Mr. Chair, the government does not support this amendment.
Under section 487.11, as Madam May will know, police may already act without a warrant in exigent circumstances. In our view, making exigent circumstances a requirement in the context of a preservation demand is illogical and would render the tool useless.
Canada's telecommunications industry is largely unregulated and has thousands of providers with a variety of business practices. The creation of the preservation tools reflect that diversity and the fact that the industry is not required to retain data. A preservation order does not give foreign authorities access to any data whatsoever, as the order is only meant to ensure that the computer data still exists until the appropriate judicial order is issued in order to obtain that computer data. Cooperation with our international partners is essential to ensure that critical data is not lost during often time-consuming traditional mutual legal assistance procedures that enable the requested party to actually obtain the data and disclose it to the requesting party.
On that basis, we will not be supporting this amendment.