Debates of June 17th, 2026

Government Business No. 13—Proceedings on Bill C‑22

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

Mr. Speaker, I always listen carefully to my colleague from Winnipeg North, and I do not know why he feels the need to shout like that. When I have my earpiece in, I find it hard to hear the interpretation. I know he is a passionate person, but still, I struggle to sit through his entire speech.

I disagree with him on some things. He can attack the Conservatives all he wants, but he forgot to mention that the Barreau du Québec, the Canadian Bar Association and civil society groups had many questions and concerns about part 2 of the bill. It is not just the Conservatives, but also many groups in society that were questioning Bill C-22. Also, filibustering is a parliamentary tool that can be used when it becomes clear that the party in power is unwilling to negotiate or co-operate.

What does my colleague have to say to the Barreau du Québec and the Canadian Bar Association, which have called on the government to split Bill C-22 in two?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments. Back home, I am often told that when I am addressing groups, I speak loudly. I tend to speak loudly. That is my normal. I do not mean to cause issues by it.

I believe that there has been a great deal of collaboration between the minister's office and different ministers. We have seen collaboration working with the many different stakeholders in many different communities. The parliamentary secretary posed the question about support from the local police organizations in his own riding. People will find that this sort of consultation and reporting back takes place a great deal. Our Secretary of State for Combatting Crime came to Winnipeg and met with the police association. A lot of consultation and collaboration went into the making of the legislation.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to the member for Winnipeg North's speech. He talked about collaboration and said that the Liberals want to collaborate. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. Any time we tried to collaborate, the answer was always no. Unfortunately that left us little availability to do other things.

The Liberals also said that they want to use the tools. I would suggest they abuse the tools. The member also called the legislation “sound public policy”, so I will say this: If Bill C-22 is good, sound public policy, then it should be able to withstand scrutiny, it should be able to withstand amendments, and it should be able to withstand debate. Frankly, the motion, in my view, is an admission by the Liberal government that it has failed. The bill is so flawed that it cannot possibly withstand debate, and the member should agree with that, because it is definitely not able to withstand scrutiny.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let us imagine this. The Government of Canada, through its ministries, worked collaboratively with provincial jurisdictions, municipal jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies, and it built a consensus, which is very easy to do, on lawful access. The bill came to the floor of the House of Commons in September year. It was brought to the Conservatives, and they said, “No way. We are not going to support this. We do not like lawful access. We are going to debate this thing endlessly. We are not going to allow it to pass.”

Well, it is kind of hard to collaborate, with that kind of an attitude, on the issue of lawful access. It has been made very clear: The Conservative Party of Canada does not support lawful access. We want lawful access, but the Conservatives do not. It is as simple as that.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Scarborough—Woburn, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member did mention just fighting hate, and he mentioned anti-hate legislation. A proposed change came through the Senate to include the noose as a hate symbol, which the Conservatives have voted against. Can you tell the House why it is important for us to put in place hate legislation and, more specifically, to fight against these hate symbols here in Canada?

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Before I let the parliamentary secretary respond, in case there is more of this, I will point out that the member used “you”. I cannot respond. Members should speak through the Speaker to the parliamentary secretary.

I will let the parliamentary secretary respond.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I really do appreciate the question. I think it is best answered by recounting what one of our senators said in addressing the bill. She talked about having a wonderful dinner at home and then going for a walk, during which she was harassed by some people in a truck who were saying some fairly harsh things. They actually had a noose in the truck.

In order to really appreciate the hatred that, unfortunately, is still out there, we have to understand the impact of something of that nature. I do not deny the fact that the noose sends all sorts of strong, negative messages. It hurts people to the core. It is time that we actually do something about it, and Bill C-9 addresses that particular issue and a whole lot more.

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

Mr. Speaker, as we know, Bill C-25 includes changes to the names of electoral districts. The new name of my electoral district will be “Vallée-du-Haut-Saint-Laurent”. It will be easier to pronounce, but it will be less melodious for those who take pleasure in saying my riding's name.

I am pleased to rise to speak to Government Business No. 13. I have a lot to say, but please allow me to digress briefly. We are soon going to adjourn for the summer, and I would say a certain fatigue has set in in the House. We are wrapping up our work this week, and one thing we do not say often enough is that, while we work hard, we could not do it without the support of our staff.

Tonight, I would like to thank my assistant, Racim, who was brand new to Parliament Hill. He came here with me this fall and learned on the job. We had never analyzed a bill together or done clause-by-clause consideration together, so we learned together. Tonight, I want to say how happy I am with his work, his loyalty, his effort and his perseverance. It must be said that we put in long hours, especially heading into a break, to wrap up all the bills.

I am part of a very hard-working and thorough caucus. We work hard and diligently, always with the common good in mind, to do everything we can to improve bills, to assess whether they are in Quebec's best interests and to develop proposals. It is all the better if they are in Canadians' best interests too.

Racim and I work with a great team, and we are also building relationships with the other political parties. We have worked with the Conservatives and the Liberals, and we have also worked with an NDP colleague and our colleague from the Green Party. We joined forces to improve Bill C-22. I will say this straight away: This bill is probably one of the most significant pieces of legislation I will have had the privilege of working on in my time as a member of Parliament, because it brings about fundamental change.

Incidentally, I would like to apologize for stumbling over my words and making a few minor slips. I am a bit tired. Yesterday, we sat until midnight, and as everyone knows, I am no spring chicken. I am 62 years old, so I am tired this evening. I hope everyone will forgive my little slips—

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The first thing I want to say is that it is a bit distracting, when there are not that many people in the House, to hear a conversation between members on the other side. Is it possible to ask that conversations be taken outside?

The second thing is that my colleague just said she is 62 years old. I do not know if it is allowed under the Standing Orders to lie about one's age. I appeal to your judgment on that.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Let us deal with the first item first.

If members are having conversations, it would be good to take them outside of the chamber. Some voices do carry more than others, and they can be heard. Also, some people's hearing is much better than others, and they can hear conversations being had much more clearly.

Now, with respect to the other item, I do not think that the member misled the House. I am certain that she is well aware of her age. If she wishes to disclose it in the House, she is free to do so, or not. Of course, members cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly.

I just want to remind the hon. member for Drummond, who referred to lying, that members cannot use that word when speaking about another member. Even if he wants to make a joke to a member of his own political party, I urge the member to make sure that he does not use that word, in case it leads to disorder in the House.

That said, I invite the hon. member for Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon to continue her speech.

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

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you for your rigour and thank you for rising to call for a little more order.

I was saying that it is a great privilege for me, and I will likely never experience this again in my career, to work on a bill that will profoundly change the way we approach public safety and privacy. Basically, Bill C-22 will change investigative practices and give police better tools, but it also involves invasions of privacy. Our challenge in committee was to determine how to support law enforcement agencies so they could lay criminal charges more easily, especially in the modern Internet era, while ensuring privacy protections under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Honestly, this was a difficult bill to study.

It quickly became apparent that the government had already made up its mind, and since it had a majority, it was hard for the opposition parties to feel that their input was valued and sought. I must say that at some meetings, other than one or two colleagues on the government side, a number of colleagues across the aisle took off their earpieces and talked among themselves, showing little interest in what we had to say.

We have often heard the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons say that the Conservatives engage in a lot of filibustering. Personally, I am not in favour of filibustering. However, it is still a parliamentary tool that can be used as a last resort when one feels that, no matter what people say, the government's primary goal is to run out the clock, hold a few hours of debate, and then, after about 20 hours, bring in closure and claim that the opposition parties are wasting their time.

We could have wrapped up Bill C-22 in a single sitting if, from the outset, we had known that the government had little interest in listening to both civil society and opposition members, even when they were proposing good ideas. As a member of the Bloc Québécois, I was nevertheless quite fortunate. The seven amendments that were proposed, discussed, and debated were those put forward by the Bloc Québécois. Of the seven proposed amendments, only one was adopted, after being amended by the government. All the amendments I proposed came either from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Quebec Bar Association, or the chair of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. I did not propose far-fetched amendments. They were based on expert testimony that sought to help us strike a balance.

Representatives from the Barreau du Québec said, among other things, that they could live with part 1 of Bill C-22, but that part 2 was more problematic and would have required further study. My Liberal colleagues said there was no point in devoting more time to study it because the Conservatives were filibustering. However, when we have the impression that speaking is pointless because we know in advance that the government just wants to run down the clock so it can then justify invoking closure, filibustering makes sense.

That is what really bothered me, because I truly wanted to study Bill C-22 thoroughly and make a valuable contribution. The minister had assured us in the House that the government was open to amendments. When the debate on Bill C-22 is finally over, in the end, very few of the opposition's amendments will have been adopted, actually not really any. I find that very disappointing. Perhaps I am too much of a dreamer, too positive and too eager to collaborate. Since securing a majority, this government comes across as far more arrogant. Perhaps it was so aggrieved from having a minority that now it is making up for that. That is broadly how I see things.

There are Liberal Party members I enjoyed working with because I found them to be very sincere in their work as well. Sometimes, as members of Parliament, we have an idea and we defend it. Our whip, our leader or party authorities give us instructions. In the case of the Liberals, the Prime Minister may be the one giving instructions. Sometimes, government members have to remain silent and toe the party line. The government wanted us to pass Bill C‑22 from the get-go.

What irritates me about today's motion is that it is a super closure motion. Closure motions do exist. The Speaker confirmed that it is a procedural tool. I was here in 2006 when the Conservative government was in power. The Harper government also frequently invoked closure to pass legislation. It is a strategy. However, there is something that irritated me and that I found insincere. It struck me that the government had included in its motion the requirement that amendments be submitted by Monday at 4:30 p.m., yet it moved the motion at midnight on Monday night. When I read the motion on Tuesday morning, I nearly fell out of my chair, and I was given a bit of a scolding by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety.

I do not think that is fair. That part of the motion is not right. In my opinion, it is unprecedented and akin to what is known in finance as insider trading. It is odd, but on Tuesday morning, I received amendments from the government. I wondered how government members knew that they could table amendments before 4:30 p.m. The reason is that they were told so. That, to me, is unacceptable. That is what irritated me the most in the Speaker's ruling on the point of order that I raised with my Conservative colleague.

I was expecting a closure motion. I thought that the government would eventually want to pass the bill and would run out of patience. It never occurred to me, however, that it would do so before the parliamentary session ended. I expected it would do that in the fall, because I thought we deserved some measure of respect, and because the bill that we were preparing to pass was by no means small.

I want to come back to this motion, which imposed a retroactive deadline for submitting committee amendments. I would have had to present my amendments the day before I received the motion. That is really unacceptable. I know Liberal members who serve on the same committee as I do, and I am sure that, if we had them take a polygraph, we would find out that they disagreed with this move just as much as I did. I reacted by raising a point of order because this goes against my values. It is the government's right to impose closure if it so chooses. It can do that. However, I think it was wrong of the government to include this retroactive deadline.

We wanted to improve the bill, but that proved difficult. I asked questions. I am not a lawyer or a computer scientist. Quite a bit of expertise was required just to be able to ask relevant questions about this bill. I wanted to delve deeper into the subject, but that was not easy. I would have liked to hear from software architects, for example. I would have liked to hear from IT experts who could explain to me encryption and the consequences of weakening encryption.

I would have liked for someone to explain this to me. If we store data for a year, are we creating back doors? Back doors are created to make the work of police officers easier, but do they also give cybercriminals access to that data?

There were civil servants at committee to answer our questions, but they are not IT specialists or IT experts. They drafted a bill in line with the government's expectations.

I wondered why it was so urgent. I have asked this question many times. My colleagues here in the House who have worked on this with me know that. Police have been waiting for this bill for 30 years, so here is what I asked them: Would it be an issue if we dealt with part of it now and finalized the bill a little later, given that it is such a big undertaking?

I could sense some pressure. I am going to put forward a hypothesis about that pressure. I do not have any inside information, so this just is a hypothesis. I think much of the pressure is coming from the United States, which would like to share intelligence with Canada. Currently, we cannot exchange information because Canada is the only country of the Five Eyes that cannot do so. With the lawful access bill, we will be able to share intelligence with other Five Eyes nations.

However, I have issues with what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said. He is telling us that Canada is lagging behind. What exactly are we comparing ourselves to? The United Kingdom does not have a charter protecting people's rights, and neither does the United States. They have street cameras in the U.K. that film people. It is a country that intrudes heavily on people's privacy, so, to me, it is not a model. It is even worse in the United States. It is the Wild West over there.

They say that the other Five Eyes nations are scolding us because we are lagging behind and cannot share intelligence. We are comparing ourselves to countries that are not necessarily models when it comes to protecting privacy. We are also hearing about Australia, where things are happening as we speak.

In fact, as part of the study, we received 100 written briefs and 70 or 75 letters from members of the public. I think there were about four submissions in favour of the bill. The rest of the submissions were against the bill, either in part or in full, but often only partially. I learned a lot from reading those briefs, because we did not have a chance to ask any questions of the representatives from the Five Eyes or Australia. Australia is actually reviewing its legislation on lawful access because it has been abused. There have been incidents that should never happen again. People in the United Kingdom are also reconsidering things, and civil society is taking action. My question, then, is why are we rushing this?

The prime example always given is that, if lawful access had been in place, a criminal who abused children could have been arrested. We are also told that it would have been easier to stop an organized network of pedophiles operating on the Internet. I asked if that means that such criminals cannot be arrested today, because we do not have a law on lawful access on the books. The answer is no. That said, it is true that such arrests are difficult, and I do not want anyone to think that I am against lawful access.

We think that police tools need to be modernized and that they should be up to the task of countering cyber-attacks. Most serious crimes often take place online. Criminals have more advanced tools than the police do. The police need more advanced, more suitable and more modern tools to stop the crimes being committed today. However, that is no reason to rush things to the point of not taking the time to hear certain witnesses.

I will give an example. The Privacy Commissioner came to testify before the committee. He spoke as though we already had his brief in hand. His brief contained amendments. There is a major problem with the translation service. It took two weeks to translate some of the briefs and provide them to the committee in both official languages. We did not receive them in a timely manner because the work wrapped up so quickly. We did not have the opportunity to review them or even invite certain witnesses.

In my opinion, the commissioner is a leading authority on privacy protection, because that is his mandate. We did not have the opportunity to ask him about his amendments because we did not have them in front of us.

However, he had submitted his brief a week in advance, and when he testified, no one had received it. We then asked the government if the commissioner could come back. What was happening was that department officials were completely dismantling all of the amendments proposed by the Privacy Commissioner. It is easy to understand why I was a little skeptical. I wondered if the commissioner and his team had really been that wrong.

We asked for unanimous consent for him to return, just to defend his amendments, which we had not had a chance to review, but the Liberals refused. There were plenty of small gestures the government members could have made to signal their openness. It would then have been justified for them to get all worked up over the Conservative filibuster, but honestly, I saw plenty of outstretched hands. There were proposals from the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Conservatives. They were all rejected out of hand.

I want to conclude by saying that I really enjoyed working with my colleagues. I learned a lot.

I also want to take the time I have left to thank the interpreters. I am a unilingual francophone. When I am in a committee meeting that starts at 3:30 p.m. and ends at midnight, it is hard for me. It is much easier with support from the interpreters. I want to thank all the interpreters who worked on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security during its study of Bill C‑22. We worked very hard, and they worked very hard too. Without them, my participation would not have been as meaningful.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the work ethic of my friend and colleague who sits with me on the public safety committee and the amount that she has studied this bill. We studied it in depth, and I appreciate her being thankful for all the staff who have done this work with us as well.

As we went through this very rushed process of pre-clause-by-clause, I think there were somewhere upward of 48 witnesses over just nine hours whom we sped through to try to study the bill. We had a hard time getting the briefs, as well, because it was rushed, and that created some problems. I asked for consent of the committee to bring the Privacy Commissioner in during clause-by-clause to help us. As we looked through the amendments, a lot of them he had suggested, we could not ask him questions very much during pre-clause-by-clause.

Could the member comment on what she thought the Liberals were doing when they blocked the Privacy Commissioner from coming?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I appreciate her thoroughness a great deal. I spoke about that earlier. I ended my speech by saying that I would really have liked him to come back. I think that would have been a good thing for everyone, including members of the government.

From the start, however, I sensed that the dice were loaded and that we were basically marking time, because there was not a lot of interest. I am not blaming committee members; as I said, there are party lines and members sometimes do things that they would not have necessarily chosen to do.

However, I want to highlight that the Canadian Association of Journalists is concerned about this bill. It wonders whether journalistic sources, whistle-blowers and investigative journalists themselves could face threats. I find that disappointing, because I would have liked to have heard from the association's representatives and to have explored these questions, which came to me after reading their brief. Unfortunately, we were unable to invite them because the study period was so short that it prevented us from hearing what they had to say.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my young colleague on her speech, which I greatly appreciated. I know that she has worked extremely hard on this bill, as she does in everything that she undertakes. She did such a thorough and professional job, and I commend her for that.

In her speech, she spoke of the difficulties that Canada may face in sharing information with other countries, particularly the United Kingdom, England. Certain countries have a history of experiencing attacks, acts of terrorism and various threats that have led to the introduction of different types of measures.

I would like to ask my colleague whether she thinks that more flexibility is needed in terms of privacy protection in order to ensure public safety. Should we adopt security measures similar to those in some of these countries, such as having surveillance cameras on every street corner and greater tolerance for intrusions into personal data?

Should we uphold our principle of protecting personal information, or should we instead align ourselves more closely with countries that may have less regard for such matters when it comes to their citizens?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very wise question.

Like every country, we are facing cyber-attacks from foreign entities, particularly India and China. We need to ensure that we have robust tools, and Internet providers must do the same. The bill provides some protections and imposes cybersecurity protection requirements on telecommunications service providers. That is what we did with Bill C-8. It also requires important collaboration to support the work of law enforcement. We agree with that. It is one of the good things about the bill.

I have to admit that I agree with the government members, and I think that there is a consensus on that. There is nobody here who does not want to support law enforcement in their work and who does not want to give the police modern tools with which to carry out their duties, but it is hard to draw a line between ensuring public safety and ensuring some degree of privacy protection under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed Bloc Québécois colleague for the hard work that she did at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I also had the opportunity to attend the meetings of that committee, but as an observer. I watched her work, and I completely agree with what she said this evening.

It is really strange to be rushing through such an important bill. Why does my colleague think that the government is forcing us to put such a rush on this bill that we could not even hear from witnesses?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her kind words. I think she is brave, because she came during the clause-by-clause study, like my NDP colleague did. They did not have the right to speak, but they were there, hard-working and rigorous, and they proposed amendments. I have a lot of respect for these two members.

I think that the reason for the haste is pressure from the United States. That is speculation, I do not have the truth, but I think that there is this push coming from the United States so that we can share intelligence also. It is all well and good to share intelligence with Canada, but the other countries would like Canada to share some in return. We are under pressure from a country that has no concerns about privacy protection.

Obviously, I wish I had had more time to call witnesses I was unable to question. There are people who were not consulted by the government. Let me give an example. The chair of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency was not consulted by the government when it drafted this bill. The chair was forced to submit proposed amendments herself because the government did not see any significant role for her to play. I was disappointed. During her testimony, the chair, Ms. Deschamps, recommended amendments to us, and we will likely deal with them during our clause-by-clause consideration.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just want to acknowledge and thank my colleague as well.

I am not a regular attendee of the SECU committee. However, on Bill C-22 I listened to all the exchanges and debates. I have to say my colleague from the Bloc was superb in many of her interventions.

With respect to the amendments that were made, the NDP also moved an amendment related to the issue of “reasonable grounds to suspect” versus “reasonable grounds to believe”. However, the NDP amendment was defeated. The Bloc similarly moved an amendment in that regard, in accordance with the Quebec bar association. This was also an important issue that did not get support.

Could the member elaborate on the rationale behind the Liberals' objection to that important amendment?

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to return the compliment to my colleague from Vancouver East. It has truly been a pleasure.

Yes, that is true. Together, often alongside the Conservatives, we tabled the same amendments, particularly regarding the threshold for obtaining information. We both believe that “reasonable grounds to suspect” is not a high enough threshold. Our political parties, along with the Conservative Party, are calling for a much higher threshold, namely “reasonable grounds to believe”.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was at the committee meeting the day the Privacy Commissioner was there, along with other witnesses representing social media platforms. Before the meeting, all the witnesses indicated that they had submitted their briefs to the committee. However, members were not able to see them because they had not received them.

Did the member not find it frustrating that we did not receive the briefs before the meeting, not only from the Privacy Commissioner but also from the other witnesses?

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

It certainly did, Madam Speaker. I think even the Privacy Commissioner was disappointed that we did not have his brief or his amendment recommendations before us when he testified before the committee. Having that information would have allowed us to make better use of his presence right then and there by asking him more specific questions so that he could defend his amendments.

Madam Speaker, I think it was a mistake on the part of government members not to agree to invite him back so that we could give him another opportunity to defend his amendments, which, in my view and that of the New Democrats and the Conservatives, were very important.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions amongst the parties, and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing or Special Order or usual practice of the House, with respect to the consideration of Government Business No. 13:

(a) when no member rises to speak, all questions necessary to dispose of Government Business No. 13 be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment;

(b) if a recorded division is requested, it shall not be deferred and the bells to call in the members shall be sounded for not more than 30 minutes.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

There being no dissenting voice, it is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to this important moment regarding Bill C-22. Of course, the government has brought down the sledgehammer, the guillotine, to shut down debate.

Bill C-22 is a version of its predecessor, Bill C-2, the so-called strong borders act, which was an offensive, omnibus bill that was dead on arrival. It immediately generated widespread opposition from the public, with tens of thousands of people advocating against it. More than 300 civil society organizations, communities and legal experts soundly rejected the bill, and the government was forced to shelve it. Now, the government has decided to recklessly ram Bill C-22 through. Rather than take the time to listen carefully and hear concerns thoughtfully, the government is plowing ahead because it thinks it knows best. Its reputation for centralization, frankly, is well deserved.

Did the government take the time to listen to the Privacy Commissioner's perspective, or those of legal experts, civil liberty advocates or privacy rights experts on this legislation? I should note that the government did not even consult the Privacy Commissioner prior to tabling this legislation, so the short answer is that no, it did not.

This is a deeply flawed piece of legislation that is being rushed through in a haphazard and, frankly, unsettling fashion. Members of Parliament across all party lines have put forward amendments to Bill C-22, and there were a significant number of amendments tabled at committee.

The NDP put forward a large volume of amendments at committee to address legitimate concerns raised by experts and businesses alike. I will provide some examples. The NDP amendments aimed to ensure that Bill C-22 could withstand scrutiny under section 8 of the charter; to strengthen and clearly define “systemic vulnerability” to explicitly rule out any requirement that would weaken or break encryption, mandate client-side scanning, or otherwise introduce any security weaknesses; to anchor the definition of “electronic service provider” to a primary function test, ensuring obligations would apply only to entities whose core business is the conveyance of communications between persons; to address the concerns of threshold from the legal experts who have pointed out that Bill C-22's “reasonable grounds to suspect” threshold is unreasonably low, particularly given the Supreme Court of Canada's findings regarding high potential sensitivity of subscriber information. They wanted to see that language amended to “reasonable grounds to believe”. The idea behind the amendment is to require a probability of crime rather than a mere suspicion before a citizen's movement can be mapped out or identifying logs can be demanded.

The NDP amendments also sought to replace ministerial secret orders with judicial warrants; to ensure warrants would remain targeted and would avoid broad or general searches to remote data, and mitigate charter and cross-border legal risks; to remove the requirement for broad long-term metadata retention mandates and to, instead, use targeted time-limited preservation orders for specific metadata when needed to reduce costs, security risks and section 8 charter violations. For context, the EU Court of Justice has repeatedly found general and indiscriminate retention of metadata to be incompatible with fundamental rights. I should note that the United States imposes no general mandatory data retention requirement.

Sadly, today, the NDP amendment that was debated and moved before the committee failed. The sheer volume of the amendments tabled by all parties at committee, I think, tells us something about the bill and how flawed the bill is.

Instead of giving us a chance to fully debate the amendments, the government rejected many that were put forward by opposition parties, and it is now choosing to use the closure guillotine with its new-found majority, from floor crossers, to ram the bill through without proper debate or scrutiny. Canadians will be appalled at the government's approach to pushing through the legislation.

If the government wants to have public policy that is durable, and that will meet the test of time, then it should take the time to do it properly in the first place. Instead, the government has moved full-throttle over its critics. This is a completely unsustainable way to run a government. Will the Liberal caucus just support this approach like a bunch of sheep, or will they call it out for what it is?

Bill C-22 would add sweeping new powers that would allow for any digital service provider to retain data on every single person in Canada, without cost. It would compel the redesign of digital systems in ways that would make Canadians more exposed, not more secure.

As the Canadian Civil Liberties Association rightfully pointed out in an open letter to the government, Bill C-22:

...could force the creation and installation of privacy-compromising surveillance tools and backdoors in an enormous and ill-defined set of “electronic service providers”, including telecom providers, social media and cloud service providers, AI tools, and any “smart” device. The law could even be used to force Canadian companies to build backdoors into their products before they export them abroad. The result creates an untenable threat to privacy and cybersecurity....

According to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Bill C-22 represents one of the most significant expansion of state surveillance authority in Canada in years.

In the words of Tim McSorley from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group:

This legislation presents one of the greatest threats to privacy in Canada of the past two decades. Its provisions will weaken the rules governing police access to personal information, all while facilitating a vast expansion of government surveillance. This is another clear case of the decades-long trend of governments using national security as an excuse to erode civil liberties and human rights.... We are encouraging all members of parliament to oppose these new powers....

Matt Hatfield from Open Media states, “Bill C-22 is even more dangerous than the bill it replaces.”

The Centre for Free Expression says that it is “an unprecedented and extraordinarily dangerous surveillance architecture”.

The Citizen Lab said that the legislation could “weaken the rules governing police access to personal information, all while facilitating a vast expansion of government surveillance”. It goes on to say that the legislation is “enormous and poorly defined”.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, representing nearly 200,000 businesses across the country, a network of over 400 chambers of commerce and boards of trade, said that it fundamentally opposes breaking encryption and other essential zero-knowledge security tools to provide the government and law enforcement with unfettered access to digital systems.

At a time when trust in digital governance, data security and state surveillance is already fragile, the government is bringing in legislation that would significantly change the relationship between individuals, private companies and the state. Basic due diligence when considering such sweeping changes to the privacy rights of Canadians is required, yet the government is in such a hurry to violate the civil liberties of Canadians that it did not even take the time to consult with the Privacy Commissioner. Why? Is it because the government is afraid that the Privacy Commissioner's analysis of the bill would have given the House the necessary non-partisan perspective on the implications on privacy?

Bill C-22 would expand police and intelligence access to personal information, reduce judicial oversight and introduce mechanisms that could require private companies to retain and expose sensitive user data on a systematic basis. This is not speculation. It is built into the structure of the bill.

The legislation contains two main components: timely access to data information and the supporting authorized access to information regime. Together, they would establish a framework that would allow government authorities to compel access to data from a wide range of electronic service providers far beyond traditional telecom companies.

Under Bill C‑22, the Minister of Public Safety would be granted authority to issue secret orders requiring these providers to modify their systems to facilitate access to user information. These orders would not require judicial authorization. They would not be subject to public scrutiny and, in many cases, they might never be disclosed. Instead, they would be approved through an administrative process involving the intelligence commissioner. While that office plays an important role in oversight, it is not equivalent to independent judicial authorization in open court. It would not provide the same constitutional safeguard against unreasonable search and seizure. It would move us away from a warrant-based system rooted in charter protections and toward a model of executive-initiated access to private data.

That is not all. Bill C‑22 would also introduce a second deeply concerning feature: compelled data retention. The bill would allow the government to require companies to retain metadata for up to one year on every single person in Canada or abroad. Metadata may not include the content of communications, but it reviews patterns of behaviour, who we talk to, when we talk to them, where we talk to them, how often we interact and for how long.

Why is the government looking over the shoulders of Canadians? In this digital era, metadata is often more revealing than content. It is a skeleton of a person's private life, damaging the privacy of millions, not because they are suspected of committing any crime or posing any security threat but because it might become useful in the future. This is a profound invasion of privacy. This is precisely what overreach is. The legislation would create democratic deficits by design and has features that are far more characteristic of a neo-authoritarian regime.

This is not an exaggeration. The government is continuing a backward slide into centralization. A government run by a former central banker is moving toward centralization, and it is the wrong direction.

We also need to address the risks created when governments require systemic access points or infrastructure modifications. When companies are forced to build mechanisms that enable easier state access to encrypted or private communications, those mechanisms do not remain confined to lawful use. They become vulnerabilities. We have seen this repeatedly. Systems designed for access become systems exploited by hackers, foreign intelligence services and malicious actors. As pointed out by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce:

[Encrypted zero-knowledge digital systems] would require technical measures that alter the security architecture of these systems, including changes to how encryption is implemented and managed. As a result, any requirement to facilitate this form of access would introduce systemic vulnerabilities by design, exposing both private and public sector systems to unacceptable cybersecurity risks and potential liability in the event of a breach. We need look no further back than the FINTRAC breach of 2024 or the Salt Typhoon attacks that same year which led the Canadian government to join a dozen governments in advising greater adoption of encryption, to truly appreciate the risk that our secured systems face on a daily basis.

Compounding these concerns is the increased potential for cross-border data exposure. Bill C‑22 would open pathways for information sharing with foreign governments, including jurisdictions where civil liberty protections are weakening and surveillance powers are expanding, some with a history of abusing cross-border police authorities to persecute diaspora communities.

Concerns do not stop there. Canada may also be implicated in transnational repression. At a time when digital rights and due process protections are under strain internationally, expanding these channels raises serious concerns about accountability and misuse of Canadian-held data.

We must also be honest about the historical context of surveillance in the country. It is not theoretical to say that expanded surveillance powers have, in the past, been used disproportionately against activists, organizers, journalists and communities advocating for social and political change.

Oversight bodies have repeatedly documented concerns about intelligence gathering that extends beyond legitimate criminal investigation. We need to look no further than the RCMP surveilling and actively undermining indigenous activists and movements, as the recent news from a few months ago revealed with the release of documents. When surveillance powers expand, they rarely remain confined to their original intent. They expand in scope, in use and in impact.

This brings us to an important point about precedent. What we are seeing is an expansion of surveillance powers that were previously rejected due to legitimate concerns about privacy, proportionality and charter compliance. At a time when global political conditions are unstable and civil liberty protections in some jurisdictions are eroding, Canada should be strengthening privacy protections, not weakening them. The government may argue that these powers are necessary for public safety and effective law enforcement, but necessity must be demonstrated, not assumed, and proportionality must be proven, not implied. We do not need to choose between security and privacy. This is a false choice. Effective policing and intelligence work can and should operate within robust legal frameworks that preserve judicial oversight and limit data collection to what is strictly necessary.

Bill C-22 fails that task. It lowers thresholds for access to personal information. It expands executive authority over digital infrastructure. It mandates or enables large-scale data retention and increases systemic exposure of private communications to risk. Businesses are considering withdrawing services from Canada should Bill C-22 be implemented. For these reasons, this legislation should not proceed in its current form. If not withdrawn and sent back to the drawing board, at minimum, it requires substantial amendments, such as restoration of judicial authorization for access orders, strict limitation of data retention powers, removal of secret system modification orders and clear prohibition of infrastructure changes that compromise encryption or system integrity. A clear understanding of the implications of system vulnerabilities needs to be incorporated with amendments to the bill to ensure those vulnerabilities do not put Canadians at further risk. Absent those kinds of changes and more, Bill C-22 represents a significant step backward for privacy rights and constitutional protections in Canada.

This is not what Canadians want, I do not believe, from a Liberal government. The question before us is whether we are willing to accept a shift towards generalized surveillance infrastructure as the default condition of digital life in Canada. I am not, nor are my constituents in Vancouver East, so I urge the House to reject this path. We still have a chance. I want to be surprised. I want to be shocked. I want to see the government members not just roll over and do what they are told. We heard from other members in the House earlier who say there were not even robust, meaningful and fulsome discussions at committee with witnesses. Witnesses were not able to attend committee. Briefs were not transcribed or provided.

This cannot be a path forward, because the structural changes are so significant and impactful for Canadians that we cannot afford to get it wrong. Let us take the time to do it right. I urge all members of the House to do what is important and what is right for Canadians. I urge them to not just follow the orders of what the government whip tells them to do but to do what civil society organizations, advocates and experts tell them must be done. They must examine these issues with their own mind and make that determination. I urge members to do that.

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for that very passionate speech. As opposition members, we propose to improve these types of bills with amendments. The Liberals characterize these amendments at committee stage as obstructions, yet all we are trying to do is make the bills better.

Could the member tell us if there are amendments that can be implemented to achieve the objectives while still protecting privacy and civil rights?