Public Safety Committee on June 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

MP Genuis, I'm the one regulating the points of order. Thank you so much.

My role is to invite everyone to be as helpful as they can be. Obviously, life is short. We have limited time. We have limited resources. The officials, the interpreters and many others have been with us for some time now, obviously. I just want to insist that we need to be as efficient and professional as we can be. Now, it's up to everyone to judge how that can be achieved. Thank you, everyone.

Mr. Lloyd.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

You addressed my point of order. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, MP Lloyd.

We're turning back to MP Mantle.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just reflecting on something Mr. Housefather said in his point of order, I have respect for his proposing a subamendment that's substantive. I assure him I will get to some questions on that because I do have some legitimate questions on that. I did look for him today, but I see he maybe wasn't around. I did want to chat with him about it. I apologize that we weren't able to connect before this meeting.

I concur with my colleague Mr. Genuis in his experience. You made some comments at the beginning of the meeting, and I feel like they deserve some reflection on my part.

Again, I will say that this is an important bill. It's raised a lot of debate. All parts of it, including part 1, including the subscriber “confirmation of service”, which we discussed at the last meeting, and now, as we move into the production order.... We have legitimate concerns over parts of part 1. As we've reiterated several times—and I will do so again for the benefit of the members opposite—we are open to those reasonable amendments and think that part 1 could be dealt with in a more expeditious manner, perhaps if we had more collaboration on it. Then we could at least achieve something that would be beneficial for law enforcement.

We made that offer in the House—I guess it was on Tuesday morning—when Mr. Caputo moved a motion to split Bill C-22 between part 1 and part 2, with the offer that we could work more co-operatively with the government on part 1 with some amendments, which we've been discussing here. If we could achieve a sort of reasonable resolution to those amendments, we might be able to get to a place where part 1 could be dealt with before Parliament adjourns for the summer. Then part 2, which is a whole other can of worms, in my view at least, could go back to the drawing board and get some additional review. I think there has been a process problem, and your comments sort of allude to that. This is not your—

[A voice]

This summer—

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

If Mr. Ramsay wants to come back in the summer, I will be here as much as he would like. If you're here, I'm here. We'll do it together.

The chair's comments allude to the fact that we do have a process problem. It's not the chair's fault in any way. We've been given very limited time to deal with Bill C-22. The government has been unwilling to provide sufficient time for all of the stakeholders who wanted to be here, but could not be. In fact, it has been unwilling to even allow the Privacy Commissioner to attend, even though we have repeatedly asked for the Privacy Commissioner to be here to speak to the very amendment that our Bloc colleague has put forward. It comes directly from comments submitted by the Privacy Commissioner to this committee outlining the Privacy Commissioner's concerns with several of the clauses in part 1.

We have been blocked from doing that without any cogent reason, I would add. There has been some suggestion that the Privacy Commissioner is not an official, so that's not normal practice. I would disagree with that. We have two entities here that are not departmental officials. They are the RCMP and CSIS, who I—

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Yes, MP Housefather.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Chair, it's repetition. Mr. Mantle has made this point at least six times in the last two meetings. This is about the subamendment to BQ-4. This is where we are. This is not related.

Mr. Chair, I would ask you to have him speak to the subamendment. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I would encourage MP Mantle to follow that advice, given that these views have been shared already. To the best possible extent, try to stick to the subamendment we are discussing. I certainly hear that you would like the government to act differently in the broader context, but that doesn't speak specifically to the Liberal subamendment we are currently looking at.

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

On a point of order, I'd like to point out that this is actually the first time I've heard these arguments made, so I was following them.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Yes. There would also be other MPs who have not heard them before, but the regular members of this committee heard them just a few days ago.

MP Mantle.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have found that, sometimes, it takes repetition for the government to hear anything. Although they may not like it, it is sometimes necessary, unfortunately. If they listened more carefully, maybe repetition wouldn't be necessary.

As I was saying, this particular amendment and the subamendment are derived from the Privacy Commissioner's recommendation. He is not here. We have two entities that are also not departmental—the RCMP and CSIS—and I appreciate their presence. It's helpful to the committee's clause-by-clause review. It's helpful for me to understand their view, since they will be the primary users of these new powers. At the same time, the Privacy Commissioner's views would be helpful to me, and we have been denied that ability.

Let me go back to the Bloc amendment. I will get to the substance of this amendment and subamendment.

I'll be honest, Mr. Housefather. I have some confusion about what you're trying to achieve, and that's honest confusion here. I'm going to ask a couple of questions. If you want to go on the speaking list, please do.

My understanding is that the Privacy Commissioner's letter to this committee set out a concern about the production order provision, because it stipulates that the person who receives the order to produce information would have to produce “all the subscriber information that relates to any information...that is specified in the order”.

Maybe I'll just ask Mr. Wong or Ms. Gibner to confirm this.

That provision, as it is currently written, seems very broad. Should I interpret this extremely broadly, in your view? It says, “all” and “any”.

[Normand Wong]

Thank you for the question. I believe I already answered this today.

It lends itself to that interpretation, certainly. In terms of reviewing the motion for the subamendment, I think it is within the spirit of the current provision but makes explicit the discretion of the judge to order whichever subscriber information he thinks is appropriate.

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

In reading the issue identified in the Privacy Commissioner's letter—because “all” and “any” make it broad—the justice or judge wouldn't be able to otherwise limit the information that has to be produced. As it is currently worded, their hands would be tied because of the language of the act.

Do you agree with the Privacy Commissioner's critique there?

[Normand Wong]

To restate what I just said, it lends itself to that interpretation, but that was not the intent. We always intended for the justice or JP to have discretion in terms of ordering it.

This subamendment would make that explicit now.

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

The amendment proposed by the Privacy Commissioner would limit it to the subscriber information specified in the order, which is what the amendment by my colleague from the Bloc would do. I'm not entirely sure how the subamendment changes that, because the Privacy Commissioner's amendment is saying, “Okay, we're going to say that it's limited to the subscriber information specified in the order.” That limits it.

In your view, what does the subamendment do? Does it limit it further? Does it just restate the limit already being proposed? I'm not clear on that.

Mr. Housefather may want to jump in, but I'll ask you, Mr. Wong, because I can.

[Normand Wong]

The articulation in the subamendment keeps the same structure of the production order, makes reference to the definition, but makes it clear that there's discretion of the judge to order appropriate subscriber information for the application.

As you mentioned before, the bill version lends itself to the interpretation that the judge has no discretion and must order all subscriber information in their possession or control.

The issue with the BQ-4 is that the practice is—the RCMP can speak to this—not only do they bring their affidavit, but they also bring a draft production order. The way it is articulated, it would look like the police would have to actually specify the exact subscriber information they're looking for prior to knowing what they need. As Sergeant Gilkes has expressed before, this can be served on a variety of service providers, and police might not know that, so the classes of information would be more helpful to them.

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

That's actually very helpful.

I did not realize what you just said about the RCMP, so I'll ask them about that in a second.

When they're coming with the production order, they're coming with their information, their affidavit, but also a draft of what they think the order should look like.

That makes sense logically. You do that in most court proceedings anyway. Sorry, I didn't make that connection.

Could I ask the RCMP to outline that process for me? You swear an affidavit. You bring an order. Can you walk me through that?

[Aaron Gilkes]

Essentially, when you're preparing your, what we call, information to obtain, there are different parts of that information to obtain. Typically, what we'll call our first section, the annex A, would have that list of items that you intend to search for, that list of items you would speak to. For example, if it were a search, we would have the list of items that speak to the commission of the offence and the list of items that maybe speak to the use of a device, if we're talking about that type of investigation because that's the importance of something like this order.

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

The things that you're going to search are the things that we've been talking about in terms of the subscriber information. You're going to ask to search...what are we talking about that your list would include? Is it the IP address, pseudonyms, names—

[Aaron Gilkes]

It could speak also to the device or the type of equipment that's been used.

Once again, this becomes part of linking or creating that chain of evidence that will eventually lead, potentially, to a conviction. For example, if this were a type of device that we'd seen before that had been used, a very particular type of device or something like that, that would provide context to the device being used.

Annex B would be the offence that we're trying to prove the commission of, or the offence that we're trying to collect evidence in relation to, so we would list that for the judge or justice. Then C would be our narrative as to how we know what we know, why we are asking for what we're asking for and how that will contribute to the investigation of the offence.

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

That's the information to obtain document, the ABC that you've just described, and then attached to that you say, here's what I'd like you to sign as the justice, the draft order.

[Aaron Gilkes]

That depends on the province that you're in.

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

Use Ontario. That's where I'm from.