Canadian Lawyer - sample

30 M A R C H 2 0 1 9 w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m With a young baby at home, he needed to earn money. So, he looked for a job and found his calling. "I applied to the department of justice human rights law sec- tion and that was my first job where I really landed in a place where I felt that this was it. I was surprised to a certain degree by that, but I had extraordinary colleagues, extraordinary files. A real sense that I was doing important work for a public purpose." At the justice department, Perrault worked on a range of topics including privacy and criminal law involving search and seizure as well as freedom of expression and freedom of association cases. "One of the beauties of constitutional law is that it doesn't hang in isolation," Perrault explains. "It's constitutional law in context of criminal law, labour law, of transport law. So, you get to see a wide range of legal issues. And being at the centre at that time, the human rights section interacted with all the parts." Work at the justice department on human rights aspects of the Canada Elections Act led him to the Privy Council Office, work- ing on sweeping reform to Canada's political financing regime introduced by former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. After a year-long sabbatical to take care of his children and allow his wife to focus on her legal career, Perrault moved to Elec- tions Canada in 2007. "I found here a second calling, really, after the human rights law section, and I've really enjoyed every moment here." While he didn't renew his membership in Quebec's bar after he was nominated chief electoral officer last May, Perrault says hav- ing been a lawyer and working as a lawyer for Elections Canada prepared him well. "As a lawyer, especially as senior general counsel, I basically had a finger in every pie. So, you get to know the organization. You get to know every hot topic within the organization in rela- tion to an election, whether it's security aspects or operations or HR. So, coming into this role, I already had exposure to pretty much every angle of the organization. That was very useful." P errault's appointment came shortly after the government introduced Bill C-76, a sweeping overhaul of Canada's elec- tion rules. Both Côté and Perrault are hoping that this will give them the tools they need to fight the prospect of the kind of disruption being seen around the world. Barojan, who is based in Riga, Latvia, says the attacks can come in several different forms. It could be bots and paid trolls amplifying existing divisions in society, fake news such as changing the captions of a foreign-language news report to make it seem like it was saying something it wasn't or social media posts that purport to come from local residents that are actually being generated overseas. "We have seen one of the most common shapes that foreign interference is currently taking is cyber-hacking, then leaking of the hacked material ahead of elections. That is definitely a risk that a lot of countries that are having elections this and next year will have to take into account when preparing to defend their electoral processes." Barojan said hackers often target political parties and indi- vidual candidates. "Usually, those are the entities that don't have enough cyber- security and build cyber-defences and usually are the weakest link in the chain." When it comes to preventing election disruption, she says, good preparation is the best defence. "What we have seen in the most recent elections in Europe is that countries that prepared the most for foreign interference and disinformation campaigns suffered from them the least. It definitely deters an adversary because they might get caught and that might cost them their international reputation or sour the bilateral relationship even more." Mayrand says foreign disruption is something he didn't have to face during the last election in 2015. "An external dimension to technology is what we've seen especially in the U.S. and we are all afraid that could happen in Canada — the misuse of technology to disseminate myths or false information to try to influence electors. So, to me, that's a major emerging concern that wasn't there certainly in the same scope 10 years ago." But Mayrand, who played a role in hiring Côte as commis- sioner and Perrault as an Elections Canada lawyer, is convinced both are up to the task. Mayrand describes Perrault as bright and knowledgeable with good judgment. "I think he's a good team player. He can lead when he needs to lead; then he can be on the team when he needs to be on the team." Côté, he says, is an experienced lawyer and "in a sense an iron fist in a velvet glove." "He's very easygoing, very calm but very, very determined and very thorough in everything he does. He should not be underestimated." P errault and Côté are each aware that they face potential threats that their predecessors could barely imagine. They are already preparing for that prospect. Perrault's job is to conduct the election and counter "We know that we will face issues that we haven't seen and [for which] we haven't planned. But that's true at every election." STÉPHANE PERRAULT

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