For more than two and a half years, antisemitism in Canada has moved from the margins to a daily feature of Jewish life. Synagogues have been shot at, including several Toronto-area congregations this spring, (among them the Shaarei Shomayim, the synagogue where I was married). Jewish schools now operate with police at the doors, community events screen attendees and withhold their locations from public disclosure, protesters target Jewish residential areas, and many Canadian Jews have quietly taken the mezuzahs off their doorposts or tucked a Star of David out of sight. Despite antisemitism rates that have attracted increasing global attention, leadership prepared to directly confront Canada’s antisemitism problem has too often been lacking.
News
RCMP Confirms Bill C-22 Concerns: Police Want Law to Provide Access to Encrypted Communications
As the concerns about Bill C-22 mount, the government’s incoherent response has included Justice Minister Sean Fraser implausibly comparing metadata to phone book data and Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree suggesting that Canada was just trying to match U.S. metadata retention laws (the U.S. has no such law) and claiming that tech company concerns regarding breaking encryption were based on misinformation.
Yesterday, the RCMP appeared before the Public Safety and National Security committee and quickly contradicted the Minister, affirming that concerns about Bill C-22 are well justified. Indeed, the official confirmed that law enforcement wants the bill specifically because it would provide an opportunity to access encrypted communications. The exodus of tech companies, which now also includes DuckDuckGo, can be expected to continue. The relevant remarks embedded below.
More Misinformation on Bill C-22 as the Government Struggles to Defend Its Lawful Access Plan
Two posts on Bill C-22 in a single day are not my typical approach, but the volume of misinformation coming from the government about the lawful access bill has made it hard to keep up. Earlier today, I posted about the repeated use by government ministers and MPs of the phony “it’s just phone book information” analogy to misleadingly describe the collection of subscriber data and metadata. But a press conference yesterday by Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree demands comment, as he accused U.S. tech companies of spreading misinformation, even though his own claims were plainly inaccurate and within hours required a walkback.
The Phony Phone Book Analogy: How Liberal Cabinet Ministers and MPs are Misleading Canadians About the Privacy Risks of Bill C-22
Justice Minister Sean Fraser appeared earlier this week before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, relying on what has become a standard defence of Bill C-22’s privacy implications, telling Conservative MP Roman Baber that the bill lets police access “a modern version” of what used to appear in the phone book. The “it’s just phone book information” claim has been repeatedly recycled by cabinet ministers and MPs alike. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree used the same framing to open the government’s second reading defence of the bill on April 15th, telling the House that “twenty-five years ago, there were phone books that every household had. Bell Canada would deliver phone books to virtually every household” and presenting lawful access as a restoration of what those phone books once provided to police. The problem is that the analogy is plainly misleading as the data captured by Bill C-22, whether subscriber data or metadata, is nothing like the name, address, and phone number that once filled the phone book.
Apple on Bill C-22: “This Bill Allows the Government of Canada to Force Companies to Break Encryption by Inserting Backdoors into their Products”
The hearings into Bill C-22 continued yesterday with appearances from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Apple, Google, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and a series of law enforcement associations. The hearings were a mess: the Privacy Commissioner’s reform recommendations sent in advance weren’t distributed to MPs, one Liberal MP admitted to the confusion about how the bill applies, another Liberal MP thought a good strategy would be to target Apple for not being sufficiently supportive of lawful access initiatives, and the final 30 minutes was spent fruitlessly trying to negotiate an extension to the hearings, which have clearly been inadequate to deal with the many issues raised the legislation.
I could go on, but the fundamental takeaway from the day can be summarized in this single 22-second clip from Apple, which makes clear that the bill poses real risks, and the government thus far seems uninterested in addressing them. The Bill C-22 hearing may have been a mess, but the message was clear.
Recent Posts
Why Mark Carney’s Antisemitism Speech Did Not Meet the Moment 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 270: Roundtable on the Bill C-22 Risks for Canadian Tech Companies Featuring VPN Services Tailscale and Windscribe 
RCMP Confirms Bill C-22 Concerns: Police Want Law to Provide Access to Encrypted Communications 
More Misinformation on Bill C-22 as the Government Struggles to Defend Its Lawful Access Plan 
The Phony Phone Book Analogy: How Liberal Cabinet Ministers and MPs are Misleading Canadians About the Privacy Risks of Bill C-22
