is a summary of how the e-petition process works. Now, what about citizen participation using this process? Our statistics do not go back very far, since e-petitions have been in use for only five fiscal years. This means that the data must be interpreted with care.
From the tables in the appendix of the brief, you can see that 200 petitions are tabled annually in the National Assembly, on average. Approximately 70 of these are online petitions. Over the years, there has been a slight increase in the proportion of e-petitions tabled when compared with paper petitions. However, the total number of petitions tabled has remained relatively constant, with some small variations.
In contrast, if you look at the number of people who sign these petitions, you can see that all the petitions taken together over the course of a year have about 500,000 signatures in total. Electronic petitions account for approximately 300,000 of these signatures.
In short, the number of electronic signatures has increased through the availability of this new method of citizen participation when compared with the number of signatures on paper. It is also worth noting that the total number of signatures for all types of petitions has not increased by very much.
Thank you for your attention. I am available to answer any questions you may have.
My name is Tim Mercer. I'm the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.
The ability of residents to petition their government through their elected legislature has existed in the Northwest Territories for many years. The first recorded instances predate the relocation from Ottawa to Yellowknife in September 1967 of what was then known as the territorial council.
The debates of the council from March 6 to 10, 1967, indicate that six petitions were presented. One of these supported the application of a Hay River man for Canadian citizenship. Another called for increased medical services in the community of Gjoa Haven, which was then part of the Northwest Territories. The remaining four called for the off-premises sale of beer in Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik, and Yellowknife.
In addition to shedding light on what was on the minds of residents back in those days, these examples also illustrate the focus of written petitions on largely local matters. They worked reasonably well for issues centred on specific geographic regions or communities. Like Canada, however, the Northwest Territories is a vast and sparsely populated land. Its communities are separated from one another by long distances and the absence of convenient transportation infrastructure.
The old system of written petitions simply wasn't conducive to mobilizing public sentiment on issues that spilled across local boundaries or cut across the territory as a whole. Electronic petitions were introduced in the NWT Legislative Assembly on a pilot basis in the spring of 2010. It was not unanimously supported.
Some of the concerns expressed at the time related to the perceived inability to authenticate electronic signatures, the protection of personal information and privacy, cost, workload, and the provision of a visible and easily accessible platform for the airing of frivolous and vexatious grievances. While these were all valid concerns, the pilot project did demonstrate that each of these could be mitigated to the satisfaction of the initial detractors.
Prior to an electronic petition going live on the assembly's website, it is first vetted by the Clerk's office to ensure that it meets the criteria established in the rules of the Legislative Assembly. These criteria, similar to what my colleague from Quebec just mentioned, include ensuring that the subject matter of the petition is within the competent jurisdiction of the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Legislative Assembly, that it does not include libellous or defamatory statements, that it uses appropriate language, and that it does not address matters that are presently before the courts or similar quasi-judicial tribunals.
Because similar vetting does not occur for traditional written petitions, electronic petitions are less likely to be ruled out of order at the time of tabling. When a proposed electronic petition is rejected, the subject matter of the petition and the reason for the rejection are posted on the Assembly's website, even though it is not subsequently open to signature. In most cases the Clerk's office is able to work with the lead petitioner to resolve any outstanding issues prior to its being made publicly available or rejected outright. Decisions of the Clerk's office to reject a petition are subject to appeal to the Speaker.
The concern over the authenticity of signatures is addressed by requiring petitioners to enter their full names, civic addresses, and e-mail addresses at the time of going onto the system. Prior to a signature being added to the online petition, an e-mail is sent to the individual ,who must acknowledge its receipt. Only one signature per e-mail address is permitted, and a limit is placed on the number of signatures that may originate from a single IP address. We don't limit it to one signature per IP address, in the event that there are families, like mine, who have one computer and several e-mail addresses and all the family members may wish to sign. Petitioners are also required to solve a simple arithmetic problem to prevent mass computer-generated signatures.
Members who were concerned about the authenticity of signatures were reminded that these protections, while by no means insurmountable by someone determined to distort the final results, far exceed the scrutiny applied to traditional written signatures, many of which are illegible.
Although the lead and subsequent petitioners are required to provide their civic and e-mail addresses when accessing the system, only the person's name and community of residence is ultimately published on the website. The system makes it clear that personal information is only used for the purposes of verifying the authenticity of the petitioner and providing updates on the disposition of the petition, if expressly requested.
Following an evaluation of the e-petition pilot project in 2012, the Assembly resolved to permanently implement the initiative within its Standing Orders. In the two years since implementation, 14 e-petitions have been established and tabled in the Assembly. Many of these have been tabled in combination with traditional written petitions. There have been three rejected and each of the rejections took place because the respective prayers called for the redress of matters outside the competent authority of the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Legislative Assembly.
The technology used for the site was purchased off the shelf from a firm located in the United Kingdom for a price of $8,000. Minimal customization was required to meet the Assembly's requirements. The site is hosted and maintained by the firm in the U.K. for just over $800 a year, although it is accessed seamlessly from the Assembly's website with an identical look and feel to the remainder of the site.
There has been a marginal increase in the workload within the Clerk's office as a result of the implementation of the petitions. However, the overall result has been an increase in the quality and clarity of petitions that are tabled in our legislature. More importantly, the initiative has led to the significant improvement in citizen engagement and access to the NWT's political institutions, particularly on the part of residents who are normally far removed from the proceedings of the House, and on issues that cut across geographic and regional boundaries
Mr. Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to share the experiences of the NWT Legislative Assembly with electronic petitions. I'd be pleased to respond to any questions that you have.