OTTAWA — Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand wants Parliament to overhaul Canada’s elections law to prevent deceptive telephone calls by adding stiffer penalties and giving new powers to investigators. In a recommendation aimed directly at the calls received in Guelph, Ont., on the 2011 election day, Mayrand says Parliament should close a loophole in the Criminal Code and make it illegal to impersonate an Elections Canada official. He advises maximum penalties on conviction of violators of $250,000 in fines and five years in jail. In a report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, Mayrand suggests that political parties develop “codes of conduct” aimed at preventing the kind of misleading phone calls reported by more than 1,400 Canadians in 247 ridings in the last election. Read the Chief Electoral Officer's report here.

The report, entitled “Preventing Deceptive Communications with Electors,” also recommends that Elections Canada investigators be given a new power to apply to a judge for an order compelling witnesses to provide information during an investigation. Mayrand’s agency has hinted in the past that comparatively weak penalties and limits on investigative powers in the current elections law have made it harder to track down who was responsible for the “Pierre Poutine” robocalls in Guelph, and misleading calls in other ridings. “While political parties and candidates must continue to be able to communicate with electors effectively, measures are required to provide basic privacy protections and help prevent deceptive communications,” Mayrand writes. Mayrand wants a new law, based on a provincial law in Ontario, which would make it an offence of anyone to falsely present themselves as an employee of Elections Canada or as a representative of a candidate or political party. The government said Wednesday that it will have a look at Mayrand’s report. “As previously indicated, we are looking at reforms to Canada’s election laws,” said an emailed statement from Tim Uppal, the minister of state for democratic reform. “We will consider these suggestions as we prepare to put forward a comprehensive elections reform proposal.” Investigators have previously struggled to apply the Elections Act to calls that appear to be designed to mislead voters. In the Guelph case, the “Pierre Poutine” suspect sent out 7,676 voters pre-recorded calls that falsely claimed to be from Elections Canada, telling them their polling locations had been changed. While personation is already an offence under the Criminal Code, Mayrand’s report says the provision would not apply to “a call or caller represented as ‘Elections Canada,’ nor to a fictitious character such as Pierre Poutine.” Mayrand also proposes giving Elections Canada investigators the power to compel testimony from witnesses, a power that other regulatory agencies enjoy, although the evidence witnesses give could not be used against them. Investigators are now hamstrung by the inability to compel witnesses to speak, he writes.

“In the case of the Guelph investigation into misleading robocalls, the publicly available court records show that at least three individuals believed to have key information refused to speak with investigators,” he writes. “The inability to compel testimony has been one of the most significant obstacles to effective enforcement of the act.” The agency wants parties, candidates and riding associations to report to Elections Canada on “telemarketing services on a timely basis,” providing the texts of any messages, the dates they were sent and, if requested, the list of numbers to which they were sent. The agency also wants the power to require telecommunications companies to preserve records while investigators prepare a court order, and require political parties to produce documents about their contractual arrangements with voter contact firms. As it stands, parties do not have to disclose who they hire to do voter contact work, although individual campaigns do have to file such reports. Mayrand says that investigations into calls have been complicated by new technologies such as disposable credit cards, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services, and proxy servers that hide users’ Internet addresses. He recommended that the revised Elections Act require that the name and phone number of the sponsoring political party be identified on the call display of all calls, and the name of party be stated at the beginning of the message. He also said there should be limitations on the time of day that political calls can be made, similar to those restrictions on telemarketing calls policed by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission — even outside election periods. The report also says that Elections Canada will strive to “warn electors about misleading calls and inform them of available remedies,” and collaborate with the CRTC to better explain applicable rules to political parties. It also calls for political parties to develop voluntary codes of conduct, with the assistance of Elections Canada if necessary. The report adds that privacy provisions should be enshrined in the Elections Act to ensure political parties will properly handle sensitive donor and voter information in their databases, which have become key election tools. The report did not provide new information about the investigation into the deceptive calls in Guelph or elsewhere. Along with the report, the agency also released a poll, from Phoenix Strategic Perspectives, which polled 1,000 Canadians. The poll found that 90 per cent have confidence in Elections Canada, but Mayrand warns “this level of confidence will decrease if significant delays in investigations (let alone lack of results) occur following repeated perceived egregious violations of the Canada Elections Act.” The poll also asked Canadians about the phone calls they received during the election. Ten per cent of respondents said they received a call from Elections Canada telling them that their polling station had moved.