The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) joined in a statement denouncing the government’s move to end debate on Bill C-22, a controversial legislative proposal that will significantly expand surveillance in Canada for years to come.<\/p>\n
The statement reads as follows:<\/p>\n
In a late night vote forcing a last minute committee session, the government has forced a vote without debate on Bill C-22 before the House Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU), completing the legislative study of this contentious legislation.<\/p>\n
The move to stiffle debate on Bill C-22, which enacts numerous new police powers and a complex regulatory regime<\/p>\n
Twenty-one civil liberties organizations, privacy groups and individual experts are deeply alarmed that, late last night, the federal government cut off debate at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on the very controversial Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act<\/em>.<\/p>\n Bill C-22 raises significant privacy and security concerns, including that it will:<\/p>\n MPs have received several thousands of emails from Canadians opposing the bill. Many companies, such as Google, Apple and Meta, have sounded the alarm, especially regarding mandated backdoors into their system that would break encryption. Several, such as Signal, DuckDuckGo and NordVPN, have even threatened to leave Canada if the law passes.<\/p>\n It is even more troubling that the government has passed another undemocratic motion to stop debate on a rights-threatening bill when it faces more than 100 amendments, with only a fraction having been discussed before debate was cut off. The government promised to bring its own amendments to address criticisms of the bill, but they were never fully revealed before the vote, and, because of this motion, did not receive any actual debate at committee.<\/p>\n Bill C-22 is too complex and its impacts too significant to be rushed through. The government should not have used this\u00a0 draconian measure, should have allowed the study of the bill to run its course, and should have ensured that all government and opposition amendments were given full consideration and scrutinized in public. We are urging MPs to denounce the passage of the motion, and the government to change course on C-22 and its undemocratic ways.<\/p>\n Citations :<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis legislation presents one of the greatest threats to privacy in Canada of the past two decades. Its provisions will weaken the rules governing police access to personal information, all while facilitating a vast expansion of government surveillance. This is another clear case of the decades-long trend of governments using national security as an excuse to erode civil liberties and human rights. We are encouraging all members of parliament to oppose these new powers.\u201d \u2013Tim McSorley, National Coordinator, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group<\/p>\n \u201cBreaking our own privacy with mandated backdoors is a terrible idea at the best of times; and Canada has chosen one of the worst possible moments. Frontier AI has become so good at finding software vulnerabilities that the US government just pulled the most capable model off the market worldwide because of what it could find. While other countries race to patch their vulnerabilities, Canada is poised to do massive self-inflicted damage to our economy and security, unless we drop Part 2 of C-22.” \u2013Matt Hatfield, Executive Director, OpenMedia<\/p>\n “Let\u2019s be clear: the current government\u2019s handling of this bill is an affront to democracy. All Canadians should be concerned about what the Carney government has in store for us with the highly controversial C-22 and numerous other bills that lay the groundwork for a surveillance state in which the primacy of \u201csecurity\u201d trumps civil liberties and privacy protections. Not only is the government abruptly cutting short the committee debate\u2014and thereby ignoring the serious concerns raised by both privacy advocates and businesses\u2014but it is also hiding behind misleading rhetoric that claims opposing C-22 means siding with criminals rather than victims! Such statements are an insult to the intelligence of Canadians. The Ligue des droits et libert\u00e9s calls on members of Parliament to oppose these anti-democratic practices and to vote overwhelmingly against this bill.\u2019\u2019 \u2013Dominique Peschard, Spokesperson and activist for the Ligue des droits et libert\u00e9s<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in Canada deserve legislation that respects and protects their privacy rights, and legislators deserve the opportunity to satisfy themselves that they fully understand the true consequences of Bill C-22 on informational privacy, cybersecurity, and cross-border information sharing before they are called to vote on it for the last time. It is frankly irresponsible to curtail the committee study process on such a comprehensive and consequential piece of legislation.\u201d \u2013Aislin Jackson, Policy Staff Counsel, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association<\/p>\n \u201cBy curtailing committee study of Bill C-22, the government has accelerated an already decaying democratic process and left us with a sparse legislative record to accompany an intrusive and complex surveillance regime. Bill C-22\u2019s flaws are many and difficult to address through such an attenuated process. 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.\u201d \u2013Tamir Israel, Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association\u2019s Privacy, Surveillance and Technology Program.”<\/p>\n Signataires\u00a0:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) joined in a statement denouncing the government’s move to end debate on Bill C-22, a controversial legislative proposal that will significantly expand surveillance in…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":3652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254,146,157,11,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cybersecurity","category-encryption","category-information-sharing","category-privacy","category-surveillance-technology"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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