Government Moves to Shut Down Lawful Access Hearing In Order To Fast Track Passing the Bill This Week - Michael Geist
Government Moves to Shut Down Lawful Access Hearing In Order To Fast Track Passing the Bill This Week - Michael Geist
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood attends Five Country Ministerial 2025 - Day One (54774023380).jpg, UK Home Office, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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Government Moves to Shut Down Lawful Access Hearing In Order To Fast Track Passing the Bill This Week
June 16, 2026
The government is planning to shut down hearings into Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, with no further debate or discussion on potential amendments to the bill. It has just placed a motion on the Order Paper that would limit today’s committee meeting to only 30 minutes for standard clause-by-clause review. After that, it plans to cancel all further debate or discussion on any other amendments. The committee will instead be required to vote on all remaining amendments with no further debate, discussions or questions to officials. In fact, the substance of the amendments will remain secret and will not even be disclosed to the public. The government’s intent is clearly to complete clause-by-clause review tonight to ensure that the bill passes through the House of Commons by the end of the week
Yesterday, the government introduced privacy reforms that shuts down the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s role in private sector privacy regulation. Today, it is shutting down hearings into one of the biggest privacy threats in years. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree had committed to amendments during the lawful access hearings, but this move means that only secret government amendments that will not be made public during the hearing will pass. Opposition parties have submitted many amendments based on testimony from the Privacy Commissioner, bar associations, security companies, and privacy experts. These include potential changes to the rules on mandatory metadata retention, risks to security and encryption, and privacy safeguards. None of these amendments will even be made public, let alone open to debate and discussion. Weeks of hearings and public concern tossed aside by the government in a rush to shut down debate and consideration of amendments to a deeply flawed, risky legislative plan.
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Related posts:
The Lawful Access Privacy Risks: Unpacking Bill C-22’s Expansive Metadata Retention Requirements
More Surveillance Demands to Come?: Government Admits Bill C-22’s Lawful Access Provisions Could Be Expanded
How Much Further Will Lawful Access Go?: Police Chief Tells Bill C-22 Hearing That Three Years of Metadata Retention Would Be "Ideal"
The Lawful Access Two-Headed Surveillance Monster: How Bill C-22 Went Off the Rails
Tags: Anandasangaree / c-22 / lawful access / metadata retention / privacy / secu
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One Comment
Joe Schmoe says:
June 16, 2026 at 11:51 am
I am continuously amazed at the behavior of what should be a democratic, liberal government who keeps acting as a dictatorship that is continuously trying to erode their citizens privacy. It doesn’t help that Canadians are so complacent and do not react to this in any meaningful manner.
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