No CBC, this is Not Even Close to the 2nd Attempt at Lawful Access

The CBC has made the claim that this latest attempt at Lawful Access is the 2nd attempt. This is misleading.

As news broke that Lawful Access was back, mainstream media was surprisingly quick to also report on this news. Probably less surprising is that they just about as quickly get the facts wrong on Lawful Access. So, let’s do a fact-check to set the record straight.

On Thursday and Friday, the CBC News network was covering the development that Lawful Access appeared on the notice paper. Throughout their broadcast reporting, the talking point was that this was the governments 2nd attempt to pass Lawful Access after facing criticism. I tried looking for examples of this online, but the closest I could find was this YouTube short which is probably one of the less misleading examples.

The problem is that these statements aren’t actually accurate. The best case scenario is that these statements are very misleading. More generally, though, such claims simply are not accurate. So, the question is, how many attempts have been made over the years to actually implement Lawful Access? While we are not 100% sure we found every example, we can say for certain that the number of attempts far exceeds two. So, let’s roll through the attempts we were able to find.

Attempt 1: Bill C-74 (38th Session of Parliament)

In 2005, the Liberal party, under Prime Minister Paul Martin, introduced Lawful Access legislation. At the time, the Liberal party was facing numerous scandals and was in a minority government. The legislation drew considerable controversy as the Conservative party opposed it at the time. At the time, I was just finding my feet as a reporter, but it was definitely a good news story that I wrote at the time. This died along with what was generally known as the Canadian DMCA which was also pushed at the time.

Attempt 2: Bill C-50, Bill C-51, and Bill C-52 (40th Session of Parliament)

In 2010, during the second Harper Conservative minority government, the government pushed lawful access in, weirdly enough, three separate bills. These bills were Bill C-50, Bill C-51, Bill C-52, tabled in rapid succession. At the time, the Liberals and Conservatives flipped roles on their support of this. For the Conservative party, the legislation was simply part of the “tough on crime” agenda they had at the time. The Liberal party, however, opposed this legislation. It died on the orderpaper when an election was called.

Attempt 3: Bill C-30 (41st Session of Parliament)

In 2012, after the Harper Conservatives obtained a majority government, the Conservatives re-introduced Lawful Access as Bill C-30, consolidating the previous three bills into one giant bill. Harper popularized the “omnibus bill” approach at the time to ram through highly unpopular legislation. Lawful Access continued to be sold by the Conservatives as part of their “tough on crime” agenda. The Liberal party maintained their opposition to this bill and played a part in stalling this legislation. This along with considerable opposition from the public at the time. Frustrated that the legislation was getting so much pushback, then Public Safety Minister, Vic Teows, at one point, lashed out in Parliament and argued that you were either with us or with the child pornographers. In response, the Conservative government took the even slimier rout and took advantage of the notorious Luca Magnotta case to try and sell the legislation. They also tried to take advantage of the, at the time, big story of Amanda Todd to push the legislation. When her mother, Carol Todd, refused to play ball with the idea, the Conservatives then threw Carol Todd under the bus and disinvited her from the debates after. The legislation died on the orderpaper when the Conservative Party called an early election in an effort to seize more power – a power move that ultimately backfired thanks to the many controversies and scandals the Harper Conservative government faced.

Attempt 4: The Supreme Court of Canada Backdoor

After both parties faced considerable controversy for pushing this legislation, it became clear no one wanted this bill. So, there was an attempt to smuggle this legislation through the court system instead. This occurred in 2023 when government lawyers argued that an IP address is not personal information and, therefore, police should not require a warrant to obtain such personal information. The attempt ultimately backfired when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled, in 2024, that an IP address is, in fact, personal information and that police do need to obtain a warrant when seeking that information. At any rate, the failed attempt to smuggle Lawful Access on the down low meant that the courts were seen as a “no go zone” after all. This meant that if Lawful Access were going to happen, it was going to happen through Parliament (and all of the controversy that ensues).

Attempt 5: Bill C-2 (45th Session of Parliament)

Knowing full well how unpopular Lawful Access was, the Mark Carney Liberal party attempted to smuggle Lawful Access through a so-called “border security” bill. This was known as Bill C-2 in 2025. Unfortunately for the Liberals, people, er, noticed that the bill had these provisions in there in the first place. At any rate, this represented a second time both the Liberal party and the Conservative party flip flopped on this issue because now the Liberals are pushing for this bill and the Conservatives are against it – a problem that is extremely weird to me, but not something I’m complaining about since it is being opposed at all. This resulted in the legislation being stalled. Since the Americans were heavily pressuring Canada to pass a border security bill (no, that geographically doesn’t make any sense, but I digress), the Liberal Party split the bill and put the Border Security bill into its own separate bill, Bill C-12. While this seemingly represented the idea that the Liberals were finally ditching Lawful Access, the Liberals ultimately changed their mind and began pushing Bill C-2 once again.

Attempt 6: Bill C-22 (45th Session of Parliament)

Faced with considerable controversy surrounding both the handling of Lawful Access and the fact that the Liberals were even pushing this deeply unpopular bill, the Liberal party, more recently in 2026, introduced the new version of Lawful Access. This would ultimately be known as Bill C-22. Since this is happened so recently, I haven’t even had the chance to read the bill. The Liberal party claimed to have addressed the concerns, but at the same time, made the dubious argument that the bill would allow police to access the information they are legally entitled to. If that were the case, then why is the bill even needed in the first place? So, already, there has been a number of dubious claims about this legislation.

Conclusion

I’m not even entirely sure I got every single attempt that was made. There may have been other attempts I’m not thinking of or not aware of, but these are all the attempts I’m currently aware of. As for the original claim that this is the second attempt to pass Lawful Access, that has clearly been proven to be an inaccurate assessment. We’ve been able to dig up at least six attempts in the past and showcased just how both scary and politically bizarre the history of this debate actually is. Saying this is only the 2nd attempt ignores a huge portion of the history of this legislation. Even if you make the argument that this is in reference to just the Liberals attempting to pass this legislation, that claim, too, is debunked given Paul Martins attempt in the past.

What I find frustrating in all of this is the fact that many of the claims I see today are recycled from as far back as the Bill C-74 days. The claims of “technology is changing”, “the law can’t keep up with the times”, “they’re not collecting everything”, and “the police can’t be burdened with all of this paperwork if they are to fight crime” are all excuses that were thoroughly debunked more than 20 years ago and are just as dubious of claims today. No, it is not comparable to looking up someone in the phone book and no, it is not just looking for innocuous metadata. They are after your personal information, full stop.

At any rate, mainstream media claim debunked.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.