Public Safety Committee on May 26th, 2026

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Monsieur Dufresne, the scope of this legislation is to provide basic information on an individual, not the content of their data, not what they browse and not what is in their emails. The department has taken the time to carefully consider privacy concerns and charter considerations. However, we have heard concerns that the current wording in proposed section 487.011 could capture services outside Internet service providers, worded as “who provides services to the public”.

As the Privacy Commissioner, what language changes would you suggest to narrow the scope of services captured in proposed section 487.011 so that these concerns are addressed, while ensuring law enforcement have tools to access the information they need?

[Philippe Dufresne]

Absolutely, it's important that this bill balance the need for police forces to have the tools they need with protecting Canadians' privacy, and we can do that. It's not a zero-sum game between privacy and security. We address this in our written brief in our first three recommendations.

Specifically, the first thing that should be done is to narrow the definition of “subscriber information”. Change it from what it is here, which includes broader concepts like “information that may be used to identify” individuals or “information relating to the services”, and narrow that to specific items such as the name, address, telephone number and email address. We specify that in our brief.

The second thing is to restrict the scope of who can get those orders to telecommunications service providers. That's already there for the warrantless requests on confirmation of service demand, but in terms of the subscriber information, it's open to “a person who provides services”. That in our view is too broad. It could capture medical offices and law offices, and capture any amount of sensitive information.

The last element is that you should provide more specificity in terms of what the judge's order will be. Right now, it says “any subscriber information” and “all the subscriber information” related to something, and that could be broad. We're suggesting a narrowing of that language.

I'll flag the last element in terms of the non-warrant search or confirmation of service demand. There's an exception for medical and privileged information, and that exception is also absent in terms of the subscriber information.

Those are the recommendations I would make.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dufresne.

To continue, we also had the privilege of hearing from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and the intelligence commissioner, who holds our national security regime accountable. In contrast, as the Privacy Commissioner, you play an important role to ensure federal departments and agencies adhere to personal information-handling practices.

What would you recommend to be added in relation to ministerial orders that will take this legislation to the next step?

[Philippe Dufresne]

I welcome the addition of the intelligence commissioner review role. That is an important improvement that was made, and I fully support it. I think the addition of necessity and proportionality to the scope of orders that could be made by the Governor in Council and by the minister is critical. That's a concept in privacy law that's shared around the world. In fact, the signatories to the OECD's December 2022 declaration on government access to private sector information unanimously and expressly called for “necessity” and “proportionality”. It's very important.

I believe Intelligence Commissioner Noël also talked about the notion of reasonableness and proportionality. That is a very important standard. There's some language in the legislation that calls for a consideration of privacy impacts. That's a good thing, but it needs to go further, in my view, to be necessary and proportional.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Dufresne.

Monsieur Nadeau, from my understanding, you would like a tighter definition of “subscriber information”. Currently in part 1 of the bill, a confirmation of service demand asks a simple yes-or-no question to determine if an individual uses the service. In addition, the definition of “subscriber information” in proposed section 487.011 focuses on identifiers—in other words, basic information. It's not the content of the data, such as what you browse or what's in your email.

Could you explain what you would like to see added to proposed section 487.011 to narrow the definition and the scope?

[Marcel-Olivier Nadeau]

Thank you for your question.

I think the commissioner gave some great examples just now. I don't have any more to add, but I will let Mr. Marchand or Mr. Le Grand Alary provide you with other examples, if they have any. The ones that were just given by the Privacy Commissioner are excellent, and I would adopt them, as well as the principles he set out.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much.

[Nicolas Le Grand Alary, Lawyer, Secretariat of the Order and Legal Affairs, Barreau du Québec]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

I was actually going to add one point. I think the commissioner did a good job of explaining the concerns. There's the concept of subscriber information and also the court order. All of these elements are problematic; it's the whole thing. The three definitions need to be tightened up. I think the commissioner did a good job of explaining the issue.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, Ms. Acan.

Mr. Lloyd, please go ahead for six minutes.

I'm sorry, it's your turn, Mrs. DeBellefeuille. My humble apologies. It's impossible to forget you, but I still managed to do so.

You have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me start by saying how disappointed I am to have so little speaking time with such a rich panel of witnesses.

Since time is limited, I will try to keep my questions short, so you can provide clear answers.

Personally, the more I learn, the more confused I am. The views on the bill are vastly divergent and very polarized, depending on whether we're speaking to a police officer or a privacy advocate. My goal is to tell stakeholders that, yes, this is an important and necessary bill, but also to figure out what that balance is going to look like.

Mr. Dufresne, I'm always surprised that your recommendations aren't heeded before a bill is drafted. We're always a bit behind. We went through that with Bill C‑8. No one bothered to consult you. Now you're here with your recommendations, and opposition parties are the ones proposing them as amendments to the bill. I find that strange, especially since we have so little time to debate them. We would have preferred that the government do its job, listen to you and include your seemingly reasonable recommendations in the bill. It would have made for a better bill and saved us time.

Mr. Lefebvre, you got my attention when you said a lawful access regime had not been shown to lead to a decrease in crime in the U.S. There is no evidence of that. Weaker encryption doesn't necessarily equal less crime. Here's what police tell us: They'll be more effective, they'll stop more criminals and they'll be able to combat organized crime.

You seem to be telling us it's not that straightforward.

Can you give us more information on that?

[Luc Lefebvre]

The tendency to try to control what we call lawful access in Five Eyes countries goes back 10 or 15 years. Australia's and the United Kingdom's laws are particularly robust when it comes to collecting data for the stated purpose of combatting pedocriminality, going after criminals and such.

To date, however, there is no evidence that crime decreases when law enforcement has greater access and more say over the level of encryption of applications, messaging platforms and other tools. Those broader powers have not been shown to lead to a decrease. At the end of the day, more information is being collected, but crime isn't going down. That's all this is doing.

What we actually see with the broadening of powers is that criminals tend to go dark. They use other methods, other tools, and the trail ends up going cold anyway. Nevertheless, more and more data are being collected on ordinary people—people who aren't involved in these activities.

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

Let's look at models we want to draw on, the U.K.'s, for instance, or New Zealand's or Australia's. The U.K. even installed cameras that record citizens as they go about their everyday lives. It's taken surveillance to the extreme.

Has it been shown to bring the crime rate down?

[Luc Lefebvre]

That correlation hasn't been made. The U.K. is known for its widespread use of closed-circuit TV, or CCTV, monitoring. In addition, the U.K. has passed very robust laws on data collection and freedom of expression. A correlation between that and a significant reduction in crime hasn't been shown, but that was the official excuse that was given.

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

I attended an event put on by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and there was a lot of excitement in that room. People said they'd been waiting 30 years for legislation like this.

Why do you think the government is in such a rush to pass this bill? Are there any countries pushing us in that direction?

[Luc Lefebvre]

I would say two things to that.

First, it makes sense that police services would welcome this legislation. I come from a family of police officers who were involved in fighting pedocriminality and the like. I completely understand the excitement, and it's necessary. It's no surprise that police forces are pleased about this. It's perfectly commendable.

Second, my sense is that the pressure is coming mainly from members of the Five Eyes group, which is looking for more and more visibility across the network, as well as from allies. Canada is indeed lagging behind when it comes to being able to provide access to those data. There's clearly some political pressure to do that.

It's probably the easiest solution for the government to say that it's going to bypass encryption to give police forces access to Canadians' data. Police will be happy. It's easier than allocating more financial, technical and human resources to fighting crime. At the same time, it will make our allies happy. That's the impression I have.

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

Mr. Dufresne, as you know, the deadline for us to submit our amendments is 5 p.m. tomorrow.

Are your recommendations already in amendment form, so we can use them and submit them as is?

[Philippe Dufresne]

They aren't drafted how the Office of the Law Clerk would draft them, but I don't think it should be too difficult to turn them into amendments, given how we've laid them out in our brief.

We refer to existing regimes, such as Australia's law, which stipulates that orders must not have the effect of rendering encryption less effective. That amendment is in there. One of the provisions in the bill we're concerned about says that the provider is not required to comply with an order.

We feel it's important to state that the order shouldn't be made at all. It puts the provider in a tough spot. They are being ordered to do something but are allowed to disobey the order under the law. I think things should be done right from the start.

We addressed necessity and proportionality, referring to Great Britain, which takes those factors into account. Australia does too. They are core principles, so it's not hard. They can be added to the factors the minister or Governor in Council has to take into account.

The eight recommendations we've made are targeted and concise. Essentially, they're intended to achieve that critical balance.

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

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Go ahead, MP Lloyd.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to wait until my colleague Madame DeBellefeuille was finished.

I heard the Privacy Commissioner tell us about a submission he made to this committee. I believe the submission was sent to the chair on May 21. We had not received that submission until just now.

I'm not trying to attribute malice to anyone, but my ability, as a parliamentarian, to scrutinize this legislation and be prepared for today's meeting was really impacted. By not receiving documents sent in by witnesses, I have no ability to properly review them.

As an aside on another point, we still don't have the transcript from our meeting two weeks ago. I just raised this with our clerk, who assures me that it's coming. You know, we had a two-week break. If we're not able to get critical information to help us do this, given the rushed nature of this legislation we're sending through.... I have very serious reservations about how quickly this process is going, as we're not being given adequate information and evidence to get this bill done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you. That is not exactly a point of order. It's more like a point of privilege, but I think we understand the value of it.

The clerk just informed me a couple of minutes ago that for reasons that are human, he wasn't able to send it earlier. He wants to express his discomfort with that. Now he has received it, so I encourage everyone to look at your emails. The full document was just shared.

On the transcript, maybe I should know a bit more about what the clerk has to provide as a matter of precision.

Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Paul Cardegna]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With regard to the transcript, we have been informed that the publications department of the House of Commons has set service standards. I can look into those service standards and get back to the committee, as I don't have them with me right now. However, they wrote to me on Friday indicating that there have been some delays, notwithstanding the length of the meeting on May 7, which was four hours instead of two, and the large volume coming through their office as well. They've indicated that they are working as hard as they can to get that transcript out.

I can send the blues to you right now, Mr. Lloyd, and I will do that. The blues are usually available within the firewall. If any member cannot access them, we can send copies to them.

With regard to the document from the Privacy Commissioner, that mistake was entirely mine. I do apologize to the committee. Unfortunately, it slipped through my fingers and I did not get it out in as timely a fashion as I would have preferred. I beg the committee's indulgence on that. You have my apologies.

Thank you.