Public Safety Committee on June 2nd, 2026

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Can you tell me about what you said on the kinds of services provided? I don't know. I'm a bit of a simpleton. When I go to browse the web, I just access a website. I read the information. I maybe text people.

What other kinds of access are you talking about?

[Tim McSorley]

The production orders under part 1 aren't limited to just telecommunications or electronic service providers. The wording of the law is that it's to any entity that provides a service within Canada. That isn't just browsing a website. I'll specify here. The confirmation of service demands have an explicit exclusion for medical information and for privileged information. That exclusion does not apply to the production orders.

For example, if I access an online portal to make appointments with my doctor or to access certain services, even what services they hold on file for me, that would be available through these new production orders. It is highly revealing. It goes much further than simple IP addresses and whether or not I went to a certain website.

That's just the production orders in part 1. That's not to mention what kind of information could be highly revealing in terms of the metadata that's collected under part 2. I realize that for law enforcement to access that, they would have to have lawful authorization, but having the scope of information there.... We have to be realistic.

Looking back over the last 10 years, every time we see the ability for police, CSIS or intelligence agencies to access more information, they do that. For example, with CSIS's dataset collections, they were able, under Bill C-59, to begin collecting datasets about Canadian individuals in publicly available information. The NSIRA found that shortly after getting those powers, they went further than they were allowed. Under this, they would have the lawful authorization to use that to also request and access datasets of metadata held by electronic service providers.

It's an incredibly complex law. I understand your point that there are certain things we do online that are not necessarily revealing, even though the Supreme Court has agreed that IP addresses should be protected under privacy laws, but that is a tiny part of what Bill C-22 is proposing. The fact that this information could be acquired has a direct impact on privacy and on our ability to engage in free expression.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Is part of the concern.... I gather that one of the things this law would allow would be for the government to access whom I was talking with on the phone. I don't know how many colleagues' phone numbers they have on their phones. I have, I think, a thousand on mine. I'm pretty sure some of them have, at some point or another, engaged in criminal activity. I'm sure the Conservatives have even more on their phones.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Is the concern that the government could access this, find someone's number whom it suspects of engaging in criminal activity, and that would be sufficient for it to get the further judicial order to start looking at the content of the information?

[Tim McSorley]

The concern is of the association of the data that could be made. That's one part of it. As I mentioned for datasets, it's also this idea of collecting and using this kind of information in order to then try to engage in predicting criminality or predicting threat assessments. The ability to do that has not been proven. In fact, as we know, there are concerns around biases in those kinds of algorithms and that kind of analysis.

We've seen in the past, under national security investigations, that this idea of guilt by association is enough to engage in very harmful investigations.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

You're worried that the metadata, if I may have contacted three people in the last year who are involved with some sort of criminal activity, would then put me on some sort of watch list, and I would be subject to heightened surveillance by the government because of that.

[Tim McSorley]

That would be part of our concerns, yes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Could I ask Mr. Alqazzaz the same question?

I'm certainly involved with helping Afghan interpreters come to Canada. I've had various conversations with people in Afghanistan. I would certainly share their concerns that if the IP addresses of people in Afghanistan put me at risk and put me on some sort of heightened security, it would be pretty hard to escape that if you're talking to anyone in Afghanistan at the current time. Is that a concern of yours?

[Khaled Alqazzaz]

Thank you for this question.

It's important that I share with you the opposite perspective, basically.

Canada has hosted so many refugees from Afghanistan and many activists in different forms, in exile from Africa, from Iran and from many different countries. They are actually under extreme pressure and surveillance by foreign state agencies. Unfortunately, for some of them, this bill will enable more access to this information through requests from foreign states, even if they are not subject to fault under Canadian law.

We've seen incidents where activists in exile here in Canada were targeted by their regimes. There was an assassination of an Indian activist—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I'm sorry to interrupt. I was distracted. I should have stopped Mr. Powlowski a few seconds ago.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to speak to you, Mr. Tiwari. I think you must have guessed as much.

Since the government holds a majority and is truly committed to passing Bill C‑22, we are convinced that the bill will be passed by any means the government can use to achieve this. It must be said that the minister is very open to amendments. In that regard, we have even introduced amendments to clarify all issues related to encryption and metadata retention. In fact, when I say “we”, I mean myself, on behalf of my party. We have proposed a series of amendments that we hope will provide some assurance that privacy is properly respected and that there is no infringement of privacy.

Based on your testimony, you do not believe that certain amendments could provide you with any such assurance. Have I got that right?

[Udbhav Tiwari]

Yes. I did say so, specifically with regard to the provisions in the law that allow the government to order platforms to deliberately make changes to their services.

For example, if an order were to be passed that Signal should start collecting data that it does not collect today, or that Signal should create a feature that allows law enforcement to silently join groups and observe conversations, both examples are of things that do not directly touch encryption but that negate the very purpose of encryption. We believe that any law that contains such technical access measures is incompatible with privacy.

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

Perhaps my question wasn't clear.

I find you to be a highly credible witness. I'm not saying that the other witnesses aren't credible, but I know the reputation of your organization. Your strength is protecting your clients and their security.

What would it take to protect the Signal organization? What do you think needs to be done to properly ensure privacy protection and, above all, to reassure you so that you can stay here and not leave Canada? What kind of assurance would you need?

[Udbhav Tiwari]

At the risk of repeating myself, I will say that we believe it is very challenging to see how proposed part 2 could be amended in a way that would not pose a serious threat to Signal.

If it is politically unfeasible for proposed part 2 to be removed, then we would request two crucial changes. The first is that an explicit amendment be introduced that does not allow the government to weaken encryption in any product, either directly under the provisions of the law or via indirect provisions, such as technical capability notices or production orders.

The second—

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

I just want to clarify something, Mr. Tiwari. You're telling us that, if the government goes ahead despite all the testimony heard about the dangers of part 2, some key amendments will be needed, and you're in the process of listing them.

Time is of the essence, since we'll be starting clause‑by‑clause consideration of the bill on Thursday. I was wondering whether you had your amendments on hand and whether you could pass them on to us quickly so that we can take a look at them. If so, I'll let you explain them to us.

What amendments to part 2 could you explain to us verbally while we're waiting to see them?

[Udbhav Tiwari]

We would be very happy to share with the committee specific language with regard to the amendments in proposed part 2. At a high level, those changes will pertain to, number one, explicitly protecting encryption; number two, making sure that metadata collection cannot be expanded to compel the collection of metadata, but must be limited to metadata the provider already collects; and three, regarding mandatory judicial authorization of these orders under proposed part 2, making it not just an executive action but one overseen by an independent judicial authority.

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

Thank you.

Mr. McSorley, we recently learned that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has broken the law on a number of occasions. It failed to comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other current legislation. You're probably aware of this, since protecting privacy is your main mission.

Are you concerned about the fact that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is currently breaking the law and that, basically, the bill will give it even a bit more power? Are you worried about this?

[Tim McSorley]

We're indeed aware of the report from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. It's quite worrying.

We're definitely concerned. Time and again.... This is not the first time that CSIS has been found to be either engaging in unlawful activity or pushing the boundaries of what they're allowed to do. We saw this with Bill C-70, the foreign interference act. We saw this with the National Security Act, and now we're seeing it again with this act. Every time we hear this is happening, they're rewarded with new powers, and there's very little—at least no public—discussion of what the repercussions are for the individuals and for the service when they do....

It's frustrating to see that we only learn about this because of an access to information request, and that it's not the kind of information that NSIRA and others are able to share publicly so we can have these public debates. If there wasn't this access to information request, we would have never known of the 20 instances, approximately, within one year of CSIS engaging in unlawful activity.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much.

Let me turn to Ms. Kirkland for five minutes, please.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Tiwari, I have two brief questions for you, and you should probably be brief in response.

Is it fair to say that Signal's position, which you've laid out very clearly today, is not about resisting lawful access generally?

[Udbhav Tiwari]

No. Signal's position is that laws should not compel service providers to start collecting information that they do not already collect.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you.

When Signal says it would exit Canada rather than comply, is that a decision triggered only by direct access to messages, or would metadata retention and system redesign requirements alone be enough to make compliance impossible?

[Udbhav Tiwari]

The last two examples that you just stated would also be enough to make us not serve the market, as they would fundamentally change our product.