Bill C-8

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.
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 the disposal of personal information; 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.
Part 3 provides for a five-year review of the provisions enacted or amended by this Act.

Government Business No. 13—Proceedings on Bill C‑22

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is yet another erosion of the rights of Canadians. The same that we see in bills like this, in Bill C-11, Bill C-18, Bill C-9, Bill C-8 and Bill C-34 to some extent, although we are still studying it. This is an erosion of democracy, and it limits the participation of many in democracy. We hear every single day from our constituents, asking why we cannot do something about it. It is because they shut down debate, they shut off the cameras and they shut down committees.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very wise question.

Like every country, we are facing cyber-attacks from foreign entities, particularly India and China. We need to ensure that we have robust tools, and Internet providers must do the same. The bill provides some protections and imposes cybersecurity protection requirements on telecommunications service providers. That is what we did with Bill C-8. It also requires important collaboration to support the work of law enforcement. We agree with that. It is one of the good things about the bill.

I have to admit that I agree with the government members, and I think that there is a consensus on that. There is nobody here who does not want to support law enforcement in their work and who does not want to give the police modern tools with which to carry out their duties, but it is hard to draw a line between ensuring public safety and ensuring some degree of privacy protection under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

June 15, 2026

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that Mr. Ken MacKillop, Deputy of the Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 15th day of June 2026 at 8:25 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Ryan McAdam

Executive Director

Office of the Secretary to the Governor General

The bills assented to on Monday, June 15 were Bill C-8, An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (sterilization procedures) and Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the National Defence Act (bail and sentencing).

Government Business No. 12—Proceedings on Bill C-30

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, no. We do not have to agree to it. The opposition parties are guaranteed those 26 days, which do not include the many days when the Conservatives brought in concurrence motions.

Here is why it is important. If the Conservatives follow along, they will better understand why there is time allocation. Let us look at the legislative agenda. There is Bill C-3, the Citizenship Act; Bill C-4, the carbon tax cut; Bill C-8 respecting cybersecurity; Bill C-5, the one Canadian economy act; and Bill C-9, the combatting hate act, a piece of legislation I know the minister responsible for crime is very keen on.

We have Bill C-10, the commissioner for modern treaty implementation act; Bill C-11, the military justice system modernization act; Bill C-12, the strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act; and Bill C-13, respecting trade in Great Britain. We also had Bill C-16, the protecting victims act, and Bill C-20. Bill C-14 is the bail and sentencing reform legislation. I was just speaking about Bill C-16. There was filibustering even on that legislation.

There is Bill C-20, the Build Canada Homes act, which the Conservatives were criticizing in the speech before mine. There is Bill C-21, the Red River Métis self-government recognition and implementation treaty act, and Bill C-22, the lawful access act. When we brought in Bill C-2 regarding lawful access, the Conservatives said, “absolutely not”. They were going to oppose it, and there was no way they were going to let it pass. We had to bring in Bill C-22, and they are still opposing it.

There is Bill C-25, the strong and free elections act. Do members remember that one? I just made reference to it. Everyone agreed to it, yet the Conservatives still made the bells ring because they really did not want to debate, apparently.

Bill C-26 would authorize certain payments to be made out of the consolidated revenue fund for the purpose of improving housing supply. Conservatives talk a lot about housing and affordability, even though the average cost of a house has gone down since the new Prime Minister was elected. The average cost of rent has gone down since the Prime Minister was elected. However, we would not know that if we listened to the Conservatives.

The list goes on. Bill C-28, one I really like, is the Canadian space launch act. There is a whole industry, and there is industry potential. Thousands of jobs could be created. However, all the Conservatives say is that they do not like it and do not want it. We have to force legislation through.

That is not to mention the Senate bills. I can say that the Government of Canada, headed by our newly elected Prime Minister, has a very aggressive legislative agenda because we want to and will, despite what the Conservatives continue to put in our way, continue to fight and bring in legislation that is going to make our communities safer and stronger. As the Prime Minister says, we want a strong Canada for all Canadians. That is what we are striving for. We are saying we are going to build the strongest economy in the G7.

All one needs to do is look at the actions that the government and the Prime Minister have taken since the last election. All I made reference to was the legislation. In that legislation, there are a number of initiatives that complement the legislation. That is all part of the budget process and what the bill we are currently debating, Bill C-30, the spring economic update 2026 implementation act, is all about. It is the next step in supporting Canadians and building a stronger Canada, but the Conservatives still want to filibuster.

Let us look at what took place at the standing committee. On the one hand, the Conservatives say they want more time. They had 30 hours. From what I have been told by many of my colleagues and have heard from across the way, it was a filibuster show, with no discussions back and forth that could have taken place. That is a decision made depending on the motions that are brought forward. I know how standing committees work. When there is collaboration, good ideas and a willingness to work together, a standing committee can be very productive. I know that because there was a day I participated in standing committees. There is so much potential for all of us to work more collaboratively together on a wide spectrum of budgetary issues and legislative issues.

In fact, with respect to legislative issues, the first thing we did when we formed a majority government, contrary to what the Conservatives will say, is that we actually passed Conservative opposition private members' bills through to different stages. I suspect there is a real chance that under the Prime Minister since we have been a majority, in eight, nine or 12 weeks, whatever period of time it is, we have probably passed more opposition initiatives than Stephen Harper did in his four-year mandate. It would not surprise me if this is in fact the case.

I challenge members opposite to show me what private members' initiatives from the floor of the House of Commons actually passed when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, when the leader of the Conservative Party sat around the table, and contrast that to what we have done in eight weeks. There is no surprise there, because we have a Prime Minister who is committed to collaboration. Where there is a willingness to collaborate, we collaborate.

Let us take a look in terms of all the provinces. Let us talk about the major projects. Let us talk about Bill C-5, which I made reference to. That was possible only because of the collaboration between provinces and Ottawa under the Prime Minister. There is a reason we had the King of Canada make the throne speech. The King of Canada came in a historic moment and delivered the throne speech here. It was a significant time in Canada's history.

I think that, coming out of the election, we all need to recognize what was taking place prior to the last federal election. Canadians were concerned about our economy. They were concerned about what I classify as the three Ts: President Trump, the issue of tariffs and the issue of trade. We have consistently taken actions to address the issues Canadians have faced and will face yesterday, today and, obviously, looking forward into tomorrow.

All one needs to do is take a look at the actions we have actually taken. Shortly after the last federal election, numerous meetings took place between the Prime Minister and premiers, with the idea, as we said to Canadians in the last election, of building one Canadian economy. Based on what was taking place with President Trump in the United States, and to address the anxiety and the concerns Canadians had, the Prime Minister was working hand in hand with provinces.

By doing that, we were able to build a consensus. We were able to bring in the legislation. We were able to take down the federal barriers, interprovincial barriers that the federal government is responsible for, which enabled us to be able to talk and continue the dialogue with provinces to take down those provincial barriers that prevent the trade between provinces. We have had some success in doing even that. We continue to have dialogue with provinces.

All one needs to do is take a look at a province such as Alberta. In the province of Alberta, we are now implementing an MOU that was signed by the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta. The Conservatives can criticize that, but I believe that the Premier of Alberta is right in her assessment, as is the federal government, of the way in which we can in fact build Canada and make Canada a superpower when it comes to energy.

All one needs to do is to look at the consensus building that we have been able to bring together by working collaboratively through major projects from coast to coast to coast. There have been serious investments in things such as wind power and the expansion of energy opportunities on the east coast, as well as something I often talk about, which is the expansion of the Montreal port. We can take a look at Ontario and how we are enhancing the nuclear industry in Ontario through major projects.

In my home province of Manitoba, the Premier of Manitoba is NDP, but we work with all political entities. The people of Manitoba have realized that, for the first time in generations, there is now opportunity to have hope in regard to the port of Churchill and the potential of its becoming a port where things such as, potentially, LNG and certain minerals could go through, let alone other opportunities through agriculture. These are very tangible and real in my home province.

In Saskatchewan, we could talk about copper investments through the major projects. On the canola front, the Prime Minister was able to deal with it, at least in part and far more than what we saw when the leader of the Conservative Party was seated around the caucus table. We could talk about Alberta and B.C., the two of them together, whether it is on the issue of coming up with agreements on pipelines, LNG and other fossil fuels, or mining.

We could talk about northern Canada. It was not that long ago that the Prime Minister, was in, I believe, Yellowknife in northern Canada. I am not 100% sure it was Yellowknife, but he made the announcement about how we are going to protect Canadian sovereignty by investing literally billions of dollars. We have great potential, major investments, coast to coast to coast.

The government recognizes that building a stronger infrastructure, improving our economic corridors, if I can put it that way, through trade, means a great deal to our nation. It is where our future is in terms of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs. We have a Prime Minister who goes out and looks for investment. We have commitments for billions of dollars of foreign investment to come to Canada. In fact, foreign direct investment coming to Canada in the last 12 months, if it is not number one in the G7, which I believe it is, it could be as high as number one in the G20 countries. That factors out some of the commitments that were also made.

There is reason for us to be optimistic, because we have a government that understands the importance of investment, of bringing and building our infrastructure. We have a Prime Minister who is committed to enhancing where we can and being patient with the United States in regard to the trade file. We are not going to capitulate. We will continue to advocate for the very best deal for Canadians, and where we need to, we are assisting industries that are being hurt by the negotiations and what is taking place in the United States.

Let us recognize this: We have had 20 trade and defence agreements, and we have agreements in the making. I often talk about how important the United States is, and everyone should recognize that. I recognize that, but let there be no doubt that we have a government and a Prime Minister committed to expanding our trade opportunities beyond the Canada-U.S.A. border. That is where we got the 20 defence and trade agreements, and we also have had formal trade agreements not only signed off but brought into the House and passed as trade legislation.

I could also talk about the trade potential between Canada and India, two great nations. I would welcome and love to see a formal agreement signed off this year. The Prime Minister has met with the prime minister and the president of two great nations.

The opportunities are real and tangible, which is why there have been 17%, I believe, export increases to non-U.S.A. locations. Our government continues to work, day in and day out, at expanding opportunities for businesses, small, medium and large alike, because we realize the real beneficiaries from those are the citizens of Canada, and they are who we will continue to work for every day.

Second Reading and Concurrence in Senate Amendments

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I recall that in one of my earlier interventions in this House, I wanted to do a history of Liberal censorship, but I had only 20 minutes and I knew I would run out of time.

We have now seen four iterations of the online harms act: Bill C-8, Bill C-22, Bill C-11 and Bill C-18. It may sound like I am rhyming off numbers in a bingo game, but all of these bills would restrict the rights of Canadians.

I mentioned censorship, and the Minister of Public Safety appeared. It is like Beetlejuice.

At the end of the day, we all have to stand firm for freedom in this House and this chamber. We need to fight against 10 years of a Liberal record of pushing against it.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. It is in the same vein, with a heavy heart, that I have to rise once again on one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation the government has ever introduced. Bill C-9 is a bill that has been litigated in the media, across kitchen tables and in town halls across the country. It has been litigated almost everywhere, except in this House and at committee, where the Liberals have availed themselves of a myriad of parliamentary tricks to shut down debate and silence the voices of Canadians.

We are, at this exact moment, I believe, about 25 minutes into the debate on the Senate amendment to Bill C-9. A little over 12 minutes ago, the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime walked in and said that there had been no agreement on this bill and the government would be moving to silence debate once again on this motion. Less than 15 minutes into the beginning of this debate, the Liberal government is already trying to shut it down. It is perhaps very poetic that it is once again censoring debate on its censorship bill.

Let me repeat in this House what I have said in this House, at committee and across the country multiple times: Hate is real and it is a scourge on this country.

I come from London. Just the other day, we had the five-year anniversary of the heinous and hate-motivated murder of the Afzaal family, who were killed for no other reason than their Muslim faith. We have seen the absolutely despicable hate on Canadian streets and streets around the world targeting the Jewish community, with synagogues and day schools being shot up, and posters trying to find a missing Jewish girl being ripped down. We have also seen, and I say this as a Christian, 123 Christian churches in the last five years burned or vandalized. Interestingly enough, when Justin Trudeau was prime minister, he was asked about this and said it was “understandable”. Some would say that is hate from someone who is supposed to be a unifying figure in this country, a prime minister.

Then we have, of course, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who literally said at a meeting of the justice committee, before he was promoted to cabinet, which gives a pretty good indication of what the Prime Minister welcomes among his closest advisers, that people should be criminally prosecuted for quoting certain verses of holy scripture. He mentioned Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Romans. Two of those are books in both the Bible and the Torah, but he said it could extend to other things as well. He said, and I have the direct quote, if any of my Liberal colleagues would like to call this misinformation, as they so often do, that some verses of scripture are so inherently hateful that they should warrant criminal prosecution.

Some Liberals may say that it is not true and that is not how it is going to unfold. However, if Liberal members cannot even agree on what constitutes hate, how can police, prosecutors, civil society groups and others who are going to be responsible for implementing what is in Bill C-9, if and when it receives royal assent and becomes law?

This is important because that same minister, just yesterday, introduced Bill C-34, with sweeping reforms to Internet regulations. I have not read through the entire bill myself yet, but I will point out that one of the things the Liberal government has tried to do with its two previous online harms bills is weaponize the state against what Liberals view as hate speech, not actual criminal hate speech, but what the Liberal government views as being speech that should be banned and restricted. Therefore, this Liberal government does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on anything to do with speech or conscience.

Canadians see through that. That is why Canadians have been so resoundingly clear that they do not want Bill C-9. That is why Canadians have, through hundreds of thousands of phone calls, contacted the Liberal members, who have in some cases listened to the concerns but clearly not taken them to heart, because they have not only forced through Bill C-9 at every stage, but silenced debate and silenced the voices of Canadians.

In the Senate, we saw this on full display within the last week and a half, when 240,000 postcards urging senators to reject Bill C-9 were sent to members of the Senate. What happened? The Senate mailroom said there were too many and that it could not deliver them all to the senators' offices, so it would send a couple of samples their way and put the rest in a warehouse in Gatineau.

Eventually, due to public pressure, and I thank my colleague, Senator Denise Batters from Saskatchewan, for her efforts on this, the postcards were moved to a Senate office room. Even so, senators were told to come on down if they wanted to get their postcards. Most did not. The very same senators then voted the bill through without seeing the scale of response from Canadians who do not support it. This is coming from Canadians of a very diverse array of political, religious, ethnic, philosophical and ideological backgrounds.

One of the things I found so fascinating, as someone who had the opportunity to meet with so many Canadians about Bill C-9, is how the strange bedfellows, as the old saying goes, were forming. There were evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, devout Muslims and non-religious civil liberties actors. I cannot say I have had many opportunities in the chamber to link arms, metaphorically, with my colleagues in the NDP and my colleague the leader of the Green Party, but on Bill C-9, both the left and the right saw that the Liberal government cannot be trusted with matters of civil liberties.

The Liberal government members, when facing any of the criticism, of which there has been much on Bill C-9, resort to the same old tired lines. They say that the bill cannot affect someone's charter rights, because the charter protects their rights. If that sounds familiar, it is because that was the identical argument they used to insulate themselves from criticism when they invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022. They said that it could not violate someone's charter rights because the Emergencies Act says it has to be charter-compliant.

What happened in the aftermath of that? Bank accounts of political protesters were frozen. The mobility rights of people engaging in peaceful protest were banned. It was so Orwellian and draconian that the federal court said it was unconstitutional, that it violated the civil liberties of Canadians. The government appealed. It went to the Federal Court of Appeal, which said once again that it violated the civil liberties of Canadians. Then, in the last hour of the last day on which the Liberal government could seek leave to the Supreme Court to appeal that decision, it appealed it, once again telling Canadians that it would defend its right to violate their rights.

That is what the Liberal government would be doing with Bill C-9. Perhaps someone will be wrongfully charged under Bill C-9, will avail themselves of the legal process and be exonerated, but as we have seen in the Emergencies Act case, that is likely to take years.

In anything to do with freedom of expression, the issue is not what decisions the state will make in totality. It is also a question of what chilling effect the legislation would create. Faith leaders all of a sudden are not confident about their ability to preach the totality of their holy book, and for them, not the government, to be the arbiter of which scriptures mean what. No faith leader should ever have to vet their sermons through the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, which is effectively the benchmark we are told must exist because it is the minister who would decide which verses of scripture are hateful and which verses are not.

We looked at the bill, and we saw that the Liberal government would be removing long-standing protections for religious speech, or what is often called the religious defence. This was an agreement between the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois that would remove long-standing protections that have been on the books for over 50 years. These are protections that say good-faith religious expression is not hate speech. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for expressing hate. Someone cannot rob a bank, run down the road and yell, “God is good” and expect that the religious defence will save them. I do not recommend anyone tries.

What the religious defence says is that if someone is making a good-faith religious expression or citing a religious text, that cannot meet the definition of hate speech. Calls for genocide and calls for violence, calls that are themselves criminal, were illegal, are illegal and will always be illegal.

The religious defence does not protect against criminally hateful speech. It simply sets out what is not and should not be construed as hate speech to protect against authoritarian censors, like the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, who wish to say that good-faith religious expression can and may be hateful. Canadians are so alarmed by this because when we remove good-faith protections that apply only to people who have made good-faith expressions, the only people we are protecting are those who were engaging in good-faith debates, whether they were on a religious matter or an academic matter, or whatever else may come about from them.

The removal of the religious defence is not the only problem with Bill C-9. It certainly became a flashpoint in the discussion. It was one of the most significant points for people of faith, who, I would note, have already seen a litany of attacks on their rights from the Liberal government. Going back a couple of years ago, there was the threat of removing their charitable status. That was an endorsement given by Liberal and New Democrat members. Going back years earlier, there was the ideological and religious litmus test the Liberal government put on organizations that wanted to receive Canada summer jobs funding, as though their ability to hire a summer student to help out should be contingent on their religious and moral beliefs. This is not new. It is why people were, rightfully, so concerned about it.

In the end, we also had the process before us truncated. Efforts to bring in the testimony that the Minister of Justice claimed he would listen to and did not were stymied. Efforts to read letters from faith leaders from very ecumenical backgrounds were not permitted. I wonder why. Even now, I wonder why, just a few minutes into our discussion, the secretary of state for combatting thought crime decided to rise and try once again to shut down debate on Bill C-9. The Liberal government lacks the courage to even defend the totality of what it is doing.

I repeat that this is not a rejection of the existence of hate and the need to respond to it. I will specifically recognize hate against the Jewish community. I remember that one of my colleagues, the member for Mount Royal, who has been very outspoken in standing up for the Jewish community in his riding, was at one time entertaining leaving the Liberal caucus because of the Liberal caucus's anti-Semitism problem. Irwin Cotler, a renowned human rights advocate, was urging my colleague from Mount Royal to leave the Liberals because they were not standing up against the hate facing our Jewish community. This is why I do not take the Liberals seriously when they say they have the solution to a problem they have allowed to fester, and it is why Canadians do not trust them.

Interestingly enough, one of the fascinating conversations I had in the course of our deliberations on Bill C-9 when it was before the House was with the Rabbinical Council of Toronto, which is a group of Orthodox rabbis, not just in Toronto, but actually across many parts of the country. These are men I met with who face tremendous discrimination and hate. They do not even feel safe walking around parts of Toronto looking visibly Orthodox. They said hate is real and anti-Semitism is real, but they are not going to be protected by laws that limit their ability to preach their faith and read their scriptures.

Religious freedom for one is religious freedom for all. That is why faith groups like the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the United Church of Canada, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, some of which are more liberal with a small "l" and some of which are more conservative with a small “c”, but all of which represent different faith groups, have all found problems with Bill C-9. In some cases, they have found problems with the entirety of it. In others, they have found problems with the parts dealing with removing long-standing protections for religious speech.

We do not protect anyone from hate and we do not protect anyone from persecution if we take away their rights. This is why Bill C-9 and the Liberal government's insistence on forcing this through have been such a clarion call for people across this country.

I will speak specifically about the section of the bill criminalizing hate symbols, because this is what is at issue in the amendment that has been returned to us from the Senate. The amendment would add a noose, a symbol with a tremendously hateful history, which actually did not get much exploration when Bill C-9 was before the justice committee and was not part of the original list the Liberal members put forward.

I do not actually recall whether there were any questions from Liberal MPs, or any MPs, on this. I could be wrong on that point, but I certainly know it did not take up any substantive amount of time in our committee's study on this. However, the problem that did arise on the hate symbol section was twofold. One part was a question of redundancy. Displaying a hate symbol in Canada is already a crime if someone is doing it for an illegal purpose.

I can give a very recent example of this. In the fall, there was a man whom I find to be utterly despicable, actually, in my part of the province, sadly, who decided to inflict hate on the community by mowing a Nazi hakenkreuz, often referred to as a swastika, into his front lawn. He lived on a main highway. It was very jarring for people, certainly those in the Jewish community, who had to see it. Police investigated. They did amazing work. They determined it did meet the standard of wilfully promoting hate, an existing Criminal Code offence. The evidence was the fact that he was displaying a hate symbol in a manner to wilfully promote hate. The law worked.

The idea of needing to ban hate symbols is utterly redundant, because they are already illegal, as is much of what is in Bill C-9 in general. The offences relating to obstruction, intimidation or blocking access are things already covered by existing laws. If we have a problem with existing laws not being enforced, we need to deal with that, but new laws are going to fall victim to the same cultural attitudes, which, again, I would attribute to a lack of political leadership more than to anything else.

However, the problem when we do prescribe specific hate symbols is that now all of a sudden we have introduced a new layer of ambiguity into the law. We have introduced a new problem, which is, does the displaying of what the Liberals say is a hate symbol, alone, constitute a criminal act? The Liberals claimed this was not the case. The justice minister claimed this was not the case. However, the testimony actually said otherwise.

For example, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said that the offence is written in such a way that the “simple display” of one of the symbols included would in and of itself “be considered a wilful incitement to hatred.” A plain reading of the offence by police or the courts could reasonably be that it is the simple display of an image that in and of itself promotes hatred. Intent does not matter. The “simple display” is all that matters.

We also heard something very similar from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, pointing out the redundancy, that “public display of a hateful symbol can already be part of a broader pattern of behaviour that leads to criminal conviction.” The CCLA gave another example from 2010, where someone “was convicted of public incitement of hatred for burning a cross”, and “ In 2012, an individual was convicted of mischief for, among other things, drawing symbols associated with the [KKK] in front of a Black family's house.” Existing laws were used to go after, in that case, anti-Black racism, which is very real, does warrant a response and should be prosecuted, as should all other illegal forms of hatred in this country.

The problem when we start enumerating hate symbols is that we are going to end up with a never-ending process of people wanting to add more symbols onto it. If we are going to go down that road of enumerating these symbols are illegal and these ones are not, we have to be prepared to look at all the symbols that cause people hate. We actually explored this at the justice committee in the House of Commons. I moved an amendment to add the hammer and sickle to the list of hate symbols. It is a symbol associated with Communism, responsible for claiming 100 million lives. The Liberals voted this down.

The Liberals are interested in only some types of hate. They are interested in going after only some types of violence. What about the logo for antifa, again, a network, a philosophy, a belief system, an organization, however we want to refer to it, responsible for demonstrable violence, threats of violence and hate? Where is that on the list?

With respect to the list of terror entities that the Liberal government has put as the main focal point of the hate symbol section, a list that is subject to change and that the government could effectively change unilaterally, there were issues raised by witnesses about, if not the veracity, certainly the integrity of that list. I think getting into that would probably be something that takes up more time. I guess I have unlimited time, but it would take up, theoretically, more time than the House would like to spend on the technicalities of it. However, it was a point that we did not get the opportunity to really interrogate about much further, because of the Liberals' desire to shut down debate on the bill.

As fascinating as I am sure a lot of Canadians find the inner workings of Parliament, or as fascinating as I wish they found them, it is actually quite frustrating. I go back to the reason I came here. One of the things I said in my maiden speech was that I came to Ottawa and Parliament to make Canada a freer place.

I was so focused on the things the Liberals have done to erode these freedoms that needed to be undone. It was shocking to see how many more things they continue to heap on and how many more bills and pieces of legislation have come forward that attempt to put the government more in control of things as fundamental as what Canadians say, what scriptures Canadians read and what religious beliefs Canadians can share and exhibit with each other.

This idea of control is so deeply ingrained in the Liberal ethos. It is shameful. I remember that many years ago, freedom of speech was a non-partisan concept. I remember how the great Senator Jerry Grafstein, a Liberal senator who was one of the champions of freedom of expression, was one of the champions of opposing section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act as it was used against people for their opinions. Where are those Liberals? Where are the freedom-of-speech-loving Liberals? I see Liberals who love censorship, and I see Liberals who love silencing people. I see them all the time. Where are the Liberals who are prepared to stand on principle for freedom of expression?

Interestingly, when the Bill C-9 debate was first going on in this House, I heard from a number of Liberal MPs who were very quietly supportive of what we were saying on the bill. They were hearing from their constituents from the Muslim community, the Christian community and all communities, raising issues about this. Those Liberal MPs seem to have been silenced by their own party, their own whip or their own Prime Minister. When push came to shove, they were whipped into voting for this bill, which their communities and constituents did not want.

As an aside, I am very interested in seeing, when this particular motion goes to a vote, how my colleague from southwestern Ontario, the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong is going to vote, because I stood in this House with her as she eloquently railed against Liberal assaults on civil liberties. She stood up and talked about how the Liberals wanted to put her in jail for her religious beliefs. Will there be room for that member to stand and vote her conscience in the Liberal Party? I do not know. History would indicate no. I know people of faith are watching. Perhaps they are praying for a miracle. I do not know.

I look at the discussion that took place in the Senate. As someone who has been a member of Parliament for a little over a year, there is a lot I need to learn, and a lot we can all learn, about how the procedures and mechanisms work in this place. I have not had the opportunity to delve too much into how Senate procedure works.

I was watching some of the debates that took place at the Senate human rights committee, which was reviewing Bill C-9. I was actually heartened that it had many witnesses testifying who had been barred by the Liberals from testifying when the bill was before the House, like Lisa Bildy, who is a tremendous human rights lawyer from the Free Speech Union of Canada, Professor David Millard Haskell, from Wilfrid Laurier University, and a great many others, including The Democracy Fund's Mark Joseph. These people all said something very similar, which was that as the bill is written, the only assurances we can take that the wrong people would not be charged are the government's assurances that that is not what it is trying to do.

I realize that we are getting late into the evening. Even if we take the Liberals at their word, which I do not think people generally do, and certainly not these Liberals, we are relying on every single person in the country reading the definition of hate the same way. We are relying on every police officer, every provincial attorney general, every civil society group and every faith leader to read this the same way and understand it. Hate is a subjective concept.

One of the changes that I am glad was made to Bill C-9 was an amendment to the original Liberal definition, which everyone agreed significantly lowered the threshold to charge someone for their speech. I am glad that we were able to change it. However, there were other amendments that the Liberals rejected. One that I was actually quite shocked to see them reject was an amendment to remove the applicability of the Liberals' new stand-alone hate offence to all federal laws and limit it to just the Criminal Code, because the new stand-alone hate offence is a criminal law.

Under Bill C-9 as written, that law would apply to even non-criminal statutes like, for example, the Canadian Human Rights Act. Someone could be criminally charged with a Liberal-defined hate crime for breaking a non-criminal law. The Liberals had no interest in fixing what many people assumed might have been an accident or a drafting error. They had no interest in fixing that.

Then we can look at some of the other arguments that were put forward in the Senate. Now, the Senate human rights committee originally added more amendments than just the one that we are discussing today. Some of those attracted a great deal of swift response from people across the country. For example, the Senate proposed a specific criminalization of residential school denialism:

Everyone who, by communicating statements other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against Indigenous Peoples by condoning, denying or downplaying the Indian Residential Schools System...is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or...is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

This is an amendment that passed the Senate human rights committee. It almost passed the Senate but was rejected at report stage, ultimately. This is an amendment that has actually been denied and decried by a great many indigenous leaders, who fear that something like this would bar them from even telling their own stories and discussing their own approach.

Interestingly enough, we heard from the government's representative in the Senate. I am not just saying she is a Liberal senator because Justin Trudeau appointed her, but she actually bears the title of the government's representative in the Senate. She said that the reason she voted against that amendment was because it did not go far enough. She thought it did not go far enough, and she said the government was instead working with a member from the NDP, the member for Winnipeg Centre, I believe, who has a private member's bill that attempts to do something very similar. The only reason the Liberal government's representative in the Senate said no to that amendment was that it did not go far enough. That is worth noting.

The original amendment that dealt with the noose issue was an amendment that would have actually prohibited a noose, a burning cross or a white pointed hood, or any other symbol that is used or associated with the promotion of ideological violence based on race, ancestry or ethnic origin. Nobody wants to see hate in this country. No one wants to see hate symbols. No one wants to see the proliferation of burning crosses, nooses, things used to traumatize and terrorize people, things associated with very real historical harms.

I remember some years ago, there was a Liberal member of Parliament, the member for Vancouver Centre, I believe, who spoke. It ended up being completely made up, but she spoke about some rash of cross burnings in a community, which ended up not being accurate. I do think that for people who have actually experienced these things, it is horrible, and we should condemn it. We should use existing laws that deal with hate.

Then I look at when the discussion came to the Senate human rights committee on the religious defence, the most contentious part of the bill. This was the part of the bill that was ultimately responsible for the hundreds of thousands of phone calls to Liberal MPs, for the hundreds of thousands of postcards, for the emails that I have gotten and still continue to get about this bill, and for the conversations that, in my riding, real people have with me because they have heard what the Liberals are doing and cannot stand it. It was the removal of the religious defence.

The Senate human rights committee voted against reinstating the religious defence. It was focused more on adding more restrictions and more layers and less on preserving the fundamental nature of freedom of expression and freedom of religion that should underpin all work we do here, upholding the fundamental values that are enshrined in our charter but definitely predate the charter.

Then, when those amendments were rejected at report stage, we had another discussion, at third reading in the Senate. Conservative Senator Yonah Martin tried a much more modest way of telling faith communities in this country that their rights would not be targeted, and that was to take the Liberal pablum that was inserted to try to pacify people. I will read that. This was after the justice minister said he was going to canvass faith communities and said he was going to listen to their concerns. Some people called us and said, “Hey, great, we won. The justice minister said he's going to fix it.” They then saw the text and realized that, once again, a Liberal had written a cheque that could not be cashed.

The line that the Liberals put into the bill, referring to the section to do with wilfully promoting hate, was this:

For greater certainty, nothing in subsection 319(2) or (2.?2) of the Criminal Code shall be construed as prohibiting a person from communicating a statement on a matter of public interest, including an educational, religious, political or scientific statement made in the course of a discussion, publication or debate, if they do not wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group by communicating the statement.

To put that in plainer text, what the “for greater certainty” clause says is that one is not wilfully promoting hate if one is engaged in a religious or political or educational discussion, unless one is wilfully promoting hate. I am not sensing the clarity there. It is circular reasoning if ever there was some.

We had lawyers, scholars and faith leaders who weighed in on this, who said they know how we can salvage this. We can take off that last line, the circular line, “if they do not wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group”. That was rejected when we tried to do it at the House justice committee, and it was rejected when Senator Martin tried to do it in the Senate. Again, the government's representative in the Senate refused to budge on any of this, refused to give even an inch on sending a signal to faith communities in this country that their rights and freedoms will be protected.

I mean no disrespect to our colleagues in the Senate, but it was interesting hearing the debates both on the Senate floor and in the Senate human rights committee, when none of the thorny issues that one would think would have to be addressed when dealing with these definitions was actually asked about. For example, when the amendment on criminalizing residential school denialism or downplaying was being discussed, nobody that I heard asked what that means. Nobody asked how we define it, how we distinguish academic inquiry on a subject of historic significance from downplaying in a way that is, as the legislation defines it, hateful.

Even when talking about the noose, no one actually interrogated the point of what a noose means. That may sound silly to some people, because we can all in our minds imagine what that is. When we are talking about the point at which a symbol becomes illegal, it is a very different question. The point at which a symbol becomes illegal needs to have a very clear definition, especially if we weave it into the dialogue we heard from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and others, that a display of a symbol is inherently hateful regardless of intent.

I do not wish to sound glib here. I do not wish to do what the Supreme Court does, which is to concoct all these reasonable hypotheticals to try to rewrite law. I will point out that there have been stories where someone has thought something was a noose and it was not. I could see situations in which someone sets up a really terrifying Halloween display on their home, for example, and someone may misunderstand the intent and call the police. This is the problem. When we are enumerating symbols and we are separating out intent, which is what lawyers have said the stand-alone hate symbol ban does, we are going to have a chilling effect on discourse, which is precisely the problem.

Just as when we remove long-standing protections for religious speech from the Criminal Code, we are sending a signal to people of faith that their sermons, their beliefs and their scriptures are now fair game for prosecution. That is the message that we are sending. That is the message that is being sent when the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture says that some verses of scripture are so inherently hateful, they should attract prosecution. That is the message we can draw when Justin Trudeau says it is understandable that someone would want to burn a Christian church. All of this is part and parcel of why Canadians were so alarmed.

If I try to find the silver lining in all of this, it is that I have had the opportunity to have discussions with people I would not find myself on the same side as politically. I have had a great many discussions with people where we can disagree on nine out of 10 other things, but on this, we are united. I do not actually think that is any testament to my ability to attract friends and whatnot. I think it is a testament to how well the Liberals have mastered creating enemies, because the Liberals do not have the goodwill from these communities either. The Liberals know they do not have the benefit of the doubt, and we have seen this in the context of other legislation too.

The Liberals' Bill C-8 and Bill C-22 were both subject to their same pre-emptive defence that they made with Bill C-9, which is, “Don't worry. You can trust us.” Canadians look at that and say, “Oh no, we can't,” and I agree with those Canadians. The Liberal government has to make its case that it is trustworthy and that it is not going to abuse its power and its authority.

Let us imagine a parallel universe here in which the Liberals do not want to weaponize their authority against political dissidents. I know that seems like a very fictional, hypothetical scenario, but let us just imagine that world for a moment. What is to say that the next government would not? This is the problem, and we can look at the Emergencies Act as an example, with laws that give the government power that is supposed to be constrained only by its goodwill. This is why we are so concerned about other legislation in which ministerial discretion is so central to the powers and authorities vested in the laws. It is because we do not trust these ministers.

Quite frankly, earlier today during Oral Questions, a very influential, powerful minister, the minister responsible for the public service, the President of the Treasury Board, was asked a simple question about his file, and he looked through his papers for 30 seconds to find the answer and could not. In the end, he sat down and let someone else answer the question. We can imagine a minister like that put in a role where they get to decide what Canadians say online, or what telecom companies have to do. We can imagine the power that other people in the Liberal government would have, with a minister who will just read whatever is on the page and, if it is not there, will just sit down.

That is why we have to restrain government power, and it is not just because of a distrust of the Liberal government. It is because of a distrust of the state in general that Canadians have. We should not be happy giving the Liberals any power that we would not want Conservatives to have, that we would not want the Bloc to have, that we would not want New Democrats to have and that we would not want the Greens to have. It is not that all of these parties have an equal likelihood of forming government, but I am just using them as an example here.

All should agree with that. All should understand that. We can think of the Emergencies Act. Did anyone honestly think that the Liberals would be so gung-ho to use the powers that they used that act for? What if a Conservative government was doing it against a group of protesters that they felt were more aligned with the left?

All of this is speaking to what I believe is the most central reason that Bill C-9 was so vociferously opposed by so many Canadians. It was not because of all these dog whistles that the Liberals like to use: conspiracy theories, obstruction or certain people wanting a licence to hate. People want freedom in this country. They want to know that their rights and freedoms are protected. They want to know that the Liberal government is not just going to pay lip service to the charter but is actually going to live and embody it in all it does.

The values of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and the right to privacy, all of these things, are not just slogans that the Liberals can discard at their whim when they run up against a policy they want to champion. These are central things not just to Canadian identity but to the human experience.

Freedom of expression is, in many respects, the most important freedom. This is not my thought, but it is one that I have shared a great many times: If all other freedoms were stripped away but one, the freedom of expression, we could use that to fight to win all the others back.

I am standing up today, in what will more than likely be my last opportunity in the House to address Bill C-9, to say that we cannot let our freedoms be eroded. We cannot. It is not just about whether people believe a faith, beliefs or values to be hateful. I do not believe that the majority of people in this country are hateful people. I believe it is is a small minority, and I believe that small minority needs to be addressed. When their expressions and their actions rise to the criminal level, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

However, I also believe that the issue is not about whether people themselves want to use their freedom to spread hate. It is about whether those who disagree with them will agree not to use the word “hate” to malign them or silence them.

I am so grateful for the leadership of some people who now find themselves in the Liberal Party. I mentioned, for example, my former colleague from Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, who was a fierce crusader against Bill C-9. I also have to recognize the Liberal member for Nunavut, who was a tremendous crusader against Bill C-9. I applauded her second-reading speech, when she spoke about the powers the Liberal government was trying to give itself. I hope the member will remember her roots and vote against this.

Public Safety

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Oakville West for her advocacy.

Canadians must have confidence in the integrity and security of the products and services they use each and every day. This is why we are taking the necessary steps to protect Canadians, our critical infrastructure and our economy through Bill C-8. This piece of legislation will help critical infrastructure operators better prepare for, prevent and respond to cyber-incidents that threaten Canadian interests. We will continue to modernize Canada's security tools while safeguarding privacy and keeping Canadians safe.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with a background in public safety projects, I recognize that cyber-threats pose a growing risk to Canadians, and our government is confronting this challenge head-on. Last week, Bill C-8, the act respecting cybersecurity, passed third reading in the Senate and is now awaiting royal assent. This legislation will ensure critical infrastructure operators can prepare for, prevent and respond to cyber-incidents.

Could the Minister of Public Safety explain what this means for the safety and security of Canadians and critical infrastructure in key sectors such as finance, telecommunications, energy and transportation?

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting that the hon. member raised that subject, since the government, within one year, has done more than any government before it: Bill C-8 on cyberthreat, Bill C-9 on heinous crimes, Bill C-12 on border security, Bill C-14 on bail reform and more severe sentences, Bill C-16 on protecting victims and accelerating justice, and now Bill C-22 on legal access.

I hope that this time the Conservatives will vote with us.

Lawful Access Act, 2026

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on behalf of the Edmonton Griesbach riding. I will be using my time to speak to Bill C-22.

Bill C-22 is significant. It touches on public safety, privacy and the fundamental relationship between citizens and the government. That means we absolutely have to get it right.

It goes without saying that Conservatives believe in law and order. We have always stood for common-sense measures to keep Canadians safe. For the past decade, we have been urging the Liberal government to reverse its failed policies and restore safety to our communities. Instead, the Liberals have let the situation get out of control.

Last fall, the Liberals put forward Bill C-2, which would have fallen well short of protecting Canadians while overreaching in other areas. Thanks to the work of our Conservative team, we forced the Liberals to back down from Bill C-2, successfully blocking their infringement of individual freedoms and privacy. We stopped the Liberals from limiting the use of cash. We stopped them from opening mail without oversight. We stopped them from demanding that any service provider, including even dry cleaners, disclose user data without judicial oversight. Now we are presented with Bill C-22. While this bill excludes some provisions that Conservatives opposed, it also reintroduces parts of the failed Bill C-2.

My Conservative colleagues and I continue to carefully review every line of this bill, as lawmakers. This legislation requires the necessary scrutiny and, yes, skepticism. Conservatives take this responsibility seriously. We support law enforcement. We want officers to have the tools they need to keep Canadians safe. That is not in question. It has never been in question. Also, we know these powers must be accompanied by strong safeguards, clear limits and independent oversight to protect Canadians' rights and freedoms. At the same time, we stand for the rights and freedoms of Canadians. We stand for privacy and due process. Those two principles must go hand in hand. We will continue working to ensure that privacy and due process are protected, with this legislation and all future legislation.

Unlike the Liberal government, we believe in listening before legislating. As a result, Conservatives have spoken with law enforcement about Bill C-22. What we heard was clear. Officers want tools, and they want clarity. They want to be able to act quickly when it matters most. Of course, we agree with that. We welcome measures that lawfully, and with proper judicial oversight, allow police to access information needed to stop serious crime.

Here is the concern. Too often with the Liberal government, the devil is in the details. We have seen it before. We saw it in Bill C-2. What was packaged as a so-called border bill actually included proposals to inspect Canadians' mail without a warrant. Canadians rejected that. We saw it again in Bill C-8, a cybersecurity bill that made sense on the surface but also included sweeping ministerial powers with little oversight. Now we have Bill C-22, and serious concerns remain.

One of the biggest concerns I have with this legislation is about oversight. This bill would grant significant authority. In some cases, that authority would rest with ministers, not with the courts or with independent bodies. That is a problem. Ministerial authority is not the same as judicial oversight. It is not the same as accountability. It risks becoming arbitrary.

Canadians have reason to be skeptical of Bill C-22. The government has a track record. Time and time again, it has pushed the limits of government power. Time and time again, the Liberals have asked Canadians to simply trust them, but trust must be earned, and right now it is in short supply.

Civil liberties groups from across the spectrum have raised alarms about Bill C-22. That should tell us something. It tells us we need to slow down and take a closer look. This is not just about technology or policing tools. This is about Canadians' personal information, their data, their communications, their private lives. Metadata alone can reveal a great deal, more than many people realize, yet we are being asked to consider provisions that would involve broad data practices without clear limits or definitions. For example, the bill does not clearly define what constitutes a service provider. That could mean telecom companies. It could mean email providers. It could mean messaging apps or cloud storage. In other words, it could mean access to deeply personal aspects of Canadians' lives.

This is not a small matter. We cannot afford vague definitions because once those powers exist, they do not just apply today. They apply tomorrow. They apply to future governments as well. This is not about partisanship but about principle. We must always ask, “How could this power be used, and how could it be misused?” This is our duty as legislators, and it is a duty Conservatives will uphold as we continue to examine this proposed legislation. As legislators, we cannot look at lawful access in isolation. If we are serious about public safety, we need a system that works from start to finish. This includes bail and sentencing. This includes giving police the support they have been asking for over the past number of years.

Too often, the government has been selective, listening to law enforcement when it suits it and ignoring it when it does not. Conservatives will always stand with those on the front lines, but we will not accept a trade-off when Canadians' rights are weakened in the process. On one hand, we must ensure that those who enforce our laws have the tools they need. On the other, we must protect the fundamental rights and freedoms that define our nation. Conservatives will not sacrifice one for the other. If we get this wrong, the consequences will be serious.

We have seen what happens when legislation is rushed and when concerns are dismissed. This is why we will not rubber-stamp Bill C-22. We will do our job. We will study it, question it and propose amendments where needed. We will listen to experts, law enforcement, civil liberties advocates and Canadians, because that is what responsible lawmakers do. We deeply support the objective of keeping Canadians safe. We support giving police effective tools. However, we will not ignore the risks of government overreach or the need for oversight. We will not ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In closing, Bill C-22 raises serious and complex questions. It shows some progress, true, but it is clearly not there yet. It requires careful examination, detailed study, and scrutiny at committee and beyond. Conservatives will continue to stand for common-sense solutions that protect Canadians' individual freedoms, privacy and safety. That work is still ahead of us.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Speaker, every time I rise to speak when you are in the chair, I know you have some fun pronouncing the name of my riding, as it is quite a mouthful for any chair occupant. You did a great job of pronouncing it.

As the Bloc Québécois critic for public safety and emergency preparedness, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-22. It is important to note that the government already tried once to introduce a bill on lawful access. That was Bill C-2, which was introduced last June, nearly a year ago. Bill C-2 was severely criticized, not only by civil society, but also by major organizations, which argued that the bill made no sense.

I understand that the government worked very quickly, although perhaps not responsibly enough, because it also wanted to please the American government, especially President Trump, who was threatening Canada at the time. To respond quickly, the government drafted a bill hastily without conducting all of the consultations necessary to produce a high-quality piece of legislation.

Today we are debating Bill C-22, which builds on the principles of Bill C-2 but is much more comprehensive and much better crafted, because the government sat down at the table with various groups and consulted with them. There are some groups that say they were not consulted and would have liked to be, but it does seem like the work got done. However, there is still more to do.

We cannot necessarily oppose Bill C-22, because we know that as soon as it gets its majority, the government will take steps to have Bill C-22 studied in committee and passed. I am well aware of that. However, I was truly delighted with the minister's response today. I was satisfied. He told me that he was still open to amendments. We have ideas stemming from our own consultations, and it is still possible to improve Bill C-22. I was really pleased to hear the Minister of Public Safety answer yes to my question about whether he was open to amendments. That is to his credit, because I believe he really wants the best possible bill to achieve his objectives, namely public safety and privacy protection.

I could not help but say “mon Dieu”. I was tempted to say “my God” but I will not say that. It occurs to me that, if the government had been in a majority position last June, Bill C‑2 would have passed, which would have been very bad. That brings me to what the opposition can offer whether the government has a minority or a majority. When the work is taken seriously and is carried out professionally and diligently, our role is to help improve a bill by listening to experts and asking questions.

Bill C‑22 does have some privacy safeguards that were missing from Bill C‑2. However, are they enough? We are going to be asking questions about that. We still have a lot of questions on this matter.

As a reminder, “Part 1 amends various Acts to modernize certain provisions respecting the timely gathering and production of data and information during an investigation.” It amends the Criminal Code and the Foreign Publishers Advertising Services Act. It amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to allow the Minister of Justice to authorize the enforcement in Canada of foreign orders requiring the disclosure of transmission data or information. It amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Cannabis Act.

In other words, this bill amends quite a few existing statutes, so an in-depth study is needed. I have no doubt the bill will go to committee, and I am eager to see how it will be handled now that the government has a majority. I heard the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons call for collaboration and openness. I heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety talk about how open they are. I look forward to witnessing that if the bill gets the support it needs to go to committee.

Part 2 of the bill provides further details on how access to information will be granted and regulated, and so it creates a new law. Naturally, Part 3, as is almost always the case in bills from this Parliament, indicates that Parliament must review the legislation three years after the law comes into force. It is true: Parliament will need to take the time, take this seriously and review this legislation three years after it receives royal assent. In fact, the Bloc Québécois proposed such a review for Bill C-8 on cybersecurity. We made that proposal because cybersecurity, cyber-attacks and basically the entire digital landscape are evolving so rapidly that bills can quickly become outdated given the circumstances, the technologies involved and the ingenuity of unscrupulous individuals seeking to attack our critical systems. This is therefore a task that will require collaboration, and I look forward to our work in committee.

I can assure you that, if the bill makes it to committee, we in the Bloc Québécois will work on it with the utmost seriousness and rigour. That is why I was a little offended when the Prime Minister said that now that the Liberals have a majority, it is time to get serious. I have always taken my role as an opposition member seriously and have always taken a constructive approach. Quite frankly, I do not really fit the mould of someone who obstructs or refuses to co-operate, and I have plenty of examples to prove it.

I think the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security are exemplary. We studied Bill C-12 and Bill C-8, important government bills that required significant and professional contributions from the opposition parties. I will say it again: It bothered me when the Prime Minister said that now that the Liberals have a majority, the serious work can begin. It is a nice sound bite, but it could be offensive to certain members who take their work very seriously.

We do have some minor concerns about Bill C‑22. Some concerns are more significant than others. In particular, there is the whole issue of the definition of essential services. I think that needs to be clarified. We also have a problem with everything that can be changed by way of regulation. We look forward to hearing from experts, if the bill is ever sent to committee, to see how we can limit those elements that will be set through regulation and establish them in the legislation instead. I look forward to hearing the arguments.

I want to raise another point. When we compare ourselves to the Five Eyes, people always say that Canada lags behind. There was plenty of testimony at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to this effect, and I believe it too. However, some aspects of Bill C‑22 are more invasive than they are in the other Five Eyes countries. For example, Australia has an organization similar to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or the NSIRA. However, the Australian organization has a more important role than the role given to the NSIRA in the context of Bill C‑22.

I hope my colleagues understand that it is with a constructive approach that we will continue to debate Bill C‑22 and try to understand how we can improve it. Accordingly, I think the minister and his team can count on the usual co-operation from the Bloc Québécois.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think committee is a great place to hash out legislation and to hear from experts on civil liberties, privacy and law enforcement. When we have all those voices, as we saw with Bill C-8 at the public safety committee, we are able to put forward proposals to fix things.

When I was talking, in the wake of the Bykovets decision in 2024, to local integrated child exploitation teams, they were so disappointed, because a lot of the tips we receive in Canada actually come from the FBI. A lot of the child sexual abuse material being circulated is coming from Canada, but they are finding it only on computers in the United States. Under the Bykovets decision, that information could not be used, because it was not being obtained by a production order and a warrant. We need to ensure that our system is stronger so we can ensure that Canada is not a safe haven for people who produce child sexual abuse material.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-22, an act respecting lawful access. I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Kitchener Centre.

I want to give a shout-out to my excellent staff here in Ottawa, Harry McGuire, Aidan Plesa and Andrew Gelok, for their great work in helping me research, both in committee and in the House, this important legislation.

Conservatives recognize that we need to ensure that law enforcement and national security agencies have the tools required to investigate serious crime in this increasingly digital age, but as members of His Majesty's loyal opposition, our job is to hold the government accountable to ensure that we can get the best legislation for Canadians. That means holding government accountable when we are talking about important issues such as expanding state powers in relation to increased surveillance. It is our responsibility as an official opposition to scrutinize, to challenge, and to ensure that any new authority is absolutely necessary, proportionate and consistent with the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

This legislation has evolved from the original Bill C-2 legislation that was brought forward in the fall. It is important to give a bit of background on that legislation and why we are here today. The first substantive piece of legislation introduced in the sitting of the current Parliament was Bill C-2, which proposed a number of significant legal changes regarding Canada's national security, to disrupt organized crime and secure the border.

Conservatives were and remain supportive of any efforts to provide law enforcement with the tools necessary to keep Canadians safe, but we could not support Bill C-2 in its original form. We know that civil liberties organizations and all opposition parties in the House felt that Bill C-2, in particular the lawful access regime in parts 14 and 15, fell short of what was needed. Bill C-22 represents the government's second attempt at enacting lawful access legislation. While I would say that there are improvements, particularly in narrowing certain provisions, some of the structural issues remain and have to be looked into further.

Law enforcement and CSIS need modern tools to deal with modern threats. The issue that the bill is attempting to address is real. Law enforcement and national security experts have long argued that they do not have the tools to effectively go after terrorists, organized criminals and child predators, who are coordinating a lot of their activity online.

Part 1 of the bill focuses on investigative authorities, and in many respects it is an improvement over what was previously proposed in Bill C-2. That said, while the direction in this legislation is more measured than Bill C-2, concerns remain, particularly with respect to the legal thresholds, scope and the adequacy of any safeguards.

I want to talk about the new powers and authorities proposed in the legislation. Part 1 proposes a number of changes that are clearly aimed at improving the efficiency of investigations in a digital environment. It would amend existing search warrant provisions to permit the examination of computer data during the execution of a warrant, and it would also introduce new information demands and production orders that could be used both by police forces and by CSIS. In addition, it would create mechanisms to facilitate access to data held by foreign-based service providers, which reflects the reality that much of the information that law enforcement and security agencies need in this country is not even being stored within our own borders.

These would be very practical changes, and they would respond to real challenges faced by investigators. However, the details of how these powers would be structured, and the limits that would be placed on them, remain critically important.

I want to talk about the confirmation of service demands. One of the proposed powers outlined in part 1 is the confirmation of service demands. This would allow authorities to ask a telecommunications provider a very narrow question, which is whether or not it provides service to a particular person or subscriber. The response would be limited to a simple yes or no. Compared to what was proposed in Bill C-2, this is a much more restrained approach. In Bill C-2, information demands could be issued to any person who provides services to the public. This would now be limited to telecom providers.

One of the more concerning elements of Bill C-2 was other subscriber data. For example, there was concern that people's medical records could be accessed. Thankfully, I believe that this has been clarified and the scope has been narrowed with the new legislation.

I want to talk about foreign data requests. Another significant element of part 1 of the bill is the introduction of a mechanism that would allow Canadian judges to authorize requests for data held by foreign entities. This reflects a very real challenge to modern investigation, as data is frequently being stored outside of Canada, often by companies that operate in multiple jurisdictions. Providing a judicially authorized pathway for these requests may improve co-operation and provide greater legal certainty for foreign service providers. However, it is important to recognize that this would not fully resolve the challenges associated with cross-border data access and whether there would be any way to compel foreign service providers to comply with the requests.

There is also a section on publicly available and voluntary information. The bill clarifies that law enforcement would be able to receive and act upon information that is either voluntarily provided or publicly available, without the need for a warrant or a production order. This appears to be a reasonable clarification, but I do wonder if it raises questions about scope, because what exactly qualifies as publicly available information? Does it include information that has been exposed through data breaches or leaks? Without clear definitions, there is a risk that this provision could be interpreted much more broadly than seems to have been intended. This is something that needs to be addressed.

I want to talk about one of the reasons the legislation was brought forward. It was partially in response to the Bykovets decision of the Supreme Court. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that IP addresses have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In that case, police had received an IP address voluntarily from a financial company that had flagged suspected fraudulent transactions to the police. However, since the IP address was not acquired using a production order, this evidence could not be used. Privacy experts have raised concerns that the provisions in the bill may not actually address the issues created by the Supreme Court of Canada's decision. That is concerning.

Part 2 of the bill would enact the supporting authorized access to information act. It is in this section of the legislation that privacy experts seem to have raised the most concerns. It would require electronic service providers to build and maintain systems capable of supporting the lawful access regime, including real-time interception when authorized. In practical terms, this means that companies would be required to design their systems in such a way that law enforcement could access communications once the appropriate legal authorization has been obtained.

With respect to the scope of the application, one of the key concerns with part 2 is the breadth and the definition of what an electronic service provider is. As the bill is currently drafted, this is not limited to traditional telecommunications companies and could extend to a very wide range of entities, including digital platforms, messaging and cloud services, and potentially businesses where communications are only an incidental part of the business.

This could create both practical and legal challenges, as well as uncertainty about who is captured by the legislation, because almost all businesses these days have some sort of electronic recording or storage. There is a possibility that smaller or non-traditional actors would be subject to complex obligations that they are, frankly, not equipped or cannot afford to meet. If the objective is targeted modernization, then the definition needs to be more clear. Unfortunately, as was recently the case with Bill C-8, many of these specific details were left blank and have been left to regulations.

Another area of significant concern in part 2 is the retention of metadata. Under the act, ESPs could be required to retain metadata for a reasonable period of time of up to one year. This is particularly concerning since that data may reveal a person's location. While there are provisions on the retention of information that could reveal private communications and web browsing history, experts have raised concerns that Canadians who are not accused of any wrongdoing may still have their data retained that could reveal their location. It is important to note that similar provisions that were put in place in the EU were actually found disproportionate and unlawful.

In his analysis of the legislation, privacy lawyer David Fraser explained that requiring companies to create capabilities that do not currently exist within their systems to assist law enforcement could lead to creating vulnerabilities within the systems themselves. This can include the development of interception tools that resemble traditional wiretap capabilities adapted for modern environments.

In 2023 and 2024, multiple U.S. telecom companies were compromised, and hackers were able to access data from millions of customers and obtain audio recordings of calls made by senior government and elected officials. I raise this example because U.S. officials subsequently reported that the hackers exploited vulnerabilities that the companies had installed in order to comply with lawful access requests from law enforcement. We need to be very aware that we could be creating a risk if this is not done properly.

The legislation would also have practical cost considerations that cannot be ignored. We know that the compliance costs could be significant, and we do not want those costs to be borne by taxpayers.

In conclusion, I believe that Bill C-22 addresses some real and pressing challenges. It contains provisions that can include the effectiveness of investigations, but at the same time we need to ensure that these new powers would be effective and necessary, and that they would not unnecessarily infringe on the freedoms of Canadians.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are facing a problem, which is a lack of confidence in the government to protect their privacy and their constitutional rights.

Time and again we have seen the Liberal government abuse its power. I hope that in committee, we can have meaningful debate and careful scrutiny of the proposed bill and, again, just like when we talked about Bill C-8, be able to work with our Bloc colleagues and also come to some kind of agreement or consensus that we could improve this bill, so that we can rebuild the trust of the Canadian people in our government.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of the House for almost a year, and seeing the process in committee is very important for me as a newer member. The truth is, we did that work on Bill C-8. We had similar concerns, as the member said, to the NDP members and the Bloc members. He is right. When all the members of the opposition parties, including the Green Party, realize there is an issue with the bill, and we present solutions and recommendations, and they are ruled out of order or out of scope, in the end, are we getting what Canadians need or are we just getting what the Liberals want?