There will be a SECU Committee meeting on C-22 later today, where the committee will be performing a clause by clause review of Bill C-22, and voting on amendments. It may be the final meeting. You can watch it live by clicking the "Watch on ParlVu" button on the meeting notice page: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/SECU/meetin...
After bill C-22 leaves the SECU Committee, it will be sent to the House of Commons for the third reading and a final vote before being sent to the Senate.
If you are a Canadian citizen, you can also use the following tools to message your MP:
You can also email Gary Anandasangaree (gary.anand@parl.gc.ca), Marc Carney (mark.carney@parl.gc.ca), and Sean Fraser (sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca), and tell them that any weakening of encryption or suspicionless retention of metadata is unacceptable.
Don’t group all of the east in with Toronto and Montreal. Most Ontarians (probably Quebeckers too) outside the major centres feel just as alienated as the rest of the country.
The last time I remember feeling that I had representation, as a Western Canadian was 3 Prim Ministers ago. I didn't even vote for Harper, but the others simply ignored the gulf between Regina and the Okanagan. It doesn't get better once you move to Ontario. You then realize that your MPs also don't represent you, but at least they're in government now.
The gov do all this and then will act surprised as Canada's tech sector finds it even harder to create any consumer facing businesses leaving all the value being captured by the Americans. Surprised pikachus all round.
> then will act surprised as Canada's tech sector finds it even harder to create any consumer facing businesses...
That's not why an indigenous Canadian tech industry is non-existent.
Heck, China, Israel, India, South Korea, and Taiwan all have larger tech industries than Canada and have much stricter internet speech requirements (and in Israel and Taiwan's case are much smaller than Canada population wise).
Canadian tech is nonexistent because every Canadian pension fund, family office, and bank prefers to invest in American equities over Canadian equities.
Sure foreign players do play a role, yet it still has the 4th largest VC dealflow [0] in the world ($9.3B) at 2x the size of Canada's entire market which highlights a significantly larger market. And unlike Canadian startups, most Indian startups IPO domestically [1] thus building a self-sustaining capital market
> Canadian tech is nonexistent because every Canadian pension fund, family office, and bank prefers to invest in American equities over Canadian equities.
Off-topic but I suspect it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes. Canadian investors are risk adverse because they can be. That and there's a colonial-descended cultural bias towards credentials and established players.
But yeah, I'm furiously writing code for a product living off my savings, and would love to get investment to build a startup off of it, but every time I sniff around the Canadian "investor" scene it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me.
Canada definitely has a "first buyer problem" which makes it hard to get liftoff. A great many Canadian startups end up going to the US to get funding to get around this issue.
> it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes
Partially. The money made in ONG and Construction is then re-invested in American equities. And even provincial pension like Ontario Teachers and La Caisse funds prefer investing in American equities instead because their only incentive is pension solvency.
The issue is Canada is simply a tiny country with an extremely loose confederation in a world that is returning to a "winner takes all" mindset dependent on hard unification.
More tactically, using a Yozma-style approach to subsidize Canadian VC would help sow the seeds for a truly self sustaining ecosystem.
> it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me
Because they don't and never will. Anyone who has potential gets frustrated and leaves (ofc I've poached a couple as well).
Its legislation that attempts to weaken and break encryption so that law enforcement and others can access encrypted communications. It also seeks to require mandatory suspicionless metadata for all online services.
The legislation was explicitly written to target both telecom companies and every online service.
It's online and easy to read, and is a modernizing of laws around online systems. It is a deeply imperfect bill -- personally I think it is basically DOA and will not receive assent -- but a lot of the reaction to it are classic partisan hysterics (you can already see a bunch of those people throughout this discussion).
The parts that are garnering a lot of negative feedback is
1) requiring core providers (a list as yet undefined), and any others if specifically directed to, to maintain a rolling year of metadata that the government can request on a targeted individual with a warrant. This is obviously at odds with "no log" VPNs in particular. And let's be real: 99% of the industry already logs everything.
2) "the development, implementation, assessment, testing and maintenance of operational and technical capabilities, including capabilities related to extracting and organizing information that is authorized to be accessed and to providing access to such information to authorized persons;"
The #2 could potentially imply secondary decryption keys and the like, though the bill explicitly says the requirement cannot impose a systematic vulnerability, and the government has pointed to that and said they want no such thing.
So VPN providers are saying "we don't want to log", and encryption providers are saying "be much clearer in what you mean by systematic vulnerability. Define this explicitly".
Well that's the crux of it and why some VPN providers have pushed back. If the law passed, and if those VPNs got added as core providers, they would either need to log the metadata or stop operating in Canada, and several have said they would stop operating in Canada.
There are arguments for all sides, and I do think the narrative gets taken over from the hysterical. On the one side I like torrenting without concern, but on the other it would be nice if services didn't provide cover for people to send death threats, bomb threats to schools because they fly a pride flag, VoIP swatting, and so on. Though ultimately limiting just VPNs operating in Canada just offshores the problem so the solution doesn't really achieve anything.
Basically the same idiocy that the British gov't has also tried to enact around making actually encrypted communication impossible, and giving them the rights to access metadata on the public's communications without warrant, etc.
The country has just slipped into a recession (only one in g20 btw), food bank usage is at record highs, it's young adults are ranked 71st in the world in happiness (boomers in the top 10 tho), housing is out of reach for many, youth unemployment is at ~15%, outside investments are non-existent, government debt is at record levels, haven't won the Stanley cup in decades, in a trade war with the USA, nobody is starting businesses here, educated people are leaving, etc.
Liberal party: We need to spy on people on the internet!
There is not enough noise about this bill. It's horrific.
If you're Canadian, call your MP and raise a stink. The Liberals need to be shown quite explicitly by people in our profession how this will harm our industry, in addition to harming the privacy rights of our citizens; and it seems like conservatives are not planning on opposing this bill (just want it split in half) and the NDP is the only party raising real opposition?!
Sadly spying on citizens is pretty bipartisan for most governments around the world. It seems hard to actually stop this kind of stuff. I've signed this petition which I'm sure will do absolutely nothing, but it feels like there isn't much else I can do. I didn't even get a confirmation email with the link I need to click after signing this petition, so I guess my signature is null and void. I've lost faith in our government doing anything to benefit the people.
Good to know, as past ones I've signed only have taken a couple minutes. Worst case I'm keeping the petition opened and will sign up again tonight. I'll probably also throw a little message together as well to send to my MP tonight. I feel like that's about all I can do to make my voice heard about these matters.
The Liberals have been elected 4 times in a row. They don't even hide the fact they're hostile to the needs and cares of Canadian citizens since we're the idiots who keep electing them. CBC pushes some propaganda about how this'll protect the kids, some brain-dead liberals will keep repeating it, Canada will just continue its path to irrelevancy...
> The Liberals need to be shown quite explicitly by people in our profession how this will harm our industry...
It will not hurt American FDI nor VC within in the Canadian tech industry, which represents the bulk of capital within the Canadian tech scene. We are fine operating in China, Israel, India, Brazil, the UK, SK, Taiwan, and Japan who have similarly onerous requirements.
> There is not enough noise about this bill...
The Freedom Convoy which was fueled by COVID disinfo, as well as active foreign interference in Canadian elections [0] highlights the need for Canada to protect itself.
Look at how the UK has devolved into near yearly race riots often instigated by foreign actors over social media [1]. Canada has the same weaknesses and a hard state response is required.
Canada doesn't have free speech laws like we do in the US, but even in the US you "cannot yet fire in a crowded theatre".
Edit: can't reply
> Yep. And that is a very good thing. Hate speech is illegal here
I agree.
And thus, how can you identify where hate speech is originating when platforms will not cooperate with law enforcement without C22?
Hate speech laws are useless if you cannot identify where said hate speech is originating from.
"Misinformed" is a strange word for what was clearly an attempt at a coup, with massive amounts of foreign money involved?
The RCMP and other agencies and the province were not doing their job. I was not a fan of Trudeau, but I don't really know what they could have done to resolve the situation.
(And that is in fact one of the reasons I'm suspicious and critical of this bill. I don't think giving law enforcement agencies additional powers will resolve anything, as when push comes to shove they are often full of people on the same side as the malevolent forces that sibling / parent commenter is referring to)
It was clearly communicated by their leaders that they weren't leaving the streets until the government resigned (or "all pandemic measures dropped", which the fed gov't had no power to do as the majority were either provincial mandates or were forced on us by the US gov't)
Also the exact same set of people (and I mean, literally, look up the names of the leaders) tried almost exactly the same thing a few years earlier around carbon tax and environmental issues. But the government was stronger then and Canadians more united.
And yes, they had massive and well documented funding from American conservative lobby groups, in both instances.
That's not a coup. That's an illegal protest. They were all a bunch of self-centred idiots, but let's not give them credit for something that it wasn't.
A coup d'état is when you forcibly overthrow a government AND install someone else illegally (usually yourselves). Asking the current government to resign isn't a coup by any definition.
> even in the US you "cannot yet fire in a crowded theatre".
Actually, you can yell "fire" if there is a fire.
Note that the "can't yell fire" quote comes from a decision involving folks who were distributing pamphlets opposing the WWI draft. It was written by Holmes, who also wrote "three generations of idiots are enough" to justify a eugenics law, in a case that didn't involve any idiots.
Moreover, the "fire" decision was overturned by Brandenberg v Ohio.
That you're right about "Freedom" Convoy (and "Alberta" seppies) etc.
And that this a bad and harmful bill.
Given CSIS has plenty of powers already and hasn't done anything to deal with the actions far right American (and domestic) groups, I don't see why I would trust them with my or my family's chat histories or why I should have to live without Signal or ProtonMail, etc. as product offerings in my country.
> hasn't done anything to deal with the actions far right American (and domestic) groups...
They don't. They are one of the weaker intel agencies amongst the five eyes (NZ is weakest) due to overlapping responsibilities and jurisdictions with the RCMP and Provincial law enforcement. And there are active issues with certain provincial LE agencies and foreign interference.
There will be a SECU Committee meeting on C-22 later today, where the committee will be performing a clause by clause review of Bill C-22, and voting on amendments. It may be the final meeting. You can watch it live by clicking the "Watch on ParlVu" button on the meeting notice page: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/SECU/meetin...
Direct link to the upcoming live ParlVu video: https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrows...
After bill C-22 leaves the SECU Committee, it will be sent to the House of Commons for the third reading and a final vote before being sent to the Senate.
If you are a Canadian citizen, you can also use the following tools to message your MP:
* The Internet Society's tool: https://www.internetsociety.org/our-work/internet-policy/kee...
* OpenMedia's messaging tool: https://action.openmedia.org/page/188754/action/1
* ICLM's messaging tool: https://iclmg.ca/stop-c-22/
You can also email Gary Anandasangaree (gary.anand@parl.gc.ca), Marc Carney (mark.carney@parl.gc.ca), and Sean Fraser (sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca), and tell them that any weakening of encryption or suspicionless retention of metadata is unacceptable.
The Liberal party members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU) are:
* Jean-Yves Duclos: jean-yves.duclos@parl.gc.ca
* Sima Acan: sima.acan@parl.gc.ca
* Marianne Dandurand: marianne.dandurand@parl.gc.ca
* Anthony Housefather: anthony.housefather@parl.gc.ca
* Marcus Powlowski: marcus.powlowski@parl.gc.ca
* Jacques Ramsay: jacques.ramsay@parl.gc.ca
* Amandeep Sodhi: amandeep.sodhi@parl.gc.ca
3 from Ontario and 4 from Quebec. As a western Canada resident it has been real old that we have been steamrolled by the east for the past decade.
Don’t group all of the east in with Toronto and Montreal. Most Ontarians (probably Quebeckers too) outside the major centres feel just as alienated as the rest of the country.
The last time I remember feeling that I had representation, as a Western Canadian was 3 Prim Ministers ago. I didn't even vote for Harper, but the others simply ignored the gulf between Regina and the Okanagan. It doesn't get better once you move to Ontario. You then realize that your MPs also don't represent you, but at least they're in government now.
It's the tyranny of the majority.
Ontario and Quebec together are like 65% of Canadians. I'm in BC and have made my peace with that. I would imagine people in PEI feel a similar way.
Probably people living in Hope or Quesnel also feel similar about being steamrolled by Metro Vancouver and Victoria.
The eastern provinces and Quebec are actually over represented. That means there's even less of a chance for the west.
PEI gets 4 seats in the House of Commons.
While deeply unlikely to change anything it really is important as much noise is made about this as possible.
On top of this will be C-34 which is just full no privacy anymore territory https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2026/06/everything-all-at-once-b...
The gov do all this and then will act surprised as Canada's tech sector finds it even harder to create any consumer facing businesses leaving all the value being captured by the Americans. Surprised pikachus all round.
> then will act surprised as Canada's tech sector finds it even harder to create any consumer facing businesses...
That's not why an indigenous Canadian tech industry is non-existent.
Heck, China, Israel, India, South Korea, and Taiwan all have larger tech industries than Canada and have much stricter internet speech requirements (and in Israel and Taiwan's case are much smaller than Canada population wise).
Canadian tech is nonexistent because every Canadian pension fund, family office, and bank prefers to invest in American equities over Canadian equities.
A lot of the Indian tech industry is really just the tech industry from other countries being outsourced to there.
Not everything though. There are huge unicorns that serve the Indian market in India.
Sure foreign players do play a role, yet it still has the 4th largest VC dealflow [0] in the world ($9.3B) at 2x the size of Canada's entire market which highlights a significantly larger market. And unlike Canadian startups, most Indian startups IPO domestically [1] thus building a self-sustaining capital market
[0] - https://dealroom.co/guides/global
[1] - https://internationalbanker.com/finance/india-is-undergoing-...
I didn't realize the VC market was that strong there. A lot of the stuff I read on here had previously pointed to it being a tough startup market.
The premise seems wrong here. As someone who worked my whole career in Canadian tech I assure you it exists.
> Heck, China, Israel, and India all have larger tech industries than Canada and have much stricter internet speech requirements.
It's almost like all three of those involve absolutely enormous captive markets, including for their defence/espionage purposes.
> Canadian tech is nonexistent because every Canadian pension fund, family office, and bank prefers to invest in American equities over Canadian equities.
Off-topic but I suspect it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes. Canadian investors are risk adverse because they can be. That and there's a colonial-descended cultural bias towards credentials and established players.
But yeah, I'm furiously writing code for a product living off my savings, and would love to get investment to build a startup off of it, but every time I sniff around the Canadian "investor" scene it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me.
Canada definitely has a "first buyer problem" which makes it hard to get liftoff. A great many Canadian startups end up going to the US to get funding to get around this issue.
> it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes
Partially. The money made in ONG and Construction is then re-invested in American equities. And even provincial pension like Ontario Teachers and La Caisse funds prefer investing in American equities instead because their only incentive is pension solvency.
The issue is Canada is simply a tiny country with an extremely loose confederation in a world that is returning to a "winner takes all" mindset dependent on hard unification.
More tactically, using a Yozma-style approach to subsidize Canadian VC would help sow the seeds for a truly self sustaining ecosystem.
> it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me
Because they don't and never will. Anyone who has potential gets frustrated and leaves (ofc I've poached a couple as well).
I made my petition in April 2025. I was genuinely surprised that my riding was fooled by Liberal lies, but I'm not surprised about the result.
Liberal, Tory, same old story.
Signed, thanks for sharing.
what is bill c 22 in a nutshell for non canadians like me ? is this like the patriot act in usa ?
Its far worse than the Patriot Act.
Its legislation that attempts to weaken and break encryption so that law enforcement and others can access encrypted communications. It also seeks to require mandatory suspicionless metadata for all online services.
The legislation was explicitly written to target both telecom companies and every online service.
Citizen Lab has a good writeup on the legislation here: https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-proposed-surveill...
Sounds pretty good. It might actually get the kids off the internet.
It's online and easy to read, and is a modernizing of laws around online systems. It is a deeply imperfect bill -- personally I think it is basically DOA and will not receive assent -- but a lot of the reaction to it are classic partisan hysterics (you can already see a bunch of those people throughout this discussion).
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-22/first-r...
The parts that are garnering a lot of negative feedback is
1) requiring core providers (a list as yet undefined), and any others if specifically directed to, to maintain a rolling year of metadata that the government can request on a targeted individual with a warrant. This is obviously at odds with "no log" VPNs in particular. And let's be real: 99% of the industry already logs everything.
2) "the development, implementation, assessment, testing and maintenance of operational and technical capabilities, including capabilities related to extracting and organizing information that is authorized to be accessed and to providing access to such information to authorized persons;"
The #2 could potentially imply secondary decryption keys and the like, though the bill explicitly says the requirement cannot impose a systematic vulnerability, and the government has pointed to that and said they want no such thing.
So VPN providers are saying "we don't want to log", and encryption providers are saying "be much clearer in what you mean by systematic vulnerability. Define this explicitly".
how would they force vpns like mullvad to turn over the log when there isn't any?
are they just going to ban specific vpn providers then ? this is absurd!
Well that's the crux of it and why some VPN providers have pushed back. If the law passed, and if those VPNs got added as core providers, they would either need to log the metadata or stop operating in Canada, and several have said they would stop operating in Canada.
There are arguments for all sides, and I do think the narrative gets taken over from the hysterical. On the one side I like torrenting without concern, but on the other it would be nice if services didn't provide cover for people to send death threats, bomb threats to schools because they fly a pride flag, VoIP swatting, and so on. Though ultimately limiting just VPNs operating in Canada just offshores the problem so the solution doesn't really achieve anything.
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-22/first-r...
Basically the same idiocy that the British gov't has also tried to enact around making actually encrypted communication impossible, and giving them the rights to access metadata on the public's communications without warrant, etc.
The country has just slipped into a recession (only one in g20 btw), food bank usage is at record highs, it's young adults are ranked 71st in the world in happiness (boomers in the top 10 tho), housing is out of reach for many, youth unemployment is at ~15%, outside investments are non-existent, government debt is at record levels, haven't won the Stanley cup in decades, in a trade war with the USA, nobody is starting businesses here, educated people are leaving, etc.
Liberal party: We need to spy on people on the internet!
There is not enough noise about this bill. It's horrific.
If you're Canadian, call your MP and raise a stink. The Liberals need to be shown quite explicitly by people in our profession how this will harm our industry, in addition to harming the privacy rights of our citizens; and it seems like conservatives are not planning on opposing this bill (just want it split in half) and the NDP is the only party raising real opposition?!
Sadly spying on citizens is pretty bipartisan for most governments around the world. It seems hard to actually stop this kind of stuff. I've signed this petition which I'm sure will do absolutely nothing, but it feels like there isn't much else I can do. I didn't even get a confirmation email with the link I need to click after signing this petition, so I guess my signature is null and void. I've lost faith in our government doing anything to benefit the people.
The confirmation email takes a few minutes.
Yeah it's already been 10 minutes, but they likely got their email server on some hamster somewhere, so I probably just gotta wait longer for it.
I had it take that long before for petitions I've signed. It will come.
Good to know, as past ones I've signed only have taken a couple minutes. Worst case I'm keeping the petition opened and will sign up again tonight. I'll probably also throw a little message together as well to send to my MP tonight. I feel like that's about all I can do to make my voice heard about these matters.
The Liberals have been elected 4 times in a row. They don't even hide the fact they're hostile to the needs and cares of Canadian citizens since we're the idiots who keep electing them. CBC pushes some propaganda about how this'll protect the kids, some brain-dead liberals will keep repeating it, Canada will just continue its path to irrelevancy...
You know the conservatives are supporting this bill as well... right?
And when Harper was in power they were trying to push something similar?
And that the petition linked here is an NDP petition?
Partisan grandstanding won't fix the issue. A mobilized public will.
> You know the conservatives are supporting this bill as well... right?
That is not true at all.
https://www.conservative.ca/cpc/stop-online-government-surve...
> The Liberals need to be shown quite explicitly by people in our profession how this will harm our industry...
It will not hurt American FDI nor VC within in the Canadian tech industry, which represents the bulk of capital within the Canadian tech scene. We are fine operating in China, Israel, India, Brazil, the UK, SK, Taiwan, and Japan who have similarly onerous requirements.
> There is not enough noise about this bill...
The Freedom Convoy which was fueled by COVID disinfo, as well as active foreign interference in Canadian elections [0] highlights the need for Canada to protect itself.
Look at how the UK has devolved into near yearly race riots often instigated by foreign actors over social media [1]. Canada has the same weaknesses and a hard state response is required.
Canada doesn't have free speech laws like we do in the US, but even in the US you "cannot yet fire in a crowded theatre".
Edit: can't reply
> Yep. And that is a very good thing. Hate speech is illegal here
I agree.
And thus, how can you identify where hate speech is originating when platforms will not cooperate with law enforcement without C22?
Hate speech laws are useless if you cannot identify where said hate speech is originating from.
[0] - https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corpo...
[1] - https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme...
You cannot be serious. The Freedom convoy may have been misinformed but the government response was an absolute disaster and the courts have agreed.
"Misinformed" is a strange word for what was clearly an attempt at a coup, with massive amounts of foreign money involved?
The RCMP and other agencies and the province were not doing their job. I was not a fan of Trudeau, but I don't really know what they could have done to resolve the situation.
(And that is in fact one of the reasons I'm suspicious and critical of this bill. I don't think giving law enforcement agencies additional powers will resolve anything, as when push comes to shove they are often full of people on the same side as the malevolent forces that sibling / parent commenter is referring to)
This is the first I've heard that called a coup. Was there and actual overthrow attempt?
It was clearly communicated by their leaders that they weren't leaving the streets until the government resigned (or "all pandemic measures dropped", which the fed gov't had no power to do as the majority were either provincial mandates or were forced on us by the US gov't)
Also the exact same set of people (and I mean, literally, look up the names of the leaders) tried almost exactly the same thing a few years earlier around carbon tax and environmental issues. But the government was stronger then and Canadians more united.
And yes, they had massive and well documented funding from American conservative lobby groups, in both instances.
That's not a coup. That's an illegal protest. They were all a bunch of self-centred idiots, but let's not give them credit for something that it wasn't.
A coup d'état is when you forcibly overthrow a government AND install someone else illegally (usually yourselves). Asking the current government to resign isn't a coup by any definition.
Yes, that's why they had PP bringing them donuts and coffee
That is a lie. None of those countries other than maybe China have laws requiring encryption backdoors.
Suspicionless bulk metadata retention is also illegal in the EU, and no such law existing in many of those other democracies you listed.
> even in the US you "cannot yet fire in a crowded theatre".
Actually, you can yell "fire" if there is a fire.
Note that the "can't yell fire" quote comes from a decision involving folks who were distributing pamphlets opposing the WWI draft. It was written by Holmes, who also wrote "three generations of idiots are enough" to justify a eugenics law, in a case that didn't involve any idiots.
Moreover, the "fire" decision was overturned by Brandenberg v Ohio.
Two things can be true at the same time.
That you're right about "Freedom" Convoy (and "Alberta" seppies) etc.
And that this a bad and harmful bill.
Given CSIS has plenty of powers already and hasn't done anything to deal with the actions far right American (and domestic) groups, I don't see why I would trust them with my or my family's chat histories or why I should have to live without Signal or ProtonMail, etc. as product offerings in my country.
> Given CSIS has plenty of powers already...
> hasn't done anything to deal with the actions far right American (and domestic) groups...
They don't. They are one of the weaker intel agencies amongst the five eyes (NZ is weakest) due to overlapping responsibilities and jurisdictions with the RCMP and Provincial law enforcement. And there are active issues with certain provincial LE agencies and foreign interference.
"Canada doesn't have the free speech laws like we do in the US..."
Yep. And that is a very good thing. Hate speech is illegal here.