The following letter attempts to explain the nature of the Internet to the Chief Electoral Officer.

The position taken by Elections BC is a draconian step towards extinguishing fundamental liberties.
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April 19, 2001

Mr. Robert Patterson
Chief Electoral Officer
1055 Pendergast                                       by fax only to 250-387-3578
Victoria, BC

Dear Bob,

Thank you for your letter of April 19th. I regret that we so fundamentally disagree.

I found the email sent by Ms Western to be unfortunate and harassing. Rather than opening the matter for discussion, it simply declared that Elections BC "deemed" something that is simply not true. I find Ms Western's language neither neutral nor consistent with the Elections Act.

In your letter you state "Elections BC has consistently identified the Internet as a medium through which election advertising may be published." In your interview on CBC yesterday, you stated that the Canada Elections Act specifically excludes the Internet and that the BC Elections Act is silent on the point. Therefore, what we have is a bureaucratic interpretation of our legislation that attempts to extend to the Internet a controversial Part of the Act that has been overturned in court when applied to other mediums. I would suggest that is not very wise.

Even if the BC Elections Act applied to the Internet, it would not apply in the manner you and your staff have indicated. There are many means of expression on the Internet. It is a network that carries a variety of medium. In particular, one can access files through FTP, one can participate in chat rooms, one can post notes to newsgroups and one can publish websites as but a few examples. The argument expressed by Elections BC would mean that any individual posting a personal political opinion to a newsgroup that advocated for or against a particular party during the election period would be captured by the Act. Such a position would be contrary to Charter Rights, unworkable and clearly ludicrous.

In terms of opportunity for anyone in the world to view content, there is no difference between publishing a small website and posting to a newsgroup. Furthermore, most publishers of websites view them as equivalent to publishing one's own newspaper. If you look at a large website such as http://www.cnn.com you will see paid advertisements on the site. There is a substantial difference between the advertisements on the site and the site itself, just as there is a difference between a newspaper and the advertisements it carries. The Vancouver Province frequently urges people not to vote NDP, it is no different for a website to advocate an editorial position except that the website may have a few hundred visitors compared to the hundreds of thousands that view the mainstream media.

In your CBC interview you relied on Black's Law Dictionary to define advertising. The section your read is clearly not consistent with common usage nor is it consistent with the context of the Election Act. It is reasonable to argue that Part 11 of the Election Act was framed so as to prevent willful overspending on election limits through the use of third parties. Regrettably, that issue appears to have been overturned by the courts. That Part was not framed so as to limit free speech, as it exists on the Internet nor anywhere. When one sees an advertisement in the normal print or electronic media, it contains an element of push. That is to say one reads or views the media for purposes other than seeing the advertisement, and the advertisement is presented with the other content. My website is pull media, meaning that no one sees it unless they choose to and there is no unexpected paid advertisements on it.

The regrettable positions taken by your office may end up being tested in the courts. So as to keep the issues to the matter of the attempted regulation of free speech on the Internet by Elections BC, I am considering filing (under protest) your registration form. If I were to do that, I would not interpret any element of that form or of Part 11 of the Act to apply to the Internet. Hence, since I am not going to engage in any advertising as actually contemplated by the Act, no further filings would occur.

My problem with that filing, is that it could be interpreted as conceding an important point. I would not want anyone using the Internet whether through a personal website or through a posting to a newsgroup or chat room to think that they first had to register with Elections BC if they so much as dared to express a political opinion.

It is difficult for any citizen to fight with a bureaucracy that has access to unlimited funding for legal disputes. Nevertheless, failure to do so would lead to the extinguishments of fundamental liberties. I consider the position taken by Elections BC to be a draconian step towards such extinguishments.

Sincerely,

David D. Schreck

Click here for initial letter from Elections BC and response

Click here for second email to Elecitons BC

Click here for April 18th letter requesting Elections BC to withdraw its original letter.

Click here for April 19th response from the Chief Electoral Officer