Evidence of meeting #20 for Public Safety and National Security in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-8.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Answer yes or no, Minister. Will you use this legislation to remove—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
I'm sorry. This was going well, and it's going to keep going well, but we can't interrupt. Otherwise, no one can interpret and no one can understand. Let's continue in the appropriate manner.
MP Lloyd.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Answer yes or no. Will you use these powers to order the removal of any remaining Huawei technology from our telecommunications system?
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
That's the goal of the 2022 policy statement: to make sure that there would be none.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
The whole reason for this legislation being brought forward, Minister, was to give you that authority. That is what your government stated it needed this for. We're talking about granting you these powers. You will now have these powers, if you get this legislation passed.
Will you use them to remove Huawei and any other threats from our telecommunications system?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Okay.
Following your government's recent trip to China and the Prime Minister's efforts to reset the relationship, was there any discussion about reconsidering the ban on Huawei?
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Okay. I'm asking this because your office and the Public Safety office were asked repeatedly by The Hill Times about these discussions, and they refused to respond to any of those questions, so—
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
—I think Canadians have a lot of concerns about that.
Minister, Bill C-8 proposes a number of new powers for you, including the ability “to direct telecommunications service providers to do anything, or refrain from doing anything” that you deem to be a threat to national security interests. What safeguards are in place to ensure that these are not abused?
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
I've already answered that question. There's definitely parliamentary oversight by NSIRA and NSICOP. That was well noted the last time the bill was studied, and that was added. Having gone before NSICOP in the past and having worked with NSIRA.... They can go into the details of many key public safety and security questions.
Of course, everybody on this committee has their security briefings. We believe in security briefings being a key part of the work that can be done by parliamentarians, and we'll work with them. That will be at the core of any minister of industry's work in the future.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Thank you, Minister.
The Privacy Commissioner has testified that this bill lacks key privacy safeguards and that it includes an inconsistent proportionality test, which is included in proposed subsection 15.2(3). Also, there's no requirement for his office to be notified by the Communications Security Establishment when a major cyber-breach threatens Canadians' private information. I find these omissions in the legislation concerning.
Are you supportive of these amendments to alleviate the Privacy Commissioner's concerns?
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
That was the question of our colleague from the Bloc Québécois. Claude DeBellefeuille just asked that question.
I'm very sensitive to that question, because it's really important that we address the issue of proportionality. I really think Canadians should know. Should there be breaches of networks containing their data, they should be informed. I would be very interested in seeing amendments regarding that.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Now, in my last minute or so....
I thought it was very interesting that you stated that an individual will never be cut off from their Internet access. That was a very unequivocal statement, which I'm pleased to hear you say. You know, nobody has been very clear that.... The officials were not that clear in saying.... So, you don't anticipate that there will be any situation in which an individual would have their Internet access cut off, like if they're a hacker or something like that.
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
Well, the bill refers to the term “person”, and the term “person” was defined as, basically, companies. I think it was just lost in translation, but we can make sure that telecommunication service providers and, obviously, their suppliers could be.... We can make sure that we define that in a way that we're not creating any form of misinterpretation.
Conservative
Dane Lloyd Conservative Parkland, AB
Yes. One concern is that.... Let's say that somebody is caught up in this. They might not have the legal ability to challenge a decision like this. There is judicial overview. What resources are going to be made available to ensure that somebody who feels they've been unfairly targeted by this legislation can challenge this?
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
Like I said, this legislation is not targeting individuals; it is targeting companies.
Conservative
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
I think it's a fair point, and that's why we'll make sure that we address it.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
Thank you for that exchange, Ms. Joly.
Mr. Powlowski, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Minister, I understand the importance of protecting privacy, and I understand the importance of transparency, so you need to have these checks and balances within the legislation. However, in responding to a cybersecurity threat, I think that you need to act very quickly. I'm thinking about nowadays, especially with AI. You put something—you ask some complicated question—into your computer or your laptop, and then it goes off into outer space and around and around. Within almost a couple of seconds, it comes back with a response that would have taken us days and days to have come to in the old days. So, obviously, the threat is going to be very fast, and you have to consider that when you're putting in your checks and balances.
If I were Mr. Putin, I'd say, “Oh, put in a lot of checks and balances. We have to be really certain that we don't violate civil liberties here, so it takes hours or days.” I know there's a balance.
Can you talk about this bill and how the order-making power under this bill provides the flexibility to respond quickly to cyber-attacks while still being subject to clear reporting and accountability mechanisms?
Liberal
Mélanie Joly Liberal Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC
Yes. I think I hear what the Conservative colleagues are talking about, but we're also inspiring ourselves with legislation that has been adopted within the Five Eyes.
We're also looking at what has happened in real-life events, such as ransomware attacks. I know Nova Scotia Power was the victim of one in 2025. There was also an AT&T breach of user information in 2024. I could go on; I have many in front of me right now. In South Korea, SK Telecom reported a cyber-incident with malicious actors accessing data. There was also espionage and disruption that happened primarily in the U.S.; that was the Salt Typhoon event in 2024.
I'm just saying that sometimes time is of the essence. We need to be able to inform telecommunications service providers that may not be aware. We sometimes need to be able to ask them to do things very quickly while dealing with an ongoing threat that is affecting many allies within NATO. That's why I think we cannot address.... How can I say this? Time is of the essence, and we need to be efficient. That's also why we need to create parliamentary oversight. The NSICOP and NSIRA approach is the right one because you're able to see whether the government did the right thing at the time, based on the intel that was offered to those who were making the decision.