Public Safety Committee on June 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Good afternoon, everyone.

We'll now begin meeting number 43 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Pursuant to the House of Commons order of reference of April 20, 2026, and the motion that we adopted on April 30, 2026, we're meeting, as you know, to study Bill C‑22, An Act respecting lawful access.

Once again, I would like to thank and welcome the witnesses. We're getting to know them well and to appreciate them even more.

From the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, we're joined by Ramzi Nashef and Juanita M.

From the Department of Justice, we're joined by Kimberly Gibner and Normand Wong.

From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we're joined by Richard Bilodeau, Shannon Hiegel and Fenton Ho.

Lastly, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we're joined by Chief Superintendent Richard Burchill and Sergeant Aaron Gilkes.

We know how important and demanding your work is under normal circumstances. We also know that you're making yourselves available for many hours to meet with us. This places an even greater burden on you. We're grateful for the time that you spend with us, including the personal and family time that you sacrifice to join us.

We'll try to work as efficiently as possible to respect not only your time, but also the resources allocated by the House of Commons to the study of this bill. I would ask everyone to remain as diligent, concise and helpful as possible with the committee's questions.

I would like to respectfully remind the committee that, in seven hours, we've covered just seven or eight amendments. So the pace is obviously a challenge, by the way. We also want to live up to the expectations and needs of Canadians and of the people who work for us on this committee.

That said, remember that last Tuesday—

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

I have a point or order, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Mr. Powlowski, you have the floor.

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

It has come to my attention that today is your birthday. I'd like to wish you a happy birthday, and I hope you like our present of being here for seven hours.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

That was arranged with MP Powlowski, who will get his reward soon. My real birthday is on Saturday. I wanted to be celebrated twice in a single week. Marcus, thank you very much.

Having said that, it makes me even happier to recognize that are we a great team; we had to work together on Tuesday to come to amendment BQ-4.

Last Tuesday, we debated amendment BQ‑4, to which Mr. Housefather moved a subamendment. Mr. Housefather is joining us remotely. The clerk distributed this subamendment to all the committee members.

MP Housefather, did you want to say a few words just to remind us of the context of that subamendment?

(On clause 6)

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to wish you a happy birthday in advance.

I'll be brief. I'll take your wise advice that we should speed up our deliberations.

This subamendment is related to amendment BQ-4, which is a very well-intentioned amendment that follows a recommendation of the Privacy Commissioner. It relates to what could be in a document that is provided by a service provider in response to the back-and-forth with police and the order.

Mr. Chair, when I read BQ-4, which says, “produce a document containing the subscriber information that is specified in the order...”, I felt that it was too limiting. It assumes that police would know, when they are preparing their request, exactly what information the service provider would actually have, and it's way too early in the process for them to know that.

What I propose is to refer back to the definition of subscriber information, and to say that they would produce a document containing the subscriber information referred to in any of the proposed paragraphs (a) to (c) in our definition of subscriber information. I would like to try to limit it in a way that I think is respectful of what the Privacy Commissioner had actually intended.

I'll leave this by asking the officials if they feel that what is drafted here is something that would work—not from a determination of the committee's perspective. Does it actually reflect the intention of what should be in the bill in terms of how it's referred back to the definition?

[Normand Wong, Acting General Counsel, Policy Sector, Department of Justice]

Looking at the amendment and the subamendment, I think this subamendment does just as Mr. Housefather indicates. It generally leaves the scheme of the production order intact while addressing what I believe the Privacy Commissioner was looking for, which was more explicit discretion for the judge to order specific types of subscriber information.

I do believe that this is in the spirit of the current provision, but I understand that the current provision could lend itself to an interpretation for which the judge has limited discretion. This provides that it's up to the discretion of the judge to order what subscriber information will be produced.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you.

MP Housefather, do you have anything more?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

No, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you so much.

Madame DeBellefeuille.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I would like to thank the clerk for giving me a headset with two earphones. Perhaps this will give me a more comfortable working environment until midnight.

Regarding the subamendment, we consulted the advisers on the commissioner's team to see whether it would alter my amendment and whether it did indeed reflect what the Privacy Commissioner had in mind. Basically, the subamendment reflects what he had in mind and it doesn't alter my amendment. It still captures the spirit that the commissioner had in mind. I would be quite supportive of this subamendment.

I would like to take this opportunity to say the following, Mr. Chair. I don't know whether you said this at the start. However, I would expect you to give us breaks during the clause‑by‑clause consideration.

Could you explain how the meeting will run until midnight? Will you be giving us regular breaks?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

We could take a break every 90 minutes. Last time, we waited a bit longer to make sure that the meal was ready, but we could take a break every 90 minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That's all for me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you for your comments, Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

The floor is yours, MP Kronis.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much for welcoming me to this committee. I'm delighted to be here on such an auspicious day—your birthday.

It's interesting to hear the first witness who was here talk about the fact that some people see the proposed changes, the amendment and the subamendment, as limiting the discretion of the judge, or the Privacy Commissioner seems to have proposed it in order to expand the discretion of the judge.

Mr. Wong, could you elaborate on that a little bit?

[Normand Wong]

Just to clarify what I intended to say if I didn't say it, the proposal for clause 6 that's currently in the bill could lend itself to limiting the discretion of the judge, because it refers to producing all the subscriber information in their possession or control that relates to information that's provided. I think that was the preoccupation of the Privacy Commissioner. By adding to or dividing the provision up in the way proposed by the subamendment, it makes explicit that it's completely within the judge or the justice of the peace's discretion to order what subscriber information they think is appropriate for the demand.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

As you probably know, there has been great concern about the scope of this bill within our communities. I'm sure that I'm not alone in this room in terms of having received hundreds of emails about this bill. Can you explain a little bit about why you think this is a reasonable limit?

[Normand Wong]

The production order is issued by a judge, so it's not a given that police get the information when they demand it; it's up to the discretion of the judge. In terms of safeguards, one of the main safeguards in terms of the use of this tool is that it's discretionary for the judge to actually order it. The police have to provide certain information and meet certain thresholds in order to obtain this. In terms of balancing the needs of the police and the privacy interests of the people who are involved, who are usually criminals, we think that this strikes a fair balance.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

It's interesting that you would say “usually criminals”. You and I are both lawyers. I don't know whether most of the people who are watching this are lawyers or not, but you talked about certain information that the police have to provide in order to get the judicial order. Can you provide some examples of the kind of information that they have to provide? I think that would go a long way towards reassuring people in our communities.

[Normand Wong]

I think a good example might be that, in the course of an investigation for an organized drug ring, they have other tools that they're using, such as a wiretap, a transmission data recorder warrant or production order. While they're surveilling one person of interest, they use a tool that records all the phone numbers that this suspect is calling. The production order for subscriber information would allow police to go to court to verify who's at the other end of those phone numbers. Because it's just specific information— basically, identifying information—police could use this tool to quickly identify additional suspects, pizza delivery people, school people or potential victims. It's a very limited tool in order for police to parse out the people who might be involved in the investigation.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

It's interesting that you would use the example of phones. One of the things that I'm constantly hearing about in terms of the concern is the year's worth of metadata that is potentially going to be collected under this. I'm wondering two things. First, in the case of phone numbers, to the extent that a person has had a phone number for years and has a network of contacts in their phone, can you explain why you would need a year's worth of metadata to be able to get that kind of information?

[Normand Wong]

I will defer to my colleagues from public safety, because that's from part 2 of the bill. Part 1 of the bill, which I'm here to speak to, has to do with the judicial orders to get at that information.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Just before we—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Respectfully, I would not want to direct your question, but that's indeed in part 2. There are amendments specific to metadata later.