Madam Speaker, Bill C-2 is being promoted as a crime and border security bill, but it includes sweeping measures that touch on Canadians' private lives. In a data-driven world, it is of utmost importance that governments, citizens and companies have the fundamental right to privacy protected.
The issue with Bill C-2 is that it touches on so many details without enough language or safeguards in place to properly study each component in a way that serves the best interests of Canadians or the implications of the new language contained in this omnibus piece of legislation.
While there are many parts of the bill that could be critiqued, I will focus on the privacy side. This is particularly important to me because in the last Parliament, I had the privilege of working on the industry committee on Bill C-27, which attempted to update Canada's privacy laws. In that process, we sought to enshrine a fundamental right to privacy in legislation. We sought to establish world-leading protections and safeguards for children. We sought to define and limit the socially and commercially acceptable use of personal data. We sought to strike a fine balance between commercial interests and the right of personal data to be protected under the ownership of its user.
I cannot help but think of the relationship to Bill C-2 and the sweeping powers it seeks to provide government that we sought to protect in the last Parliament.
In my opinion, the Liberals have taken this opportunity to develop a secretive, sweeping surveillance regime into a bill that was supposed to be about border and crime issues in response to the tariff challenges we face from the United States.
With that context in mind, let me turn to the specific parts of Bill C-2 that warrant, in my opinion, further study on privacy concerns and are of greatest concern to my constituents and experts alike who have written my office.
Let us look at part 14, an amendment to the Criminal Code. Part 14 would create a new law that would let police make “information demands”. This means police officers could ask Internet or phone companies whether someone is a subscriber, even without a warrant. The standard for doing this in the legislation is very low: police would only need to have a “reasonable suspicion”. The Supreme Court has already said that is not enough when it comes to people's online account information.
That may go against two very important recent Supreme Court decisions. In R v. Spencer, the Supreme Court ruled that Canadians have a right to privacy in their Internet account details and police need a warrant to access that information. In R v. Bykovets, in 2024, the court made it clear that even things like IP addresses are private and also need a warrant to access. Part 14 would let police bypass these privacy protections.
Part 15 of the act, the supporting authorized access to information act, would create a new category of electronic service providers and designate certain core providers. These companies would be forced to build and maintain technical back doors at the request of law enforcement, allow law enforcement to test direct access to their systems and keep all such requests secret from the public. Members should think about the implications of that. The government could tell a telco, an Internet company, that it is going to do things in private with people's personal data, and it does not have to inform the public. This has massive implications that need to be examined carefully.
Part 16 of the act would rewrite Canada's privacy and financial rules. It touches upon the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, under its sections 11.7(1) to 11.7(3). It would create a new part 1.2 of this law, allowing reporting entities, such as banks, credit unions and money services businesses, to collect and use personal information without an individual's knowledge or consent if the data is provided by the government or law enforcement for purposes related to anti-money laundering, terrorist financing or sanctions evasion.
I will note in this request that we do need to improve this bill. Without some of the safeguards that Conservatives and even Liberal members were trying to establish for Bill C-27, it would open the door to future abuse and misuse by law enforcement agencies if these definitions and concepts of privacy and data are not modernized in Canada.
I note the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act's proposed sections 7 and 9. Under this portion of part 16, the bill introduces exceptions so that the usual requirement for knowledge or consent no longer applies when collection or use falls under the above provisions, namely the terrorism financing act. It would also remove the obligation for individuals to access their own information if it was obtained under these rules. Essentially, this would allow for banks and financial institutions to use Canadians' financial information without consent when the government supplies it.
I think again about the implications this would have with the Canada Revenue Agency, financial institutions and the privacy of individuals and what this could do to the makeup of families' information that they want to keep private from other family members, not for criminal purposes, but maybe for business-related purposes. We have privacy in Canada for a reason. This bill would undermine it.
Part 11 is about cash transaction restrictions. Constituents in my community have raised concerns about the provisions related to cash transactions. I know in many cases, in British Columbia especially, at casinos and at car dealerships, cash transactions have been abused, but there may be a better way to treat cash moving forward than what is outlined in this bill. We have to think about the context of religious organizations that collect large amounts of cash at a weekly service, such as at a gurdwara or at a Christian church. We have to look at charities and auctions and the application the bill would have on those aspects of our society.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not quickly touch upon the Canada Post Corporation Act amendments. The Liberals think giving the government the ability to open our mail on very spurious grounds would serve Canada's interests. I would argue that we can find a middle ground. We can apply technology. We could speed up the use of warrants when necessary so that law enforcement would indeed have access to drugs, such as fentanyl, that are mailed in the Canada Post system.
In closing, this bill is litigation in action. I just cannot imagine the number of court cases that are going to come from this legislation if we do not address these major privacy concerns, if we do not get the definitions correct and if the government is not very clear about the safeguards and the application of the things that they are proposing, which would go well beyond everything they promised in the election in a way that Canadians are not even aware of. This legislation needs careful scrutiny, so if this bill passes, I would encourage the minister to critically review whether the privacy and data collection aspect is even necessary for its core objectives of protecting our border.
Coming from a border town, I know we want strong infrastructure at our border. We want to see more CBSA officers enforcing existing laws. We want to see the equipment and the military presence where necessary to keep Canadians safe, but this legislation goes well above and beyond the Canadian consensus about what we need to do to keep people safe today.
