Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move that Sections 104 and 299 of the Elections and Plebiscites Act be amended to prohibit election advertising on polling day and the day prior.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am very glad to see this here. I have found in the two elections that I have been involved in that it has been extremely confusing. It used to talk about broadcasting. This is now talking about advertising and all kinds of election advertising, so it’s going to make it much simpler. It will be clear that you don’t do anything in terms of your election on the voting day and the day prior. I’m very glad to see this amendment coming forward.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question to this is the amendment to this advertising on the day of polling, I guess, does that mean current advertising that has been in place has to be removed or is the addition of advertising and polling the day prior to or the day of?
We’re just speaking to the motion here, Mr. Bouchard. Does anyone from the committee wish to offer to the motion? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this, as Ms. Bisaro identified, clarifies the terminology under election advertising and tries to level the playing field. There are some forms of advertising that are active and can be deactivated, others that are print form that can’t, and so it clarifies under election advertising which of those categories it falls into.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to admit, I don’t recall the exact detailed discussion when we had it in committee, but one of the problems we had was recognizing advertisement in general. For example, it’s easy to say don’t advertise in print on that day, and that makes sense to people, or for example, don’t advertise on television, which in the Northwest Territories tends to be fortunate in that area. It’s too expensive and these are small campaigns so you don’t tend to see a lot of it, and that’s what I mean by fortunate.
On the radio now, we’re getting into means and mediums that people can afford and tend to advertise in, and I think that it’s things like that that make a lot of sense to people. However, now we’re engaged in social media and now it gets a little tricky, and so the challenge, of course, is how to balance this off. I think the intent here is – I do remember a fulsome discussion about it – if someone tweets a message advertising for a particular campaign and they are promoting them, if I recall, they may be in violation of it. So it’s a bit of a quirk on this particular case. Do you have to deactivate your Facebook account? I think there are a lot of details still to be worked out. I would not think that this is probably enough information at this particular time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Again, speaking to the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Bromley.
