Public Safety Committee on June 4th, 2026

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

Thank you.

First of all, I'm a total nerd, especially on this subject. I'm going to give you one of my real-life examples, and we'll see if I'm getting this.

What we're talking about here is what is specifically on the system versus what is accessible to the system. Is that accurate? Okay.

One of the first cases of Internet luring that I dealt with was a very disgusting individual who was luring children from the Philippines. He was arrested for more substantive charges. Initially, it was a child sexual abuse material investigation. The RCMP got his hard drive and realized that, whoa, he was actually arranging offences in the Philippines. He was then arrested on that offence.

In the search incidental to the arrest, a cellphone was recovered, which was contrary to his condition on the original charge that he not possess any electronic devices. The RCMP did a data extraction, with a warrant. Within that data extraction were all sorts of Facebook communications.

Am I right to say that those Facebook communications would not be in the phone per se, but accessible to the phone? Is this the type of thing we're dealing with?

[Aaron Gilkes]

It's not that straightforward. It really would depend on the set-up of the individual themselves and where they want to keep their information. If it were accessible to something similar to a OneDrive, and they were to store their communications off of their device on that OneDrive and it would be accessible from any device they might want to access it from at a later date, that would be a good example. However, it's also possible that they could download those communications and keep them on their device, on a local drive within the device itself.

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

Right. My point is that within our devices we probably don't even realize what's there, most of us. For instance, I was just looking up an investment. I won't get into the details of things, but if it looks at my face and says my password is good, it can then access what's on that website. Is the current practice now to say that by having your device, we have access to what your device allows us to get to? In other words, that investment portfolio is password-protected. We get your password, which now gets us in there, but we have a judicial authorization, as in, a judge has said there are reasonable grounds to believe an offence has been committed and that there's evidence to be found in that place.

Is that where it gets us? I hope I'm being clear here.

[Aaron Gilkes]

That's correct. That would be accessible to you. You would be, essentially, in control of, in possession of the device itself—

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

Otherwise, a nefarious actor could simply store everything off of their phone. Unless you're a digital guru...which there are out there. There are people who are very careful. People who are nefarious are often very careful.

This is to prevent somebody from storing everything that is inculpatory, if you will.... If somebody were to store everything inculpatory and you were to seize their phone, if this amendment were to go through, you wouldn't be able to necessarily get the contents of that inculpatory information because it's held elsewhere, “outside” of the device. Is that correct?

[Aaron Gilkes]

You see that, for example, with a shared device. There's one family computer and an individual will not store the incriminating evidence on that device, but they will store it in the cloud and simply access it from the device.

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

That's also an interesting point, because there's a body of case law, as I recall, at least in British Columbia, that talks about waiver of charter rights. My understanding—and it's been a number of years—is that one person cannot waive the charter rights over another person's.... If a person has an expectation of privacy in a device and there is joint control of the device, person A can't waive person B's expectation of privacy.

Are you with me here so far?

[Aaron Gilkes]

Yes.

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

If this amendment was to not go through, could you have a situation in which there's a joint cloud, if you will, but you're dealing with the question of who has ownership of it? Would that come into effect as an expectation of privacy?

[Aaron Gilkes]

In this case, we're using a warrant to obtain that information, and I think what you're alluding to is more of a consensual search that's been provided by someone else who has control or who has access to the device.

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

Thank you. I think I have enough information to make a decision here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Caputo.

Mr. Housefather, you have the floor.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I just wanted to clarify, because I don't think this is so difficult. I wonder if you could just clarify, because I think this is the simplest....

There's a child pornography ring out there, and all of the members have access to a OneDrive where they store all of the child pornography materials. If this wording was changed per this amendment in NDP-1, you would not then be able to do anything, even though you have a thumbnail of the picture on the device. Is that correct?

[Aaron Gilkes]

That's correct.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay, I think that is logical enough that, hopefully, everybody can vote now. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, MP Housefather.

Does anyone else wish to speak?

It does not appear so. Therefore, we will now vote on the amendment NDP‑1.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

We are now at amendment BQ‑1.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, do you wish to move that amendment?

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

Certainly, Mr. Chair.

Our amendment came from the brief of the Barreau du Québec. Its objective was to add a guardrail to better regulate the extraction and examination of computer data. This was a recommendation from the Barreau du Québec, which drew our attention.

I am therefore proposing this amendment to committee members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Mr. Ramsay, you have the floor.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Respectfully, I would say that the ultimate aim of the bill is to expedite the process and ensure that investigations can be conducted in a timely manner and in real time. Rules such as those in this amendment will clearly result in much longer delays, which might even prevent investigations from being completed. It is a question of effectiveness. For that reason, we will be voting against this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Caputo, you have the floor.

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

Could I hear from the officials?

One of the things is, “limited to the class of computer data specified”. Could somebody please give us different types of classes of data? Would that mean that every type of class would have to be enumerated within a warrant?

Does that make sense?

[Normand Wong]

Thank you for the question.

The description of class is no longer in Bill C-22. This articulation was actually in Bill C-2 when it was first introduced. I'm not sure what the Barreau de Québec intends here, but what we intended then was that the judge could impose the condition that the search can only go after photos, certain file types, email clients and things like that.

These are only examples of the conditions that a judge may be able to impose. That's what was intended back with Bill C-2.

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

Just so I'm clear, that's not what's here, but would this amendment restore that? Would it have to specify every type of data class of information that could be obtained?

[Normand Wong]

It would and, as you know, a series of consultations and round tables were held between Bill C-2 and Bill C-22. A lot of the stakeholders from the law enforcement side said that it's unnecessary. There's a variety of law enforcement stakeholders in Canada, like hundreds of police detachments of varying sizes that are resourced differently. It was felt that placing these conditions could become the norm, which would be inappropriate for some police detachments.

We still didn't want to remove the scope of the discretion of the judge to impose conditions that are reasonable in the circumstances, so that's why the new articulation is there in Bill C-22.