Public Safety Committee on May 26th, 2026

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

I can give you a very specific example in response to this important question.

Let's take a case where we have a missing person. That investigation is proceeding, and it gets to the point that we believe there may be foul play and the missing person may have been subjected to a homicide. We have a number of phone calls coming in to that individual's phone. These are the last known phone calls. That would not give us reasonable grounds, under the current legislation, to seek a production order. However, it would give us reasonable suspicion. That production order would only provide us with subscriber information, not content.

I think it is a very important, progressive step in our legislation to allow us to deal with the challenges of legislation and the complexities of technology, and to service the victims of crime much more efficiently and effectively.

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

If an amendment were proposed to remove the words “reasonable grounds to suspect” and replace them with “reasonable grounds to believe,” would that significantly hinder your investigative work?

Currently, you're still conducting effective investigations. You have reasonable grounds to believe.

Would that prevent you from doing your job well?

Would it be a major problem for you if that were removed from the bill?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

The proposed changes to the threshold will not prevent us from doing our job. They will actually enable us to do our job better, more efficiently and in a more timely manner, and advance our investigations at a more rapid rate, while still requiring judicial oversight and judicial authorization.

As His Worship identified, in relation to finding the appropriate balance, I really believe having reasonable suspicion to obtain subscriber information as reasonable grounds to obtain content is the appropriate balance, given the modern context.

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

Commissioner, since the start of the study on this bill, we have known that Canada is the last of the Five Eyes countries to introduce a bill on legal access. In the other Five Eyes countries, such laws exist, in some cases for a very long time.

Do you have any statistics or reports that could establish a very close link between having a legal access law and a decrease in crime? In other words, do you have any documents or statistics showing that the legal access law in the United Kingdom, for example, has enabled that country to arrest more criminals and lower the crime rate?

Do you have any documentation on this? Is it available?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

That's a great question. I don't have any documentation that would speak specifically to a reduction in crime rates or crime severity, but we have countless examples of investigations that have not been able to progress, including investigations into national security where there is a risk of terrorism, homicides and human trafficking. In other countries, these investigations would have progressed under an appropriate lawful access framework.

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

We are, after all, talking about a major change for Canada. We must therefore rely on an analysis of the statistics. That is what I am trying to document. I think Bill C‑22 has its merits. It would give law enforcement better tools to fight criminals and crime. However, are we going too far or not far enough? We're trying to figure out where the line is.

I like to rely on data. Since such laws exist elsewhere in the Five Eyes countries, with which Canada likes to compare itself, have you been able to access information that would allow you to say that a law on lawful access will improve investigative performance, backed by data and results?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

We could certainly determine whether or not there's specific data that can be used. There are very specific, compelling examples of when people have been victimized in Canada, when victimization has been prevented in other countries, when complex investigations have been solved in other countries and when we are just not able to be meaningful participants in international and transnational organized crime investigations. We're happy to share any of these examples that would help you make an informed decision.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Mr. Caputo, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

I believe it's MP Lloyd.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Mr. Lloyd, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Mayor Brown, happy birthday.

Something you said really struck me. You said if people are concerned about their privacy, don't commit a crime. Their privacy won't be abridged. However, something we've learned with this legislation—we saw it with the Salt Typhoon hacks in the United States—is that if we create the ability for ministerial orders to infringe upon the integrity of encryption systems, we could be creating back doors that hackers could be using to go after the information of innocent, law-abiding Canadian people.

My question for you, Mayor Brown, is this: Would you still support this legislation if you knew we were creating a vulnerability that could result in your own personal information and your own private messages being hacked and used by extortionists?

[Patrick Brown]

I have confidence that the system set up and used by law enforcement in other Five Eyes countries can be replicated here.

Frankly, we have too many preventable victims. I certainly support the legislation. If there are additional protections to ensure that there isn't a capacity to be hacked, I would welcome them, but if tech companies can prevent that through their own cybersecurity measures in other countries, like the U.K. and the U.S., it's bewildering to me that they wouldn't have the same capacity to do that in Canada.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

That's precisely my concern, Mayor Brown. This legislation is actually hindering their ability to create those security.... They could, potentially, be lowering their security safeguards.

I'm going to move on to Commissioner Carrique.

This is clearly important legislation. I could feel the passion. I talked to law enforcement, and clearly, we need to do something about this.

Is this legislation so important to you that you would support amendments to ensure that Canadians and industry can have confidence that encryption will not be violated under this legislation? Would you support those amendments to make that very clear?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

I would certainly support amendments to ensure that there is clarity around not compromising the integrity of systems, and I believe there's an opportunity to do that in the creation of the regulations.

Let's be honest. We have major tech that has completely redefined the world as we know it. It has created such innovation and progress. There has to be a way, with the hundreds of billions of dollars it's generating every year, to safeguard the encryption of law-abiding Canadians, while allowing us access to criminals who are victimizing Canadians.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Commissioner, are you saying to this committee that law enforcement needs the power to break encryption? Is that what you're saying to the committee today?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

I am absolutely saying we need judicial authorization to access encrypted data, and we have that lawful access today. The current legislation provides us judicial authorization, when granted by a provincial superior court judge, to gain access to private communications. What we don't have is the keys to encryption, so we have to use on-device investigative techniques.

We have the judicial authorization, but we don't have the means or mechanism, and there's a big difference.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

Maybe this is a question for Mr. Van Laer, but it's also for Commissioner Carrique.

In talking to the integrated child exploitation teams in Alberta in the wake of the Bykovets Supreme Court decision, it became a nightmare to write warrants and production orders. If we don't know if there's a reasonable expectation of privacy around IP addresses, it seems to me that part 1 actually provides the appropriate remedy to allow law enforcement to speed up their ability to get these warrants written so that they can go after the telecom or ESPs that have the information.

Is that correct? Is part 1 largely what's needed to speed up these investigations, Commissioner?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

Yes, it is. It is a good portion of what is needed to speed up these investigations, and I appreciate you highlighting it, sir.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Mr. Van Laer.

[Mathias Van Laer]

I would agree that the issue we face.... We don't really have so many issues with this new court decision with regard to getting our judicial authorization. We have to understand where the IP comes from in the first place, so if the IP is....

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Commissioner Carrique, the Privacy Commissioner brought forward some very good recommendations, in my opinion. He said instead of having a one-year mandatory metadata retention period, we have a necessary and proportionate test. Is it necessary and proportionate?

Would you support that amendment? Do you think that might be stronger and give Canadians some peace of mind?

[Commr Thomas Carrique]

I'm not sure how that would relate if the metadata was not retained for one year. We may not realize that it's reasonable and necessary until that data is no longer available. I'd have to learn more about what that recommendation is to be able to provide you with an informed response.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I appreciate it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, MP Lloyd.

MP Sidhu, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, committee members, for giving me the time.

Thank you, Mayor Brown. Happy birthday to our hard-working mayor.

Mayor Brown, you have publicly stated that the police and border agents need stronger tools, and they need faster and more effective access to digital subscriber and transmission data to identify suspects before an attack occurs. We know you are a long-standing advocate for increased supports and digital screening tools for our law enforcement officers, and for the safety and security of Brampton. Our communities are terrified by extortions, and there are other crimes, too.

How do you think Bill C-22, the lawful access for law enforcement legislation, can give modernized tools to law enforcement and police agencies and also build trust in the community?