Debates of June 17th, 2026

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

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Madam Chair, I have to point out that we cannot replace necessity with convenience. It may be convenient for the government to shut down debate in the name of urgency or in the name of saving time. As I mentioned, with a bill that is so complex and sometimes difficult to understand thoroughly, we need the time to do thorough work. It is necessary. It is not just for the sake of convenience that we shut it down.

I also want to point out that someone made a very interesting observation, which was that the Conservatives, the Bloc, the NDP and the Green Party, all parties that are very different on the political spectrum, are united in opposing Bill C‑22. That is rare. With that kind of a situation, it is obvious that something is wrong. In this case, the Liberal government is wrong.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is one of the deepest debates in Canadian politics, between the rights and freedoms of citizens on one hand and the powers of government on the other hand. I wonder if my colleague could speculate on why the Liberals want to shut down debate like this, so pre-emptively.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Madam Speaker, the government is known for its intention, its seeking of power and its expansion of its power. Therefore, I suppose that through shutting down this debate, the government wants to have more power, and it wants to do what it wants to do without really caring about the different views being expressed by the public and by professionals.

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

Madam Speaker, I am rising at this hour to speak to the programming motion on Bill C‑22.

I have heard the speeches of a number of colleagues in this place with whom I agree, particularly my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party.

As I explained earlier, in an answer to an earlier discussion with the hon. member for Vancouver East, the position we were in was not as members of the committee but as members of Parliament with the right to participate in the development of amendments. As we were not full members of the committee, our participation in the public safety committee, and when I speak of “we”, I mean the member for Vancouver East and me, was more limited than that of members who are full members of the committee.

I have been very concerned, from the very beginning, which was June 2025's tabling of Bill C‑2, the so-called strong borders act, there was an astonishing, broad, deep coalition of groups, over 300, that came together to oppose the bill on many grounds relating to human rights, as well as to privacy and overreach. Again, I just want to preface my discussion of Bill C‑22 by placing it, for citizens watching this, in the context of how we moved away from Bill C‑2, the strong borders act, which was strongly opposed, in June 2025. I do not think I have ever seen quite a diverse coalition. Certainly there are some bills that invite a lot of organizations to get involved and individual citizens to get involved. There was a breadth and a depth here that was certainly unusual.

The government realized it was in trouble. There was so much opposition to Bill C‑2. When we came back in the fall, I thought to myself that the bill, over the course of the summer, had been dumped and replaced as we now had Bill C‑12. It is not a completely different bill. It is largely the same chunks of language that were in the strong borders act, Bill C‑2, taking out the parts that were an overreach into privacy, for instance, the sections originally in Bill C‑2 that said that postal workers could open the mail and such things. There were a number of examples that got dropped.

The thing that is unusual about this, and I know it is complicated and I know the hour is late, but why would a government introduce a bill, which is widely panned, and then bring in a different bill, as opposed to amending the bill it already had on the Order Paper? I have not seen this before. It then brought in Bill C-12, which had most of what was in the strong borders act, and left Bill C-2 on the Order Paper while continuing to force through Bill C-12.

Time will tell when Bill C-12 will be challenged in the courts globally because it violates our charter commitments to the protection of refugee rights. I speak of that in terms of the global convention on refugees. It may also offend the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but I am speaking globally. It pulled that protection out from under people who had expectations. They had expectations of being in Canada but did not know their access to claiming refugee rights would be taken away so abruptly.

In any case, this has been bizarre. We had Bill C-2 staying on the Order Paper, and we had Bill C-12, which was largely language from Bill C-2, being pushed through.

The whole time we were thinking that at least we had avoided the surveillance concerns, the privacy concerns and the overreach concerns that were evident in the original Bill C‑2, the strong borders act, but come March 12, 2026, we had the bill that is before us tonight, Bill C‑22. Again, it is the government's, at this point, third run at crafting a bill that deals with lawful access.

I will give them this: Bill C‑12 actually avoided the lawful access sections and just focused on the portions that affected refugee rights. That one still grieves me, the fact that we had Bill C‑12 pushed through to final stages on a unanimous consent motion in this place last June. I really still regret it very much that it was pushed through. This is a phrase we will hear from the opposition members tonight, and we have it heard it often: pushed through, rushed through.

This is not hyperbole from opposition members. I am an experienced member of Parliament. I have been here 15 years, and I am honoured to have been so, but to my hon. colleagues in the government party on the other benches, it has been a shock to see how often we see these things. When mistakes are identified, previous governments have been more willing to say, “Ah, we have a mistake and we are going to have to rethink this. This is a mistake, and we are going to amend the bill. We are going to say where we made the mistake and how we are going to change it.” The government is quite unusual in not admitting mistakes, but it will bring in a different bill that does some of the same things. In this case, it is taking its third run at it.

This lawful access regime has many improvements over the lawful access regime of Bill C-2. There is no question and no doubt. There have been significant changes, and I think every group that was in the original coalition opposing Bill C-2 has said that Bill C-22 is much better. We have fewer problems with it, but there are still very serious problems, which is why it is lamentable that we were not able to have the kind of conversation one would have with a government that was more comfortable in its skin to say that it made a mistake with Bill C-2. Such a government would say, “We pushed too hard, too far, too fast. Now we are going to listen to people. As we craft a lawful access regime, we are going to really listen and we are not going to assume we have it right because we are right, or because we have the majority, so we are right.” This has been very difficult to observe.

Certainly, in committee, I have to say that I was surprised. I was taken aback when a reasonable request to have before the public safety committee the Privacy Commissioner, who had raised concerns, was rejected. We had a lot of witnesses there who represented government agencies and law enforcement to provide technical background. I try to be as non-partisan as possible, but I could not see any problem with getting the expertise of the Privacy Commissioner in the room as members were discussing and debating the impact of Bill C-22 and whether some amendments should work and how they should work, but the idea that the Privacy Commissioner should be in the room was rejected. I could not see, in any world, where that would not have been seen as helpful, but it was rejected.

I had some amendments before the committee. We will get to them later this evening. I do not think it is anything but a foregone conclusion that the motion before us is going to pass, but I lament that we have seen the government, and it is a pattern, moving very fast and passing legislation despite significant concerns from significant quarters.

A significant number of respected law professors and experts in privacy law and constitutional law wrote, as recently as last month, to most of the cabinet to express their deep concerns about Bill C-22. I think it is important to say that people are not just partisan here. Certainly law professors are not, and they acknowledge that they see the improvement over Bill C-2 in a number of areas. I will read from the letter, which was signed by 20 or 30 law professors from across Canada, and it is dated May 4, so anyone who is looking for it can find it. It reads:

We write as lawyers and law professors who teach and practice in the areas of privacy law and constitutional rights....

I will skip ahead to their conclusion, which reads:

...provisions of the bill as currently drafted raise serious constitutional concerns and fail to strike a reasonable balance between the legitimate needs of law enforcement and the privacy rights of Canadians.

Again, these are not the voices of people who have been misinformed through social media. These are people of depth, knowledge and experience, and they are very concerned.

One of Canada's premier policy wonk magazines is Policy Options, and I do not speak of it pejoratively here. Policy Options is not something one would pick up in the supermarket, such as “inquiring minds want to know”. Policy Options is serious.

There was an article just yesterday by Professor Cynthia Khoo, who is a professor at University of Toronto and a senior fellow at The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. She is an expert in both technology and privacy areas. Her conclusion was that “Ottawa should reject any data-sharing arrangement that allows U.S. law enforcement to access Canadians' personal information”. This is based on recent research within The Citizen Lab that the regime for surveillance being established by Bill C-22 could provide easy access for, for instance, U.S. homeland security to the private information of Canadians.

I know the government benches have heard, and do not want to hear anything more, from Professor Michael Geist, who is, again, a prominent critic of Bill C-22, starting with his opposition to Bill C-2. He pointed out that what he sees being spread by the government benches could be described as misinformation, mischaracterization, overly broad definitions and a failure to be precise in areas where one really has to be precise.

I am just going to quote from a blog he posted recently: “The political pressure against Bill C-22 has been steadily mounting, with the opposition parties,” as we can see, all the opposition parties in this place, “tech companies, and privacy experts, all increasingly” concerned about the need to amend this bill, increasingly concerned that all the government seems to have in response to the criticisms are, in his words, “misleading or inaccurate claims with little in the way of an actual defence” based on the facts. His conclusion is that “the government’s disregard for facts and privacy is fast becoming Bill C-22's legacy.”

Now, the criticisms come, again, from a broad sweep of legal, privacy and tech experts. They are not all the same. I practised law, and technology is not my area. I would not put myself out there as an expert in technology, though I read deeply. I am concerned about constitutional rights and privacy as a former practising lawyer, but it would seem to me that anyone with a background in the various areas that are touched by Bill C-22 would want to take the time to get it right.

There have been things claimed, like that all our Five Eyes partners have legislation just like Bill C-22. That has been debunked by numerous experts. We have been told that it was wrong to take a long time in committee. Obviously, as my hon. colleague on the other side the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance knows well, we had a very lengthy filibuster on Bill C-30 in the finance committee. I sat through those evenings waiting for the chance to speak to my amendments.

As I mentioned earlier, motions are passed by committees as if they are normal, and they are not normal at all, but the longer they are used, I guess, the more that future committees will just assume, as every committee did after this last election, that it is just normal to take away the rights of the smaller parties so that the larger parties do not have to fuss with them at report stage. That is the case. If it were not for the motions that were passed by committees, without thinking about them, taking away the rights of smaller parties, I would have the right to put forward amendments at report stage. I do not have that right at report stage only because I have been given this so-called opportunity to work really, really hard to bring forward amendments that give me the ability to sit in a room and not speak for days at a time, hoping for the chance to speak to the one or two amendments that I had brought forward.

I want to thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East, from the New Democratic Party, because she is in the same boat and she brought forward many more amendments to Bill C-22 than I brought forward on Bill C-22. I think I was too busy trying to write amendments on Bill C-30.

In any case, what we have here is not just an imperfect bill but a potentially dangerous bill. We are now down to the final moments. The clock is ticking, and the words of experts from across Canada are being shut out because the government has determined it will move forward with Bill C-22. That is why we have a programming motion, to make sure that we do not have any further debate on the amendments that have been put forward by members of the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the Greens and the New Democrats. We are in a hurry.

Again, I have to push back and ask why. What is the hurry? What is the rush? As a reminder, the first attempt the government made to bring forward lawful access was in the very outrageously overreaching Bill C‑2 a year ago. A year has passed. One would have hoped that year would have been used well by allowing a real discussion and continually striving to have the best possible surveillance architecture to protect privacy, to give law enforcement what it needs, without tests of access that are so low, the reasonable grounds to suspect, which we do not think the courts will find to have been an adequate ground to seize personal information.

We are hearing concerns, again, from tech companies, constitutional and privacy law experts, those who work in the field and others, like OpenMedia. I am honoured to claim that the executive director of OpenMedia happens to be one of my constituents, so I also speak on behalf of my constituents when I stand here at this hour. We are hearing concerns, yet those voices seem to have just gotten annoying to the members of the government. They do not seem to be concerned, despite all the work and the full year that has gone by, that we could get this right.

Again, we hear that we have run out of time. Well, we have not. I do not think any of us are going to expire in any particular moment. We could meet next week. We could get together again and have more time for witnesses to actually discuss without a clock ticking, for witnesses and experts to share with the members of the committee in a respectful way how we can improve this.

I saw that the hon. member for Barrie South—Innisfil mentioned it earlier, but we are seeing news across the news wires that the Minister of Public Safety is about to make a step. Who knows, but certainly it was not the National Enquirer saying this. It was at least the CBC, saying that the Government of Canada is prepared to fundamentally change one aspect of this, which is not having to hold Canadians' private data for a year but maybe bringing that down to six months. Is that going to be presented? I do not know.

We will be going into committee after the programming motion is passed. There will be an opportunity for new amendments to be tabled, but not, of course, from me or the member for Vancouver East, because we had a deadline some time ago, and we either had to bring it in by that deadline or could not bring in something new.

There may still be that opportunity to improve the bill. I certainly hope so, because what we have in front of us may violate our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, open up personal data, surveillance data, and do serious damage. If, good heavens, the Citizen Lab research is right and Canadians' private data would be available to the U.S. homeland security folks in large tranches, none of us are going to feel particularly happy about that.

Our government should be making sure that our privacy is protected. It is an inherent right that we have. I would like to say it is a right in the same way first nations have the right to clean drinking water, although we have now been informed that they do not have the right to that but only the hope of a gradual or eventual “realization” of a right. That term is just so extraordinary. Well, we have a right to privacy, and I do not want to hear that it is dialed back to a gradual realization of a right. We have a right to privacy. We can reasonably expect it of our government to ensure that our private data is not left in an architecture of surveillance that allows it to be accessed by foreign governments, any foreign government.

The Citizen Lab research that was just published in Policy Options yesterday talks about U.S. homeland security as an example, but I do not want my government asking tech companies to save, store and access private data about Canadians that is then available to foreign governments. We have certainly learned a lot about foreign interference, and we are waiting for the foreign interference registry to actually be established since we passed that law some time ago.

At this late hour, and I know I'm out of time—

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

The hon. member is out of time.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has the floor.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and National Revenue and to the Secretary of State (Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions)]

Madam Speaker, let me start by saying how much I respect the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for her patience but also for her attempt, always, to operate in good faith. I recognize that with bills like this, it is about striking the right balance, and I think the member mentioned that in her speech. I feel like we are getting the balance right. Maybe she does not feel that way.

What was not part of her speech and her story was how much obstruction has become normalized. The hon. member saw it in finance committee. She admitted there was a filibuster going on for 25 hours by the Conservatives, which she sat through and witnessed, just as I was there witnessing it, because they wanted to hold a bill hostage to extract out of the government some compromises on Bill C-22 to limit lawful access.

My dad was a police officer for 30 years, and I know they investigate crimes. It is important that we give police the tools to be able to access information in a digital age that can help solve some of these tough crimes. We all want to get criminals off the streets and crack down on organized crime.

Can the member opposite at least speak to the obstruction we have seen? That is why the government has to use programming motions, closure and these types of tools in order to get things done for—

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

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I understand the member's frustration, but I do not accept that that is an excuse for the programming motions. Again, in 15 years in this place, I have never seen anything like putting a bulldozer on steroids in the way that programming motions are being used, and it is offensive. Again, I know there is frustration. Inevitably, between a majority government and an opposition, tools like filibusters will be used, but the point is that we do not have to be in a rush to get out tomorrow or the day after or next week. We could take our time and make sure we get this bill right rather than have it thrown out by the court later.

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

Madam Speaker, the member gave a knowledgeable speech in terms of democracy and the way this place is supposed to work. In fact, when I came here, the Liberal government had a minority government, and things were working. It was getting comments from all the MPs in this place, and there was compromise and amendments in committee. Now that the Liberals have a majority, they stacked their majority and now they do not allow debate on any amendments from any party. By my numbers, there are 174 Liberal members who want to force this bill through, but there are 169 MPs from every party who want to fix part 2.

Does the member see the fault in this? Can she see how this is wrong and how it is working against the democratic system?

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

Madam Speaker, from my point of view, as leader of the Green Party, I did not think it was working terribly well in the minority Parliament because the Conservatives supported every egregious Liberal bill like Bill C-5. I still feel the pain of the bulldozer across my back when I think of Monday, June 16, 2025. I do not forget, because June 18 was a Wednesday, and I went to Marc Garneau's funeral in Montreal. I then went back online to try to fight off the changes in Bill C-5, and by Friday, Bill C-5 was done. That was offensive to democracy. This is offensive to democracy. We can make Parliament work better, yes we can, but that is not an excuse for bulldozing through bills that need work.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on her speech. She has been in this House for many years. My colleague was very, very young when she was first elected, as we all know. She has seen various permutations of government.

I was first elected in 2019. The Liberal government held a minority. We had to debate important bills and sensitive issues. The government had no choice at that time but to negotiate with one of the opposition parties. Even though feathers got ruffled on a few occasions, particularly among the Conservatives and the Liberals—some committees got pretty rowdy—bills were always passed in the end, thanks to the co-operation of the opposition parties.

Now we have a government that has secured a majority through various manoeuvres, as everyone is well aware. The fact remains, however, that the views, ideas and contributions that opposition parties can bring to bills as important as Bill C-22 are essential. I think it is quite shameful that the government has decided to shut the door on these discussions.

I would like to know whether my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands thinks that the Liberals got burned so badly over the past few years that now they are saying enough is enough, they can do what they like without giving the opposition a second thought, they can manage their affairs as they see fit, that is just the way it is now that they have their majority, and democracy be damned. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague for Drummond said, I have been a member of this place for 15 years. What an honour it is to represent the communities of Saanich—Gulf Islands and Sencoten- and Lekwungen-speaking indigenous peoples.

The fact that I represent a very small party always causes problems, but right now things are worse for me than ever before. Mr. Harper's majority government from 2011 to 2015 was an awful time for me. Now, however, too much is being done too fast. Right now, I do not get a sense that the current government respects Parliament or Canada's institutions.

In my opinion, it may be because of our Prime Minister's experience. He is a brilliant man who is respected around the world for his experience in the banking sector, but not for his experience in Parliament at our level, because he does not have one day of experience in Parliament. That is what frightens me. He has things to learn. As brilliant as he is, however, he does not understand that he has things to learn.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the Green Party member's speech. I have a lot of respect for the time she has spent in this place and for her opinions.

I would like to hear her opinion on this. I believe she was probably watching some of the clause-by-clause in our public safety committee. During that time, we received amendment suggestions from the Privacy Commissioner. They were brought forward by all parties. When we had some confusion on why he brought certain amendments forward and had questions, I asked for the consent of members of the committee to have the Privacy Commissioner come back to clause-by-clause as we were going through these suggested amendments, so that we could do this right and understand some things.

I do not know if the member noticed, but every Liberal member voted against that and blocked the Privacy Commissioner from coming to sit in at clause-by-clause. Would the member like to comment on why she thinks they would do something like that?

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

Madam Speaker, I can offer my opinion. I think it is just a fact that they were told to.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I completely disagree with the leader of the Green Party, because I do not think she is reflecting on the reality of change that we have seen over the last 15 years.

If we follow the logic of the leader of the Green Party, it would be the Conservative Party of Canada that would determine what legislation passed, because she does not believe that time allocation should be used. The moment that the Conservative Party says they do not like legislation, the government would not be able to pass the legislation.

There was a time when there was co-operation, many years ago, but we need programming, in the same way we program opposition days and private members' bills, in order for the government of the day and future governments to be able to get their legislation across the goal line.

I am wondering if the member could provide her thoughts on that change.

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

Madam Speaker, as the hon. parliamentary secretary knows, I believe that if we followed the rules of this place, we could far more easily come to consensus around how long each bill should have at second reading before going to committee and so on.

The rules of this place say we cannot read a written speech. Knowing that a member cannot deliver a speech unless they have the knowledge in their head to stand up and speak would winnow down the number of members that a House leader uses to negotiate with the other parties. “We have 100 people ready to speak.” Really? Without written notes? I do not think so.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join this very important debate today.

I am a member of the public safety committee, and I have been there throughout this process. We have seen in this Parliament the failure of the government, when it brought forward Bill C-2, and the ongoing failure of the government to get legislation moved forward, with Bill C-22.

I want to say at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the member for Thornhill.

I want to make it clear that we see there is a need for changes to be made to assist law enforcement in this digital age. I saw, a number of years ago, in the wake of a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court on Bykovets revolving around the idea of the reasonable expectation of privacy in the case of a credit card fraud case, that the methods being used by law enforcement to investigate these crimes, and many other crimes that take place digitally, had been severely curtailed. I worked with my local RCMP integrated childhood exploitation unit and other stakeholders. I think a good solution is contained in what is considered part 1 of Bill C-22.

That is not to say that Conservatives and I do not have issues with part 1. There are issues. There are questions about the thresholds, be it a reason to suspect or a reason to believe. One of the thresholds, the one that was chosen by the government, is far lower, but essentially, I believe, as Conservatives, we can support part 1, because we know that, if law enforcement has to reach out to a telecommunications company or an electronic service provider, they do not know whether that provider actually provides a service to an IP address, a name or a phone number, and they have to write a warrant for that process. That is a very time-consuming process for law enforcement. It is like searching for a needle in a haystack. It is very difficult.

As such, part 1 of the legislation seeks to create a subscriber confirmation, and I think that this could be an effective way to have something that does not require a warrant and to ask electronic service providers and telecommunications companies a simple yes-or-no question: Do they provide services to an IP address, or do they provide services to a number? I think that this could really cut down on the bureaucratic red tape that law enforcement faces. It could help speed up investigations. That is why, as Conservatives, despite some of the concerns that experts have raised, like civil liberty groups and Canadian Bar Association, we can work with that

However, where we really get into the weeds is with the concerns we set out on part 2 of the legislation. Before I get into the concerns on part 2, as they are very technical in nature, but very important, I want to provide a bit of an overview of what happened at committee.

This is very far-reaching legislation. It proposes to radically remake the entire paradigm of investigations in Canada. While I recognize that there need to be reforms, when we are dealing with something of this magnitude, that is not something that can be rushed. This is not necessarily because members just want to be oppositional for the sake of opposition. However, it is actually in the government's, and all of Canada's, best interests that parliamentarians really scrutinize the legislation, because we know that the legislation is going to be contested in the courts in the future, and we want to make sure that we have the best legislation so that it is actually effective at doing the job.

What Canadians fear is that the government could potentially misuse it, and maybe not even the government but malicious actors and criminal actors could misuse the vulnerabilities that the government would be creating through the legislation.

At committee we heard from many witnesses, but the amount of time that we had to hear from witnesses was extremely truncated. It was over a short matter of weeks in two-hour meetings, where we had panels of very intelligent experts who had a lot to say about the legislation. Every day I was getting emails from the public safety committee clerk with new submissions and briefs. We simply did not have the appropriate time to really dissect the legislation and go deep down into the far-reaching, potentially negative impacts of it so the process became very rushed.

It was a real sea change because, prior to the government's manufactured majority, it actually had to work with other parties in order to get legislation passed. The cybersecurity legislation came forward, and there were some really strong amendments put forward by opposition parties in this House that were adopted. I think it really made the legislation stronger. However, ever since the government received its manufactured majority, it has not been interested in working with other parties. Now we see that it is using this programming motion to try to ram through the legislation so that we cannot scrutinize it further.

I respect the members of our non-partisan public service. At the committee clause-by-clause stage they came as technical witnesses to speak about aspects of the bill. However, during the back-and-forth, it became very clear, and they said as much, that this was important legislation to them as members of the public service, and that they were invested in getting this legislation passed.

Many of the amendments that we as Conservatives and other parties put forward were based on the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner, who is a constitutional lawyer. He is a very intelligent man who I think put forward some very reasonable amendments. We as Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois wanted to have him sit in on the meeting so he could provide his insight on the more technical nature of some of the amendments and the issues we were talking about. The government would not allow that to happen. I think that is where this process really broke down and where it was shown that the government was not acting in good faith and not willing to work with opposition parties. The Privacy Commissioner is not partisan. He is an expert in his field. He is appointed by Parliament. Bringing him forward to committee to help us explore the very real privacy implications of this legislation I think would have done a great deal in easing its passage. It is a gargantuan bill with a number of amendments. It would have taken the committee a great deal of time to get through it, but I think the fact the government was not willing to hear from the Privacy Commissioner showed that it was not really interested in having a serious discussion on it.

I want to get into some other aspects of part 2 now. I am very concerned about these metadata provisions. Metadata, for those listening, is the stuff in our phones. It is not necessarily the content of the text messages or the browsing history, but it is very important information about our location, what phone numbers we are contacting and other such things. The government is putting forward a proposal that would require telecommunications and other companies to maintain this metadata for up to a year. It has been ruled unconstitutional in the European Union to mass-keep the data of people in the European Union, yet this is what the government is putting forward. Some people would say that it is not going to misuse the data and that it would have to get a warrant in this case. However, my issue is not necessarily what the government is going to do with it, but what malicious actors would do with it.

Imagine this allegory. The Government of Canada tells every home builder in Canada that they need to make a master key to open all the houses they produce and now it has the master key to open everyone's house in Canada. That is what it is asking the telecommunications companies, the Apples, the Googles and the Metas, for, a master key. Do I think the government or law enforcement are going to misuse it? That is not a serious fear, but who is to say that key is always going to be protected, that vulnerability is not going to be exploited or it would not be stolen by third party actors, foreign governments or malicious criminal networks? The government is creating vulnerabilities in encryption that would impact not just Canadians but people across the world, because the encryption is not just in Canada but across the world. This has now become a trade issue. That is why I am very concerned about this legislation.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party used to call itself the party of law and order. Unfortunately, today, the Conservatives no longer have any credibility on this issue. When the time comes to better protect victims, what do the Conservatives do? They vote against it. When the time comes to combat hate crimes in our communities, they vote against it. That is not to mention all the disinformation they have been spreading on the matter. When the time comes to debate Bill C‑22 to give the authorities the tools they need to fight crime, what do they do? They filibuster.

I would like to hear the thoughts of my colleague opposite. What does he think about the fact that his party no longer has any credibility when it comes to keeping our communities safe and getting tough on crime?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a loaded question, but coming from that member and that party, it is quite ironic. The Conservatives are not the party that gutted mandatory minimums and brought forward legislation that made bail mandatory for violent repeat offenders. We are not the party that has overseen a rise in violent crime and extortion of over 55%. It is a direct result of the current Liberal government's policy. The Liberals call themselves a new government. They have been in power for 11 years, and that is their record. Conservatives will not take any lessons from them.

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

Madam Speaker, the way the Liberals are acting tonight, it is almost like the arsonist who sets a house on fire and then we expect him to put the fire out. It is almost the same thing.

I want to go back to the issue of the Privacy Commissioner. One of the things that I saw, and the member was there when I was there, was that the briefs that were submitted to the committee did not arrive and were not sent to committee members until the day they were sitting around the table to question the Privacy Commissioner and other witnesses who had submitted briefs, eight days later. I know the hon. member brought this up. He was quite concerned, as were other members sitting around that table, including the Bloc members.

How much of an impact did not having those briefs have on the member's ability, as a member of this committee, to scrutinize this piece of legislation?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member was indeed there. It was very concerning because we had the Privacy Commissioner come to committee, and I had received nothing from the Privacy Commissioner prior to the start of that meeting. The Privacy Commissioner was referencing recommendations that he had provided to the committee weeks before, and I had no idea what these recommendations were.

There were issues with interpretation and technical issues, but I could not even get transcripts from the meeting that had taken place three weeks before, where we had former justice Deschamps from NSIRA come and provide recommendations to the committee. I could not even reference past committee meetings. Because the government is rushing through this legislation so quickly, we could not even do proper due diligence. It really did impact my ability and all members' ability to be effective in scrutinizing this legislation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member cannot change what was decided in the last federal election, when Canada elected a new Prime Minister and a new government. Under the administration of the new Prime Minister, we brought forward a legislative suite of crime legislation, and the biggest barrier to passing that legislation, which would make our communities safer, is the Conservative Party of Canada. That is the reality. That is what is happening today. That is what Canadians are concerned about.

Why is the Conservative Party today, the extreme right, making the decision to deny Canadians safer communities?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member talks about being a member of a new government. It is the same member, and people can check the Hansard, who has been speaking in this place for nearly 11 years. It is the same talking points. It is the same failed Liberal policies. It is the same Liberal government. In fact, the Liberal Prime Minister was advising former prime minister Justin Trudeau on many of these failed economic policies that we are seeing today, and now we have this legislation coming forward.

Canadians, in the last election, did not vote for these policies. They voted to get tough on criminals, but they did not vote for law-abiding Canadians to be subjected to this level of government surveillance.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, before we can even talk about this bill in Parliament, we have to talk about whether members of Parliament are even allowed to talk at all anymore. That is what the motion is about. A government that claims to defend Canadian rights is using every tool at its disposal to make sure those things cannot even be debated on the floor of the House of Commons. That is what people are seeing tonight. The Liberals are pushing the House to ram through legislation in its current form that nobody asked for, nobody wants and nobody thinks is a good idea, according to the testimony at the committee that they have just shut down.

Let me be clear about what this debate is actually about, because it is not about the bill. It is about whether lawful access matters. It does. Lawful access is a tool that every police officer in this country needs, and we are ready to give them that bill, but Bill C-22 would not stop there, and that is exactly where the government has lost the plot on all this.

Tonight, instead of a serious debate on a serious bill, we are listening to the Liberals mount an obnoxiously loud defence of the indefensible. They want to debate whether we should ignore the rights of the House, the will of our constituents and the basic principles of good governance that everybody came here to carry out. The government abandoned those a long time ago, but I know a lot of members of the House come here every day to scrutinize the very legislation that the Liberals are trying to ram through tonight.

Let me say this to anybody watching at home at this late hour: The Liberals' argument in this debate is completely disingenuous, and they know it. I appreciate the police chief of York Regional Police. We have an enormously good relationship, a great one. I have also met with the commissioner of the OPP and with the Toronto police chief. They have all asked us to help pass lawful access, and we told them we would. Everything they asked for was in part 1 of the bill. We support that and are ready to pass that today. We were ready to pass that long ago. It is the Liberals who said no.

However, not one of these police chiefs asked for the unprecedented expansion of government surveillance powers, secret ministerial orders, no oversight and a massive erosion of Canadians' privacy protections. That is all in part 2, and that is exactly what the problem is. The Liberals' trying to ram it through is a disgrace to the House.

The Liberals say the police are demanding it, and I think that is as much of an insult to the police as the last 10 years of their leadership on this file has been, full stop. I do not think they can find anybody who says they need every provision in this bill, because it is just not true. We came to the government with a straightforward proposal: Pass part 1 now, give the police chiefs what they are asking for, and we will support it through the House, every part of it; then take time to properly fix part 2 instead of programming a motion that would ram it through the House without any debate.

We want to fix it by hearing from the civil liberties advocates who raised concerns in committee, from the private companies and from ordinary Canadians who have every right to be heard by every member of Parliament, every member of the House, because the legislation would affect them directly. They all sounded the alarm bells at committee. Making this go away would not protect Canadians. It would protect the Liberals.

The government said no to us, because the minister presenting the bill cannot even defend it. If we put him in front of a microphone, we will see. He would be blundering all over the place, not answering questions, and giving entirely wrong answers, because he does not know the contents of the bill. If he did know the contents of the bill, he would admit that it is part 1 that police officers were asking for to protect people. When the Liberals stand up and say that Conservatives are blocking lawful access, that is simply false. Every member of the House should know that. The culprit is the government's own stubbornness, its refusal to listen to anyone outside of its caucus, and, of course, it is the minister who is incapable of defending his own bill.

What is the Liberals' response to that refusal? It is a motion to cut off debate, to limit how long the bill is discussed, to limit committee study and, in an unprecedented move, to retroactively pass the bill through committee without ever hearing the remaining amendments that were in committee. That has never been done in this place except with Bill C-9, the last bill the government passed through the House. My colleague mentioned that she had never seen that happen in her 15 years in this place, which is longer than I have been here.

This is not procedural housekeeping, but that is what the Liberals are going to make it sound like. It is a very real, very clear threat to the rights and freedoms of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The government has heard this loud and clear. That is exactly why it is ramming this bill through, because its members cannot go off on a summer break and have Canadians raise the alarm bells on it. They want to get it through the House.

One of the members opposite supporting this motion, and we need to talk about this, is the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong. In a previous life, she sat on this side of the House as the Conservative shadow minister for civil liberties. She participated in nearly every civil liberties debate in this chamber. Every single time, she told Canadians the truth, which was that the government could not be trusted with privacy. I agreed with her then, and I agree with her now.

This is what we are talking about. This is a bill that would lower the constitutional bar. This is where it gets serious. It would create secret ministerial orders with no sunlight. It would open back doors for bad actors who would mandate metadata retention as a direct precursor to AI-driven mass surveillance, and it would weaken the encryption that protects Canadians' private communications, even with their financial institutions. That is the problem. I think this bill deserves to be debated and the House should give it that. Instead, the Liberals have rammed it through with what is called the programming motion to sweep this away right before they take their summer break.

Let us go back to the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong. She also told the House, and I remember it, that members of the Liberal caucus wanted to see her jailed over the views that she held on these exact kinds of topics. Now she is voting with those same people. She is handing them unprecedented power to conscript private business as instruments of state surveillance and potentially break the encryption that millions of Canadians rely on every single day.

This is not hyperbole. Signal, NordVPN and DuckDuckGo have all publicly said that this kind of bill would force them to leave the country entirely. With that kind of testimony at committee, does anybody in this place not think that this deserves more scrutiny and more study? That is not a talking point. They actually said that. That is a business decision that they are planning to make because of this legislation, and that tells us everything we need to know about how deeply flawed part 2 is and how it strikes at Canadian privacy rights.

Normally, I might wonder out loud what the people of Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong think of all of this, but in this case, I already know because I went there. Just like Canadians across the country did not vote for the construction of a surveillance state, the people of Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong did not vote for her to erode their rights in this place. Police unions and police chiefs did not ask for their members to be handed these broad, sweeping powers; they asked for lawful access. We are ready to give it to them in part 1 of this bill. We asked for that and the Liberals said no. That is the conversation today.

We are not prepared to write a blank cheque to the government. I do not think that anybody is. We, the members of the opposition, certainly are not prepared to do that as we watch the government of the day erode not only the rights of Canadians but also the ability to debate those rights in the House and the ability to scrutinize a bill that is deeply problematic. This is a bill that civil liberties associations, social media platforms and all kinds of private companies have raised the alarm bells on. We are certainly not going to do that with no debate, no witnesses at committee, no ability to propose amendments, no oversight mechanisms and no answers from the people who will actually be responsible for implementing the legislation.

The reason that we are talking about this motion in the House is because of the public safety minister's inability to defend his own legislation in here, out there, at committee and everywhere else across the country. The government is programming this motion to save that minister, and Canadians deserve better than that. They deserve a debate, and they deserve scrutiny on this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, this goes back to April 2025, when Canadians elected a minority government to provide oversight, accountability and transparency so that the opposition parties could hold them to account and provide that oversight. What we have seen since this manufactured, transactional majority is that this heavy-handed hammer has come down on this place, which has limited all other parties' ability, as an opposition, to do that.

I am wondering if the hon. member would speak to the impact this is having, not only on our parliamentary democracy, but on the decline of democracy in general.