On June 18, the House of Commons passed Bill C-22, formally called the Lawful Access Act, bypassing any further debate. The controversial bill has been criticized by privacy experts, civil rights lawyers, and tech companies for its far-reaching powers, secret orders, and shadowy rules. The bill is now headed to the Senate. If it passes, it will represent a massive expansion of the state’s spying powers, and will no doubt be used to crack down on protests, strikes, and Indigenous land defenders.
Smokescreens and boogeymen
The Liberal government and police lobbies alike argued that Bill C-22 would make Canadians safer. Police claimed it would “close the gap” between the tools they currently have and “modern investigation needs.” The Liberals rattled on about protecting children; Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said it was “time to choose” the side of victims. They also claimed the law would stop organized crime, transnational terrorism, and other boogeymen.
However, in a recent report, the government was forced to admit that these were lies, and that there was no “clear, empirical data” that police or spy agencies “face serious…challenges because of rapidly evolving technology.”
Far from creating safety for Canadians, this bill will create a powerful surveillance state, capable of issuing secret orders to virtually any internet company, collecting and tracking internet user data including geolocation, and compiling centralized databases of citizens. NDP MP Jenny Kwan criticized the bill’s “broad surveillance powers, secret orders, and future [changes] that Parliament itself has never fully examined.” The Liberal government called criticism “paranoia.”
Modern tools of repression
Anandasangaree framed the two-part bill as a way to modernize the tools of police, bringing them into the digital age. But what this really means is stripping away the rights of Canadians and giving the government massive spying powers, all hidden by a shadowy process.
Part one of the bill, which several ministers equated to giving police a “modern phone book,” would allow spy agencies and police to demand information from telecommunications companies. Without a warrant, police could demand that a company confirm whether or not a cêrtain IP address or phone number is a user of that company’s service. From here, as law professor Michael Guest warns, information like device identifiers or IP addresses “could be used to track users and monitor online activity.”
This law would effectively reverse a Supreme Court decision from 2014 that upheld Canadians’ right to remain anonymous on the internet, barring police from making warrantless demands on telecommunications companies. Before that ruling, spy agencies and police were making over 1 million requests per year to telecom companies for basic user information such as names and addresses. In 2011, they filed an average of one request every 27 seconds.
Databases and decryption
The second part of the bill allows the government to make secret orders to what they call “electronic service providers”(ESPs), a label that applies to whichever internet-related company they want it to. These orders would require companies to collect, compile, and share users’ metadata. The law also allows the government to force ESPs to implement technology that would allow the government quick and easy access to their users’ information.
Due to the broad scope of abilities that this bill initially enabled, including the possibility of the creation of “backdoors,” this section received massive backlash, including from big tech companies like Apple and Google. Companies warned that such technology would weaken their ability to provide strong end-to-end encryption. Some firms even threatened to pull service from Canadian markets. The U.K. is currently tied up in court with Apple over similar spying laws, which the British government used to secretly order the company to decrypt data.
In response to the backlash, the Canadian government amended the bill to explicitly exclude forced decryption. They also shortened the maximum amount of time companies could be mandated to hold onto user metadata, from one year to six months.
While these changes may have satisfied corporate interests, they by no means prevent abuse of these laws. According to Tamir Israel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, “the fundamental flaws in this legislation are still intact.” The association railed against the mandatory metadata retention, calling it “almost certainly unconstitutional” as it would allow the search and collection of information without a warrant, which would violate charter rights against unlawful search and seizure. Notably, CSIS was caught illegally collecting and retaining metadata back in 2016.
Five Eyes
Anandasangaree also argued that this bill is simply raising Canada up to the standard of the other “Five Eyes” countries, referring to an intelligence alliance of five anglophone countries that also includes the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. However, this bill goes much further than laws in other Five Eyes countries. For example, only the U.K. and Australia have mandatory metadata retention. In Australia, a loophole in these laws was used to spy on journalists.
As for the rest of the Five Eyes members, these countries should be no model for so-called “lawful access” laws. The United States has a long record of spying on its citizens. Most recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE have been using federal databases, linked to an AI-powered app, to arrest and deport immigrants and even crack down on social media criticism.
Even with current laws, CSIS, the RCMP and provincial and municipal police have long records of using their powers to spy on ordinary people and repress protesters, labour unions and Indigenous groups. Just last year, CSIS was caught illegally requesting information on a protester. The RCMP surveilled and then brutally repressed the Wet’suwet’en resistance against pipeline development. Both agencies reportedly helped Toronto police to track and repress pro-Palestine protests and activists in recent years.
Why now?
So-called “lawful access” has been long debated in Parliament, with the Harper government trying and failing to pass two different bills. Bill C-22’s first iteration, Bill C-2, also failed to overcome widespread opposition. However, the Canadian state clearly sees this as a priority, which is why the present Carney government pushed for it again and fast-tracked it.
As the government looks to build massive infrastructure projects across the country (many of which cut through Indigenous land) and the capitalists demand more attacks on the working class, the stage is being set for class struggle—strikes, protests, and mass movements. In response, the government is sharpening their tools of repression. This is why they’re expanding police and RCMP funding, why they’re calling for attacks on the right to strike, and why they want enhanced spying powers.
Bill C-22 is a clear sign that the government is preparing for war on the working class, making sure they have the necessary tools to put down protests, strikes, and mass movements.
The state doesn’t defend ordinary Canadians—it defends the banks, the oil barons, and the status quo which makes the rich richer. A stronger state only means a fiercer defence of the interests of the capitalist class. This is what the Liberals really mean when they say their party is the one “most clearly for law and order in the country.” They bolster the laws of the bosses, to carry out the orders of the bankers.
