Lawful Access Resurrected Again After Bill C-2 Gets Tabled

Canadian privacy nemesis, Lawful Access, appears to be back. It’s part of what is now known as Bill C-2.

Hello Lawful Access, my old nemesis.

Lawful Access is a Canadian legal concept where police can demand any and all information on an internet subscriber without court oversight. The government argued that it is necessary to protect people’s safety. The police argued that court oversight is unnecessary paperwork and that everyone would be better off if they didn’t have to do that – this while arguing that the laws are simply out of date and need to be updated to reflect the modern police state we live in now. Naturally, civil rights organizations pointed out that we live in a democracy and that we have a right to be protected against unlawful search and seizure. Some brilliantly said “come back with a warrant”. Protests emerged from across the country to fight back against this. Ultimately, Lawful Access died on the orderpaper, much to the relief of Canadians who fought against this.

What I described is a loose set of facts describing multiple past debates here in Canada. For instance, back at the beginning of my writing career, I was reporting on Lawful Access clear back in 2005 way back when it was known as Bill C-74. This was when Paul Martin was in power.

While some had hoped with the Stephen Harper Conservative win that followed would mean that things would be different, that, sadly, never came to be as the Harper Conservative government simply copied the Liberal Party’s surveillance legislation and tabled it again. It was a moment that some described as a betrayal and vindicated my skepticism that the Conservative party would be any better. As it turned out, I was right and the Conservative party was just as bad as the Liberal party when it comes to trying to spy on people’s every move online. Either way, it set up for one nasty fight.

In fact, things got so nasty, it led to Carol Todd (a very well known name back then) being thrown under the bus by the Harper government. It also led to the notorious moment where Vic Toews defended Lawful Access by saying that people “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” Yes, the belligerence was that off the charts back then.

Either way, there was no appetite in the Canadian public to fork over their right to privacy and the Conservative effort was also, thankfully, swept into the dustbin of history after the Conservative party’s effort also died on the orderpaper. After the Conservative party was mercifully ousted following a seemingly endless line of political scandals (such as a certain Maxime Bernier and a certain biker gang known as the Hell’s Angels to name one of many MANY examples), the Liberal party rose back to power with the famous “Sunny Ways” walk.

The question, at that time, was whether or not the Liberals would, yet again, try and resurrect the Lawful Access debate and try and ram such a bill through yet again. This after such efforts were killed multiple times due to public backlash. The answer eventually came in 2017 when a committee recommended against pushing such a law through. This news came as a relief as it felt, at least at the time, that the Lawful Access debate was finally dead. While other threats to civil rights cropped up in the interim, at least Canadian’s didn’t have to deal with that particular headache. Lawful Access was nothing to worry about any more.

… at least, so Canadians thought.

In 2023, there was an attempt to bring it back through the courts. Later on that same year, there was discussion during a money laundering debate where some were openly discussing the idea of resurrecting Lawful Access. This sparked concern that there would be an effort to resurrect this nasty debate again. Luckily, this didn’t seemingly lead to much.

Today, we are learning that the nightmare of Lawful Access is not only back, but poised to become law after decades of the public strongly telling the government “no”. This comes in the form of Bill C-2. The mainstream media is misleading the public by calling it just a “border control” bill to appease the American’s, but buried in the text of the bill is Lawful Access. As it turns out, the Liberal government is attempting to smuggle through Lawful Access. From the bill itself:

(2) Section 487.011 of the Act is amended by adding the following in alphabetical order:

subscriber information means, in relation to any client of a person who provides services to the public or any subscriber to the services of such a person,
(a) information that the subscriber or client provided to the person in order to receive the services, including their name, pseudonym, address, telephone number and email address;
(b) identifiers assigned to the subscriber or client by the person, including account numbers; and
(c) information relating to the services provided to the subscriber or client, including
(i) the types of services provided,
(ii) the period during which the services were provided, and
(iii) information that identifies the devices, equipment or things used by the subscriber or client in elation to the services. (renseignements relatifs à l’abonné)

158 The Act is amended by adding the following after section 487.012:

Information demand

487.0121 (1) A peace officer or public officer may make a demand in Form 5.0011 to a person who provides services to the public requiring the person to provide, in the form, manner and time specified in the demand, the following information:
(a) whether the person provides or has provided services to any subscriber or client, or to any account or identifier, specified in the form;
(b) if the person provides or has provided services to that subscriber, client, account or identifier,
(i) whether the person possesses or controls any information, including transmission data, in relation to that subscriber, client, account or identifier,
(ii) in the case of services provided in Canada, the province and municipality in which they are or were provided, and
(iii) in the case of services provided outside Canada, the country and municipality in which they are or were provided;
(c) if the person provides services to that subscriber, client, account or identifier, the date on which the person began providing the services;
(d) if the person provided services to that subscriber, client, account or identifier but no longer does so, the period during which the person provided the services;
(e) the name or identifier, if known, of any other person who provides services to the public and who provides or has provided services to that subscriber, client, account or identifier and any other information, if known, referred to in any of paragraphs (b) to (d) in relation to that other person and that subscriber, client, account or identifier; and
(f) if the person is unable to provide any information referred to in paragraphs (a) to (e), a statement to that effect.

Conditions for making demand

(2) The peace officer or public officer may make the demand only if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that
(a) an offence has been or will be committed under this Act or any other Act of Parliament; and
(b) the information that is demanded will assist in the investigation of the offence.

This, simply put, is completely asinine. Not only is this legislation clearly unconstitutional, but it is a copy of the very laws that were so heavily rejected by the public over the last 20 years. It’s insane that this debate is being re-opened in the first place. Am I going to have to bring out the fact that police can abuse such a provision for their own personal gain once court oversight is pushed out of the process? Are Canadian’s going to have to show up on the parliament hill lawn to show their displeasure for this again? Further, at what point did the Trump administration demand that Canadian’s employ warrantless wiretapping in order to avoid tariffs?

It seems that the Liberal government wants to party like it’s 2005, so it seems that a nasty fight over this is going to come out… again.

(Via @MGeist)

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.