The Carney government’s expanding power to identify Canadians online, access their data—and punish them - The Hub

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The Carney government’s expanding power to identify Canadians online, access their data—and punish them

Analysis<br>6 July 2026

Leader of the Government in the House of Commons Steven MacKinnon on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

Leader of the Government in the House of Commons Steven MacKinnon on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

The Liberals fast-tracked Bill C-22 through the Commons despite unresolved amendments and expert warnings

Graeme Gordon<br>View bio

06 Jul 26

Article<br>Summary<br>Key Stats

The federal government is assembling more legal tools to identify who Canadians are online, track what they do there, and, in some cases, punish them for what they say than at any point in the country’s history.

That is the picture emerging from a cluster of bills advanced this spring, capped by Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, 2026, which the Liberals pushed through third reading June 18 after invoking a programming motion that curtailed committee study and shut down debate while amendments were forced through without debate—the motion barred any amendment not already submitted by a retroactive Monday deadline. The bill heads to the Senate when Parliament returns Sept. 21, but the manner of its passage has alarmed lawyers, civil liberties groups, technologists, and opposition MPs who say Parliament approved sweeping surveillance powers it never fully examined.

The British precedent

Canadians don’t have to imagine where this road leads. The United Kingdom already has the legal architecture Ottawa is assembling—and by the available numbers, it now arrests more people for online speech than anywhere else in the democratic world.

Custody data obtained by The Times of London shows police in England and Wales made 12,183 arrests in 2023 under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988—roughly 33 a day for "grossly offensive" or menacing messages, up 58 percent from 7,734 in 2019. Yet only 1,119 people were sentenced in 2023, down from 1,995 in 2015, a gap that civil liberties group Big Brother Watch says has fueled charges that vague laws are used to chill speech that never results in conviction.

One submission to Canada’s Commons justice committee argued even China reportedly recorded fewer arrests in the equivalent category, warning Canada is following Britain toward a censorship regime.

Canadian Constitution Foundation lawyer Josh Dehaas has made the same point in The Hub: on speech laws, Britain should be a warning, not a model.

What C-22 does—and how it passed

Bill C-22 is the successor to the lawful access provisions of Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, which the government retreated from last year after a backlash over warrantless access to subscriber information. The new bill restores judicial authorization for most disclosures, but creates production orders on the lower "reasonable grounds to suspect" threshold, and empowers the government to order electronic service providers to build surveillance capabilities and retain user metadata for up to six months.

The public safety committee passed roughly a dozen amendments in a marathon 25-hour clause-by-clause session before the government’s motion forced the bill forward. Conservative public safety critic Frank Caputo called it the most aggressive programming motion of his career, telling the committee courts will one day weigh the constitutionality of words MPs were "expected to pass…without debate."

NDP MP Jenny Kwan said the amended bill still asks Canadians to trust broad powers, secret orders, and unexamined future regulations.

The warnings Ottawa heard—and overrode

The criticism from legal experts and civil rights groups was strong. In a joint analysis titled “(Un)forced Errors,” the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association concluded key provisions are likely unconstitutional, could force providers to weaken encryption, and would sweep in the movements, contacts, and app usage of people suspected of nothing.

University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, in a running series on his blog, called bulk retention one of the most privacy-invasive tools available to a government, and reported that a police chief told committee hearings three years of retention would be "ideal."

The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group urged MPs to reject the bill, noting even the NSICOP lawful access report found agencies had not demonstrated the need for new powers. Privacy-focused internet services Signal, NordVPN, and DuckDuckGo have warned they may limit services or exit Canada, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation called the bill unsalvageable.

The government’s case

The government argues Canada is the last G7 and Five Eyes country without a modern lawful access regime, and...