Lawful Access vs. Privacy
The Legislative Trio of Treachery: C-22, C-9, and C-34
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By James Pew
On July 27th constitutional lawyer and founder of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms John Carpay wrote a piece in the National Post concerning many of the civil liberties enjoyed by Canadians which depend on strong laws (to protect privacy for example). He referred to bills C-8, C-22 and C-34 as laws that “form the foundation of an emerging surveillance state that can resemble the ‘social credit’ system in communist China.”
On June 23rd, Queen’s University Law Professor Bruce Pardy discussed bill C-34 with independent journalist Nico Lagan. The video of that interview is titled Bill C-34 Is Just A Symptom Of A Much Bigger Problem | Bruce Pardy Exposes The System Behind It. During the discussion Pardy proclaimed the following:
“There are a lot of problems with this particular bill…But the bigger problem is a bigger problem. This is the way we are governed now! And that is about the constitution, it’s about the way Parliament works, it’s about delegation of authority, it’s about the managerial state. Until we start to take that seriously, we are just playing whack-a-mole…the real problem is the way the thing works is not being challenged the way it ought to be.”
In addition to the above, I have been writing a mini-series of essays called The Legislative Trio of Treachery which deals individually with bills C-22, C-9, and C-34 — today’s essay, the second in said mini-series, covers C-22. Before we delved any deeper into this unsettling subject I thought it prudent to begin with a reminder of that ancient adage whereby death comes not from a single powerful stroke, but by the relentlessness of a thousand little cuts. Each of these new proposed or passed laws represents a small slice of a larger act of butchery. And worse, it is not just new laws chipping slowly away at fundamental civil liberties, but older ones too.
Indeed, as Carpay, who believes Canadians should “reject the false choice between privacy and security,” reiterated in his July NP piece:
“Some existing older laws create similar (privacy) risks. The federal anti-money-laundering regime, set out in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, requires extensive collection and sharing of personal financial information. Under the Customs Act, border officials exercise broad authority to search our smartphones.”
In short, as we proceed through the present analysis, we must keep in mind the sentiments expressed by Pardy and Carpay. Keep in mind their choice of words. Pardy mentions the threat of a “managerial state,” which, logic dictates, is a prerequisite before culmination into Carpay’s “surveillance state” can occur. As much as we may all agree on the importance of examining the details of each individual bill tabled by the present illiberal government, we must concede that the bigger problem, the bigger picture, is an environmental one. Pardy’s “bigger problem” is the medium Marshall McLuhan spoke of. The individual bills are merely the content the medium generates. The bills are not the message — the content is never the message. The medium, the environment created by our institutions and systems, is the message.
Turning to Canada’s proposed surveillance legislation, Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act (tabled in early March of 2026) which is both controversial and unpopular. It passed third reading in the House of Commons on June 18th, and for now remains in the Senate (where it will be debated after the summer recess). According to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, C-22 will “significantly expand surveillance in Canada for years to come.” And Tim McSorley, National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group opined that it “presents one of the greatest threats to privacy in Canada of the past two decades.”
The bill is divided into two parts. Part One – traditional lawful access powers – is a revised version of the lawful access provisions that were set out in Part 14 of bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act (which failed to pass through the legislative process). C-2 was ultimately split up. The contentious portions – Part 14 and 15 – were removed and reappeared as C-22. The rest of C-2 was repackaged as C-12, the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act – which became law on March 26th.
As explained on the informative Lexicology blog (analysis by Christopher Ferguson and Leslie J Milton), the second part of C-22 – the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act (SAAIA), or the “technical capability mandate” – concerns “the new regulatory regime for electronic service providers to facilitate law enforcement and CSIS access to information introduced in Part 15 of Bill C-2 with some revisions.”
Canadians should be quite alarmed at the illiberal grab for power and control the government attempted with C-2. Even though the reimagined C-22 has toned down and narrowed the scope of many of the proposed new powers concerning lawful access to information, according to Lexicology, part one of the bill would “still represent a significant expansion of law enforcement and CSIS access to information outside the confines of traditional warrants, through new warrantless demands, broadened exigent circumstances powers, and production orders that, while subject to judicial authorization, are not subject to obtaining a warrant.”
Part two of C-22, the SAAIA, imposes an obligation on Electronic Service Providers essentially to create infrastructure which enables law enforcement access, along with archiving capacity of users metadata (for up to one year). This means that ESP’s may be on the hook to both build new software architecture and maintain access-enabling equipment, as well, “develop, test, and maintain interception and data extraction capabilities,” all while being subject to a new regime of inspections, audits, and compliance orders. It should come as no surprise that along with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Cybersecurity Advisors Network, several Canadian civil liberties and legal experts groups, and many ESP companies, including Apple and Meta, have criticized C-22, while some like Signal, DuckDuckGo, NordVPN, and Windscribe have threatened to leave Canada if C-22 becomes law.
As University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist reported, “the chairs of the U.S. House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees have written to Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree warning that the bill threatens U.S. national security and the integrity of cross-border data flows.” According to Geist, the trade frictions this creates with the U.S., along with broadly echoed concern over “the prospect of leading companies exiting the Canadian market, and weaker cybersecurity protections for ordinary users,” has thwarted plans the government appears to have had to pass C-22 quietly.
On that note, and backing up a little to June 15 during C-22’s post-second reading House Public Safety Committee debate, when Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon, instead of waiting for the proceedings to conclude naturally, tabled a sweeping “guillotine” motion effectively ending clause-by-clause debate. This even though the opposition had at the time over one hundred undebated amendments.
Matt Hatfield, Executive Director of OpenMedia, responded to the Liberal’s breach of process and clear attempt to rush through the bill:
“This is exactly what people warned would happen when this government cobbled together a majority and seized control of Parliament’s committees…They are using that power not to build something, but to gag debate on the most reckless surveillance powers Canada has seen in a generation.”
On June 18th, in the aftermath of the guillotined debate and C-22 being deemed to have passed its third reading, Tamir Israel, Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s Privacy, Surveillance and Technology Program, added his two cents:
“We are now left with a proposal that will let the government reshape our digital services to suit its surveillance demands in secret and without public debate. Canada deserves better.”
It’s worth pointing out that concern over the Liberal’s undemocratic behaviour preceded the guillotined committee debate. On June 2nd, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association along with Kate Robertson and Cynthia Khoo from the Citizen Lab released a detailed joint analysis of Bill C-22. The abstract includes the following:
“In fact, the extreme fast-tracking of this bill by the government is itself cause for concern and reason to question whether the committee process is capable of remedying the legislative proposal’s many flaws.”
The House and the Senate return on September 21st to resume the business of governing the nation. The C-22 ball is in the Senate’s court. Senators should of course take seriously the alarming number of stake-holders who have expressed serious, if not extreme concern over the privacy implications of the bill. They should spit it up and at least send part two back to the House to be debated properly and amended. C-22 is an absolutely abysmal bill as it stands, Senators must do the right thing and demand it be subjected to a normal, unrushed democratic process.
The next step for this author is to follow up with the senate as they begin to debate C-22 this fall, but more than this, as was expressed off the top of this essay by legal academics John Carpay and Bruce Pardy, is to see the bigger picture, the trend that forms when one examines collectively all of the (il)Liberal bills, and at the same time duly considers the illiberal globalist agenda of Carney and his government. In addition, to shine ample light on the machinations of our leaders so as to provide Canadians with a clear enough glimpse of the shenanigans, the sovereignty-destroying globalist program enacted through a government that regularly circumvents democratic norms, and cos-plays a cynical brand of myopic and phony “elbows up” nationalism limited to election cycles only.
Stay tuned for the next essay on the heinous Bill-C34, the Safe Social Media Act. And, in case you haven’t read the first essay in The Legislative Trio of Treachery essay series, please do peruse Combatting Hate Law vs. Christian Canadians at your earliest convenience.
Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Carney’s Spark Fizzles While Trump’s Fuse Ignites A Nation
Also, James has begun publishing a series of essays which explains Trump’s agenda for Canadians. There are three essays so far:
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“Every nation gets the government it deserves.” Joseph de Maistre (1753 - 1821)
Thank you James for laying out these very real dangers of these bills and specifically, Bill C-22. More people need to be made aware of how threatening these bills are.