Hon. Rodger Cuzner: Thank you for being here, minister. I know this week marked year five of your significant bout with cancer and the treatments. It is great to see you here in good health and spirits.

Many of us watch with great dismay the happenings south of the border, where there seems to be a concerted effort to undermine the foundations of democratic institutions and, more specifically, Americans’ confidence in their electoral system. I think Canadians continue to have faith in the integrity of their electoral system, but questions have been asked concerning foreign interference. I guess this coattails off the question posed by Senator Cormier.

Can you share with this chamber the specific actions that your government has undertaken in order to protect that integrity in our electoral system?

Hon. Dominic LeBlanc, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs: Senator Cuzner, thank you for the question. You and I were serving in the other place five years ago, when I developed a very aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. You are right: It was five years ago yesterday that a 20-year-old German boy gave me 570 million stem cells at a hospital in Maisonneuve-Rosemont, Montreal. So if I am sitting here seemingly healthy five years later, it is thanks to that remarkable scientific and medical achievement. Thank you for noting that. When the doctors hook up the stem cell bag into your IV, they say, “Welcome to your second birthday,” so yesterday I turned five. Thank you for identifying that, Senator Cuzner.

You’re absolutely right. We do look to the United States and have conversations with the United States Attorney General, as I did two weeks ago, and with the Homeland Security Secretary around what we can do to learn from one another in strengthening our democratic institutions.

I think this is important to say, and we can’t say it enough: I have enormous faith in the resiliency and the strength of Canadian democratic institutions. I am lucky enough to see the work of our security agencies up close. I see the strength and integrity of our democratic institutions. I see the work done by Elections Canada and provincial elections administration agencies. But I also see the remarkable work that Canadians do to understand and strengthen the capacity of our democratic institutions to elect governments in provinces, in municipalities and at the federal level.

We have taken, as you noted, senator, since we formed the government, steps that previously did not exist in terms of strengthening democratic institutions against foreign interference specifically. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service first talked publicly in 2013 about the risk of foreign interference. Our government was the first government to do something significant in this area.

Your Honour, your clerk forgot to stand up. I thought he was allowing me to —

Senator Cuzner: Minister, Bill C-65 amends the Canada Elections Act, and I’m pleased to see the effort to increase voter participation. Could you speak briefly about some of the provisions within that bill?

Mr. LeBlanc: Senator Cuzner, thank you again. Your colleagues spoke about this legislation. This is legislation that we think does two significant things. We took recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer and from Elections Canada around strengthening democratic institutions from foreign interference, so things like banning, for example, crypto-currencies, prepaid gift cards as ways to contribute, ensuring that there is greater transparency around financing in the electoral process. That is often a way that hostile actors seek to interfere in the Canadian democratic process, so the legislation has important elements in that regard.

It also makes things like mail-in ballots more accessible. Increasingly, Canadians want to be able to participate through the postal system in a way, of course, that ensures the highest level of integrity. Those are just a few examples, and there are so many more, Senator Cuzner.