Mr. Speaker, Bill C-22 is the federal government's attempt to finally establish a Canadian lawful access regime after years of inaction. There is no doubt that law enforcement and national security agencies face real challenges in the digital world. Criminals involved in organized crime, child exploitation and human trafficking increasingly use encrypted services, burner phones and foreign-based platforms to hide their identities and evade justice. Conservatives have long recognized the need to give police the tools required to pursue criminals effectively.
However, while Bill C-22 addresses some genuine operational gaps, it also raises serious concerns about civil liberties, proportionality and ministerial overreach. As drafted, the bill risks trading Canadians' privacy and constitutional protections for administrative convenience while failing to meaningfully address the most urgent public safety issues facing the country.
My first point is that faster access comes at the cost of lower thresholds. At the heart of Bill C-22 is a deliberate shift toward faster and easier access to digital information. The bill introduces new confirmation of service demands, production orders for subscriber information and clarified emergency seizure powers, many of which operate on the low standard of “reasonable grounds to suspect” rather than “reasonable grounds to believe”. Subscriber information under this bill is defined broadly, including names, addresses, email accounts, device identifiers and service history. In the modern context, this information can reveal detailed personal profiles and social connections. Lowering the evidentiary threshold for accessing this data risks normalizing surveillance at early investigative stages without sufficient justification or safeguards. While judicial oversight technically remains in place for most tools, the cumulative effect is a system where access is easier, quicker and more routine, even when the intrusion into privacy could be significant.
My second point is about the expansion of warrantless and voluntary disclosure powers. Bill C-22 codifies and expands the ability of police and public officers to obtain information without warrants in exigent circumstances. While true emergencies justify flexibility, the bill's language does risk stretching “impracticability” beyond genuine urgency and into administrative expediency.
Even more concerning is the bill's broad reliance on voluntary disclosure. Telecommunications companies and other service providers are explicitly encouraged to hand over information voluntarily, including unsolicited information or data required under foreign law, with full immunity from civil or criminal liability. This effectively creates, or could create, a parallel system of access outside traditional judiciary scrutiny. Canadians should not have their personal information transferred to the state simply because a company decides it is expedient or risk-free to comply in certain circumstances.
My third concern is that secrecy and delayed notice could weaken accountability. Bill C-22 entrenches secrecy as a core feature of lawful access. Non-disclosure orders can prevent service providers from revealing that they have been compelled to co-operate. In some cases, notice to affected individuals may be delayed for up to three years, with possible extensions. This erosion of transparency undermines meaningful accountability. Canadians whose data is accessed may never know it happened, making charter challenges or judicial remedies largely theoretical. Oversight that occurs only after the fact and primarily within government institutions cannot substitute for timely notice and real recourse.
My fourth point is about ministerial powers and burdens on service providers. Part 2 of the bill, the supporting authorized access to information act, introduces a new regulatory regime imposing obligations on electronic service providers. The government may designate core providers, such as a cellphone company, and require them to build and maintain technical surveillance capabilities, retain metadata for up to one year, and assist in testing access systems, all at their own expense. While the bill claims to prohibit mandatory back doors and systematic vulnerabilities, the scope of ministerial discretion remains extremely broad. Individualized ministerial orders are confidential, shielded from public scrutiny, and only reviewed for reasonableness by the intelligence commissioner. This framework risks imposing compliance costs, stifling innovation and concentrating powers in the hands of our executive.
My fifth point is that the bill fails to address Canada's real public safety crisis. Perhaps most troubling is what Bill C-22 would not do: It would do nothing to address catch-and-release bail, sentencing leniency or the lack of mandatory prison time for fentanyl traffickers and violent gang members. Canadians continue to face rising violent crime, organized theft and drug trafficking, problems driven not by lack of data but by judicial and policy failures. The government's focus on digital access powers, while ignoring these other key aspects of our criminal justice system, reflects, in some cases, a few misplaced priorities.
Bill C-22 contains elements that Conservatives can support in principle and that I will be voting in favour of, particularly the goal of modernizing investigative tools, but as drafted, the bill would overreach in ways that could threaten civil liberties, weaken transparency and expand ministerial power, while failing to deliver real improvements to public safety in certain cases.
In a digital era, when metadata can be as revealing as content itself, the bill's cumulative effect risks putting Canada on a path to where lawful access becomes pervasive access. A more balanced approach would have raised access thresholds, narrowed voluntary disclosure, strengthened notice obligations and subjected the most privacy-intrusive powers to stricter, not looser, judicial control. For these reasons, I believe Conservatives should support the bill at second reading in order to send it to committee, but only with a clear expectation that amendments are required.
Any lawful access regime must strike a proper balance, equipping police to stop criminals while firmly protecting the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Canadians. I believe we can get there, and this is a step in the right direction, especially as it relates to vulnerable children and victims of human trafficking.