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The Elections Modernization Act (Bill C-76) received royal assent in December, bringing into law new spending limits and rules for transparency. But it doesn’t go far enough to control election advertising in the age of the Internet and social media.
Gaps remain, allowing political entities to share and/or pay to promote content in ways that can circumvent the legal definition of election advertising in problematic ways. Our new so-called modern elections laws likely won’t be able to keep up.
During elections, candidates – like all Canadians – can use personal social media profiles to present personal opinions. But for a candidate, these profiles also become vehicles for self-promotion. And in other circumstances, promotion outside of formal paid advertising is not allowed. For example, under the CRTC rules, which are geared to broadcasters, on-air personalities who become candidates must go off the air for the duration of their election campaign. With increased social media use during campaigns, there has been a blurring of the boundary between what is considered sharing an opinion within your own network and what is considered broadcasting to the public.
Recent events show an unclear distinction between personal and political social media accounts for politicians. Take the example of Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, who was challenged last year for blocking some members of the public on his personal Twitter account. These citizens argued that his action violated their Charter rights. Watson eventually concluded that his account is public, and he unblocked the people in question. The conflict demonstrates the increasing role that candidates’ social media profiles play as both personal and political platforms.
It is problematic, then, that the new act doesn’t clarify whether self-promotion via social media is still considered simple personal opinion during campaigns and blackout periods.