Public Safety Committee on June 4th, 2026

[Normand Wong]

No. The administrative scheme was a statutory scheme that was proposed, so it would have been difficult to change as well.

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

My question stands, then. Why was the definition of “subscriber information” the right approach then, but it's not the right approach now?

[Normand Wong]

It was a statutory administrative scheme. It was in law. The scheme required oversight from a senior police officer. There was auditing involved, but there was no judicial oversight. There was no need to go to the court. Any police detachment could probably poll the system directly from their police department and obtain the information. That's how that scheme worked.

This scheme requires the police to go to court to get a production order for this information. I'm sorry if I'm not explaining that right.

Because there was no court oversight, the definition of “subscriber information” was scaled back. Because there is judicial oversight now and the discretion goes to the judge for whether or not it's issued, it was expanded.

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

Okay. I see what you're saying. You were more comfortable having it in an expanded manner here because of that judicial oversight. I guess that's a slightly different question from what we were previously discussing, which is whether there may be a necessity to update a defined list in the future, based on whatever changes may take place.

[Normand Wong]

That's right.

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

Thank you for those comments.

I may come back to this issue, but those are my thoughts for now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

Mr. Ramsay, you have the floor.

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

I think we've established that the objective of this amendment is to replace a broader definition of “subscriber information” with a narrow list of identifiers.

When I look at the conditions of a production order, my understanding is that not only does an offence have to have been committed or will be committed in the future, but we also need to establish that the subscriber information will assist in the investigation of the offence.

Consequently, am I right to assume that a judge will not authorize the release of that information unless the requesting party can prove it will be useful? That would be my first question.

[Normand Wong]

Yes. The affidavit has to demonstrate all of those conditions you mentioned. In addition to that, the construction of the production order for subscriber information also requires the police to have an identifier that the subscriber information relates to. It's even more limited in terms of how it's constructed. The police have to be seeking the subscriber information that relates to specific information already in their possession or control.

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

Am I right to argue that it would probably be better to leave it for the judge to decide because he knows the particulars of each case and he is more apt to decide what information should be in the production order rather than the legislator trying to assess any case that could happen under the sun?

[Normand Wong]

That's how the production order was designed. Getting back to the previous question, because the judge has discretion to order the production of the subscriber information, we think that they're the best place to assess that based on the evidence produced by the police.

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

That's all. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor.

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

First, I would like some clarification.

I gather from the Privacy Commissioner that, since the threshold for obtaining information is low, it may be too intrusive to go looking for information on the services received. That's why he recommended this amendment to protect privacy.

We've been talking a great deal about pseudonyms. However, do we really need the list of all the services received? That's what we need to ask ourselves. That's the idea behind my amendment. Is it really that vital? Where do we draw the line in terms of allowing police officers to do their job while ensuring a certain level of privacy? If the threshold is low, where's the balance?

Furthermore, the amendment isn't phrased as an instruction or order. It's intended for information purposes.

For example, I don't understand why we would keep the whole issue of the information obtained on the services received. It's a big fishing net. If my amendment were carried, would it really prevent the police officers from doing their job? Of course it would be more difficult, but it wouldn't be impossible.

Again, Mr. Wong, we're looking to strike a balance. I currently feel that it's quite broad. Yet the commissioner is telling us to be careful. Maybe it's possible to go looking for the information based on the lowest threshold, but do we need to go this far? That's my understanding of the commissioner's comments. He's wondering whether we need to go this far.

I know perfectly well that, after my comments, the vote will likely take place and the amendment will be rejected. Yet we aren't looking to filibuster today. We're looking to strike a balance. I thought that the compromise recommended by the commissioner could satisfy the police forces while placing a certain restriction and a certain limit on access to certain data, including data on the services received by the subscriber.

[Normand Wong]

Thank you for the question.

I have a comment on that in terms of how the definition is built. With some of these categories, especially (c), because the amendment is asking for the repeal of proposed paragraph (c), that type of information is already available when it's considered transmission data under the transmission data production order, which is already at reasonable grounds to suspect. Some of that data is already analogous to other data that is in current production orders. In terms of trying to be consistent in the Criminal Code and not having different legal standards or standards of review for the same types of data, we included it here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Mr. Housefather, you have the floor.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we're again introducing a whole lot of complexity to this amendment.

If I have it straight, this amendment has two parts. The first part is deleting the word “pseudonym” from the list of things that are included, which means we're essentially debating whether or not we remove the word “pseudonym” from an inclusive list, which could include other things that are not enumerated on the list.

Would I be right about that, Ms. Gibner?

[Kimberly Gibner]

You have that right, sir.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay.

Then, as for a pseudonym, does anyone remember Karla Homolka, the wife of Paul Bernardo? I believe she went by Leanne Teal. Would that be a pseudonym for Karla Homolka?

If Karla Homolka, for example, in the old days when you used to develop pictures, had gone to a photo store and, let's say, they had this information online or wherever they kept it in their records, and instead of using “Karla Homolka” to develop the pictures she took at the crime scene when these poor girls were being victimized she used the name Leanne Teal, I would assume that maybe it would be more difficult to get the information than if she had used her real name of Karla Homolka.

Would that be correct, if you remove the word “pseudonym”?

[Kimberly Gibner]

If that question was for me, that would be my understanding. I think that's what I heard.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Yes, my questions are for you until I say otherwise. So far, you've been very good at giving me short and clear answers.

This is the other question I have: Why would a pseudonym be more important to my privacy interests than my own name, my own email address and my own telephone number? It seems incredibly odd to me that we're having this whole argument about whether a pseudonym—a fake name that I intend to use—somehow gives me greater privacy rights than my actual information.

Do you not find that a bit weird? I see you're nodding, so maybe you want to—

[Shannon Hiegel, Director General, National Security Policy Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

No, I suppose I don't, because I've worked with law enforcement for many years now. As the online environment has just exploded...we all do it. I do it. I smile because I know for my first email account when I was 15, I didn't use my name because I didn't want it connected with me.

That's just a little personal anecdote there.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

That's fair. Again, it seems to me that your name is more important than your pseudonym, so I don't understand that whole part.

The second part of this seems to be to remove the words “the types of services provided” and “the period during which the services were provided”. Again, if I were to go to that photo store, I wouldn't be able to find out, at this lower threshold, whether or not she had photos developed. That's the whole amendment.

I'm not really understanding why a pseudonym, the types of services I provided or the period during which the services were provided somehow carry higher privacy rights than the other enumerated parts of this section, where we describe and explain what subscriber information is.

I guess my point is that I'm voting no. My other point is that I don't understand how this is so complex. I think I was able to boil it down into two parts in about seven seconds.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

Ms. Kirkland, you have the floor.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that. I will not be daunted by the idea that asking good questions is silly.

Mr. Wong, you mentioned something a little while ago that I wanted to pick up on, which is why I got myself back on the list. You said something about future-proofing, and I wonder if you could clarify that. I think that was the term you used. Correct me if I'm wrong.