Rather than use the final days of the House session to answer the privacy, security, and oversight concerns raised by the Privacy Commissioner, academics, technology companies, and civil society groups, the government spent the time ensuring it would not have to
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The final days of Bill C-22 in the House marked a genuine abrogation of democratic norms. The government moved a motion to shut down the clause-by-clause study in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, preventing the committee from adjourning until the bill had been pushed through. That led to a session that stretched past midnight, as MPs were barred from introducing new amendments and left to vote on amendment after amendment without any discussion, debate, or even public disclosure of the contents of the amendments. By the end of the committee session, no one could have known the contents of the bill that MPs had duly approved and sent back to the House for final approval. As noted, once back in the House, there was no further debate, discussion or even a vote. Just a motion that said the deal was done.
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The secret ministerial orders survive, the mandatory metadata retention regime survives, the capability requirements survive, the expansive electronic service provider definition survives, and the Privacy Commissioner remains excluded from any oversight role. Google, which warned the committee that the bill would establish a surveillance infrastructure that compromises cybersecurity, said after the amendments that the changes have not eased its concerns, and the Chamber of Progress, an industry coalition, dismissed them as “half measures” and “cosmetic changes to a fundamentally flawed bill.” The companies that have signalled they may limit services or leave Canada are unlikely to read the amendments any differently, and the changes are themselves the clearest evidence that the concerns were serious rather than imagined, since a government does not amend a bill to address tinfoil hats.
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The companies that have signalled they may limit services or leave Canada are unlikely to read the amendments any differently, and the changes are themselves the clearest evidence that the concerns were serious rather than imagined, since a government does not amend a bill to address tinfoil hats.