Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to speak on behalf of Kitchener Centre residents. Today, I will be speaking to Bill C-22, an act respecting lawful access.
Let me start with the principle that has guided Conservatives for generations, which is that Canadians deserve to feel safe in their homes, their communities and their daily lives. They deserve a justice system that reflects the same values they hold, one that protects their freedoms and keeps the focus where it belongs, which is on keeping criminals accountable and victims protected. Conservatives believe in law and order. We have always stood for practical measures that keep our streets safe, protect our victims and respect the rights of Canadians. That is not new.
For the past decade, we have been warning the government that its approach to public safety and justice has been failing Canadians by putting dangerous criminals on bail and allowing them to walk on our streets, often to just reoffend again. We have been repeatedly asking the Liberals to reverse the policies that weaken the consequences for crime and leave communities feeling less safe. Instead, the current government has doubled down and allowed the situation to worsen.
This is not just theatrics. In my community of Kitchener Centre, officers are dealing with repeat calls. The Waterloo Regional Police Service has reported that a small number of repeat offenders are responsible for a large share of the calls that they get. The same names come up again and again while officers are pulled from other emergencies. Members can think about what that means. The same person can be arrested and released on bail, sometimes even on the same day, only for the police to rearrest them all over again.
Instead of strengthening enforcement and ensuring our frontline police officers and first responders have the resources they need, the government has gone to bat for policies that do not always reflect the realities on the ground, and Canadians can see the results in their communities. They see them in rising crime rates and in their local police forces that are stretched thin. As His Majesty's loyal opposition, it is our role to see if legislation has gone too far. It is not only our role to say so, but also our responsibility.
That is the context in which we find Bill C-22.
Nobody understands more than Canadians that our police services need the necessary tools to do their jobs and be able to keep up with the modern world. They deal with real threats and emergencies. They deserve a system that supports their work. That is not the issue. What Canadians expect and what they deserve is a respect for their privacy and freedom at the same time. However, these tools must be carefully balanced with the rights of Canadians. Public safety and civil liberties do not actually oppose one another; they work hand in hand. That is why Conservatives are approaching this with such caution.
These tools must be able to withstand scrutiny over time. Everyone benefits from clarity. For those in public safety and the general public, clarity reduces uncertainty, because once the government gains access to more of Canadians' personal information, it is not just a question of what it will do with it today, but what it will do with it tomorrow and then the day after that as well. That is why Canadians are paying attention, and the questions they are asking are about trust. They should not be difficult ones for the government to answer. Who has access to this information? Under what conditions can it be accessed? How is that access controlled? What safeguards exist to ensure it is not misused? Where is the line drawn? I think Canadians deserve to know.
When Canadians hear about lawful access, most of them are not thinking about legal definitions and technical terms. What it really boils down to is who can see their information, and why and how that data would be used. If those answers are not clear in the law itself, then it leaves too much room for interpretation and confusion later on what the law is being applied to in real situations.
So much of our lives take place online. We communicate online and bank online, some of us work online, and we store information online. We shop online, and we watch our favourite shows online. More and more of what we do in our daily lives leaves a digital trace. That does not automatically create a problem, but it does mean that the laws around access to digital information now reach further into ordinary activities than they once did.
For example, simple data, such as if someone sends a message, where they are or what device they are on, can reveal a lot about their daily life, even if the actual content of the message is never read aloud. Even something as simple as linking a name to an IP address can reveal where a person goes online, what they look at, their habits or who they talk to.
Good legislation is not just about intent. It is about whether the rules are clear enough that they cannot be misinterpreted. It is about whether the safeguards in place are strong enough that Canadians' rights are protected. Once information is shared in a digital system, it can move quickly between organizations.
That is what Canadians want and, frankly, deserve to know. It is not just who can access their information, but how it is tracked and how it will be protected once accessed. If Canadians cannot see that process clearly, it becomes harder for them to trust how the system is going to work. Once they start to believe that their personal information is not fully protected, it changes things as they know it. It changes how they interact with technology, how they communicate and how confident they feel in their institutions.
We can also not ignore a particularly vulnerable group in this conversation: children and young Canadians. They are now growing up in a world where sharing information is automatic, not deliberate. Many of them do not fully understand what happens to their data once it is shared, who can access it or how long it is stored. That is precisely why the law must be written with them in mind.
Research from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection highlights that young people are more likely to make privacy decisions online without fully understanding the long-term implications of how their personal information may be collected, stored or used. Similarly, Pew Research Centre research shows that teenagers often underestimate how visible and permanent their online activity is. This falls not only under privacy legislation in general but also under what the definition of lawful access means.
The risks do not fall to everyone equally. They cling to those who are the least equipped to understand how their information is being used. We must also recognize that consent in a digital environment is not always meaningful when users do not fully understand what they are agreeing to. Conservatives want to protect kids, which is why clear rules, strict limits on access and strong accountability matters.
Canadians outside this chamber are not reading every clause of the bill, but they know that government decisions impact their daily lives. They understand what it means when privacy is weakened. They have seen before what happens when government powers grow without transparency and accountability. Really, it all comes down to trust, and right now, that trust is fragile.
A poll from Ipsos, as reported by Global News, shows that Canadians are increasingly worried about how their personal data is being collected and used, especially in private industry and by government. Canadians need to be able to trust that, when government is given access to sensitive personal information, it will use that authority carefully and only within clear limits set out by the law. They need to trust that those limits are not flexible or open to interpretation, but firm enough to protect Canadians in practice, not just in principle. They need to trust that, over time, these powers will not quietly expand beyond what was originally approved. Once that trust is lost, it is very difficult to rebuild. That is why clarity, restraint and accountability matter just as much as the intent behind the text itself.
Conservatives are not interested in rushing this process. We are not interested in opposing the bill just to oppose it. We are interested in getting this right for Canadians. They should not have to choose between being safe and being free. They deserve both. Conservatives will stand for both as we review Bill C-22.