Bill C-26

An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 amends the Telecommunications Act to add the promotion of the security of the Canadian telecommunications system as an objective of the Canadian telecommunications policy and to authorize the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to direct telecommunications service providers to do anything, or refrain from doing anything, that is necessary to secure the Canadian telecommunications system. It also establishes an administrative monetary penalty scheme to promote compliance with orders and regulations made by the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to secure the Canadian telecommunications system as well as rules for judicial review of those orders and regulations.
This Part also makes a consequential amendment to the Canada Evidence Act .
Part 2 enacts the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act to provide a framework for the protection of the critical cyber systems of services and systems that are vital to national security or public safety and that are delivered or operated as part of a work, undertaking or business that is within the legislative authority of Parliament. It also, among other things,
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to designate any service or system as a vital service or vital system;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to establish classes of operators in respect of a vital service or vital system;
(c) requires designated operators to, among other things, establish and implement cyber security programs, mitigate supply-chain and third-party risks, report cyber security incidents and comply with cyber security directions;
(d) provides for the exchange of information between relevant parties; and
(e) authorizes the enforcement of the obligations under the Act and imposes consequences for non-compliance.
This Part also makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

You'll be able to rely on a binding formal agreement, sir, for the first three things I mentioned. This is going to be a formal binding agreement. This is not like the way you described. I demanded. There's no discussion. It's going to be done. There's no room for manoeuvring.

The second thing I would say, sir, with respect to Bill C-26—and I think you know because you're a very experienced legislator—amending the telecom act to add security to it will give additional power to the minister. It's not only that they will follow what I said, but if you support Bill C-26 with colleagues, it would add legal power to demand that. Once you add security to the objective of the telecom act, it would give broad power to the ministers to do what I did.

Now they did it. I demanded it. They're going to do it. We're going to do more and with Bill C-26, I think that you and I with colleagues will be able to better protect the public.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

No, but when I demanded that they put in these measures.... That's why we're rectifying it, MP Masse. Now we're going to have that. We'll have Bill C-26. In addition to that....

We're all on the same side. I spoke on behalf of 12 million Canadians. I said that this is what we demand now. To your point, sir—let me just finish—the CRTC will be investigating and they will be asking these questions about refunds. I said publicly the first day that I expect and demand that Rogers compensate people fairly and proactively. I said that from the get-go.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

With Bill C-26, you're right. That will promote cybersecurity, but it will do one important thing, with respect, sir. It will amend the Telecommunications Act to add security as an objective, which will give additional power to the minister if he needs to direct the company. We also have the new CRTC policy direction.

If you were at that meeting, you would say that I was not in a mood to listen to them. This was a directive that I issued to them. They complied immediately with what I demanded.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

With respect, MP Masse, this is not about, in a sense, the minister talking with the CEO. This is demanding. I wish you would have been on that call because you would have seen this was no time for challenging the Minister of Industry. I was talking on behalf of millions of Canadians.

Let me say three things we've done on the legislative side that will add to what we've been doing. The first thing you will recall very vividly. We decided in May to provide more resiliency in our our intention to exclude ZTE and Huawei from our 4G and 5G network. We introduced Bill C-26 on June 14, which will do two things.

With respect sir, let me just say—

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

We will work with the experts. I would add that I did not ask, but rather imposed on the companies the three measures mentioned, that is, to establish by a formal contract mutual assistance, emergency roaming and the communication protocol with the government and citizens. My team and I imposed these requirements and I said, few hours after the system was restored, that immediate and urgent action was needed to ensure the resilience of the system.

You will agree that this is a first step and that is why the committee's work is important. We want to get to the bottom of this, and when we have the findings as to why there was a code error in a normal update procedure, how this could have happened, and what the fault was, we will need to establish a redundancy in the system. That's what we're going to tackle.

In fact, I intend to do more. In addition, Bill C‑26 will give us additional cybersecurity authorities, and I intend to use them wisely to ensure greater resilience.

Telecommunications

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Granville for his question and his hard work.

Cybersecurity is national security. Bill C-26 will help both the public and private sectors better protect themselves against cyber-attacks and is one part of our robust strategy to defend Canada and the crucial infrastructure that Canadians rely on. We will always protect the safety and security of Canadians and we will take any actions necessary to safeguard our telecommunications infrastructure.

Telecommunications Act

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)