Public Safety Committee on June 4th, 2026

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

Concrete examples are always helpful.

[Aaron Gilkes]

In this case, if we're thinking about our grounds, at the beginning of an investigation.... I'll use an analogy. Basically, it's a very simple investigation that hopefully everybody will be able to follow to see the difference.

Take, for example, a stolen bicycle. Someone calls in and says that their bicycle was stolen and that their neighbour Phil stole it, because he told them he would. Now, there's no reason not to believe this person—who we're going to call Mike—who's declaring his bike has been stolen.

We're more or less at reasonable grounds to suspect. We can suspect that there's a bike that's gone missing. We can suspect that potentially there was somebody named Phil who might have been responsible for that. However, we haven't reached the threshold of reasonable grounds to believe, because we haven't confirmed or corroborated any of the information that's been provided.

Now, it's the same scenario. He came to the detachment and made the same declaration, but this time he showed text messages from his neighbour Phil saying he would steal the bicycle on Tuesday. He's also producing door-cam footage of someone who meets the description of Phil stealing a bicycle from his lawn and walking towards his own house on that Tuesday. When you do your police checks, you see that someone who lives beside the victim is named Phil. He has been known to steal and has been arrested seven times for stealing bicycles. His mug shot matches the description, or what you see in the doorbell cam.

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

This is interesting to me. We're going to be getting into the reasonable grounds to suspect and reasonable grounds to believe. If I've understood what you're saying, this all comes down to basically taking this down to the lower threshold of reasonable grounds to suspect for a certain class or a certain amount of information.

I'm sorry. I know Mr. Housefather was talking about just getting to it.

The whole reasonable grounds to suspect and reasonable grounds to believe discussion is going to occupy a fair amount of time of my questioning. I'll tell you that right now.

I know what reasonable grounds to believe is. In my view, reasonable grounds to believe is that you personally believe something—which is the subject of the nature of the belief as a police officer—and that belief is objectively reasonable. A reasonable person would also say that you have a basis on which to believe it.

Do you agree? It's been a while for me.

Okay. Can somebody help me? What does reasonable grounds to suspect mean legally?

I just laid out the legal test for reasonable grounds to believe. I don't know what it is for reasonable grounds to suspect. Can someone help us there?

[Normand Wong]

There is case law that talks about the reasonable suspicion standard. It's been described as a reasonable possibility instead of a probability. Reasonable grounds to believe is more of a probability, while reasonable grounds to suspect is a reasonable possibility.

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

That's interesting, because I always thought reasonable grounds to believe was not to the level of a prima facie case. For a prima facie case there is something there that you can get.

Maybe I'm just confused because this is a very technical area of law. When I think of something, it's that you have reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed, and is that reasonable?

Mr. Wong, if I take your point, we're talking about “Has something happened? Yes, it may have happened.” I suppose that's a bit inconsistent with my understanding, but I might be out to lunch on this.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, MP Caputo.

Mr. Housefather, you have the floor.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll try to speak slowly. I understand that it's difficult for the interpreters when I speak too fast.

I want to encourage everyone to use actual examples of how things work, because I think it helps us when you have concrete examples of how words will change the bill. I appreciate that we got to that point, but maybe that's a good starting point.

Here, I understand that if we change the wording to “telecommunications provider”, we then no longer have the ability to use the lower grounds of reasonable belief to obtain a warrant and search.

For example, let's say we have a human trafficking case where you have a report that there's this middle-aged man with a young woman or a number of young women who has been staying at this hotel, went to this car rental agency and has this bank account, and you need to obtain quick information from the bank, from the rental car agency or from the hotel to try to find the victim who may be with this gentleman. You only have a report. You haven't done independent validation to get you to a belief standard, but you've reached the suspicion standard. Because of the way the law is now worded, you would be able to go to those different service providers, that are not telecommunications providers, to obtain important information, such as, “Are you a client of this bank? Were you at this hotel? Did you rent this car?” That's essentially the point of this, and that's what would change with this Bloc amendment.

I understand that we will eventually get to a profound debate about whether that standard should change, which I'm sure Mr. Caputo will, to use his words, “nerd out on”, but for the moment, while we have the different standard in the bill, should we eventually remain with the reasonable belief standard, this amendment would thwart the intention of the bill to allow that lower standard for a number of service providers where you may need to obtain important police information.

Is that correct?

[Kimberly Gibner]

That is 100% correct.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay. I know how to vote. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Mr. Mantle, the floor is yours.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our officials for being here.

Mr. Wong, you made a comment during the discussion on the last amendment that I want to start with. It will be relevant to this amendment.

In discussing the previous amendment, you noted that it includes the word “including” and, therefore, in your opinion, had no legal effect. Did I summarize you accurately?

[Normand Wong]

Yes.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

You're familiar with the basic legal maxim that all legislation speaks. Is it not the case that when Parliament includes something in legislation a court is required—statutory interpretation 101—to consider that?

Do you want to revise your opinion that including the word “including” in legislation has no legal effect?

[Normand Wong]

I don't think I said it had no legal effect. I think the change to what the current wording was in the conditions, which gave the judge broad discretion to impose any reasonable conditions upon the search and examination of a computer, amounted to the exact same thing as the articulated examples of conditions, because the judge still has the discretion to impose those conditions if they so choose.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Okay. It helps me understand where you're coming at this from, because I would certainly take a different view of that. For a judge considering a piece of legislation that has specific criteria, even if it is a non-exhaustive list, if they simply ignored that, I think that would be problematic and probably grounds to appeal that decision, so it's helpful to know where you're coming from. I'll come back to that non-exhaustive list issue in a second with respect to this amendment, BQ-2.

Ms. Gibner, you made a comment with respect to BQ-2 that in discussing subscriber information, it's only basic information. Am I quoting you accurately?

[Kimberly Gibner]

Yes.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

Could you tell me where in the clause of Bill C-22 that describes subscriber information it says that it's limited to only basic information?

[Kimberly Gibner]

The subscriber definition sets out exactly what it is, and that was my characterization of what that list is.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

If we go to that clause, I might ask you to bring it up so you have it in front of you. Let me know when you have it ready.

[Kimberly Gibner]

That's the definition of “subscriber information”. I have it in front of me.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

In proposed paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), as I read them, each of those paragraphs uses the word “including”, do they not? Proposed paragraph (a) says, “including their name, pseudonym, address”, etc. Proposed paragraph (b) says, “including account numbers”, and then proposed paragraph (c) says, “including” (i), (ii) and (iii), which are listed.

Is that right?

[Kimberly Gibner]

The word “including” is in all of those paragraphs, yes.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

As we just established, using the word “including” creates a non-exhaustive list. Is it not fair to say that in this definition, nowhere is it limited to, as you describe, only basic information?

[Kimberly Gibner]

My read, if it assists you in any way, is that the first part of the sentence clarifies the “including”. The “including” is giving examples of what the first part means. For example, in (a), it says, “information that may be used to identify the subscriber or client”.

That's the point of the sentence, in my opinion. Then they just give examples of how you might identify someone, for example, with their name, their pseudonym or their address.

I see those as describers, and I would characterize all of that information—this is just my characterization—as basic information.

[Jacob Mantle, Conservative, York—Durham, ON]

That's a significant difference of opinion, in my opinion, because when you use—