Secure messaging service Signal yesterday became the latest company to warn that Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, could force it to leave the Canadian market rather than comply with provisions it says would compromise its end-to-end encryption and create new cybersecurity risks. Signal vice-president Udbhav Tiwari told the Globe and Mail that the company “would rather pull out of the country than be compelled to compromise on the privacy promises we have made to our users.” The comments are part of a steady stream of similar warnings from Apple, Meta, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Cybersecurity Advisors Network, and the chairs of the U.S. House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. Despite growing concern, the government’s response has been to launch a misleading social media campaign and repeatedly insist that the experts and companies are mistaken.

The pattern will be familiar for anyone who lived through the Online News Act. Supporters of then-Bill C-18 dismissed warnings from Meta and Google that the bill’s mandated payments for news links were unworkable and that they would comply by blocking the links in Canada. Witnesses confidently told Senate committees that the companies were bluffing and that, “when legislated to do so, they will come to the table.” But by the end of summer 2023, Meta had stripped news links from Facebook and Instagram, an approach that continues to this day.

The government’s defence of Bill C-22 follows much the same script. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree has accused the U.S. tech giants of “misinterpreting” his bill and his department insists the legislation is “encryption-neutral.” When Apple released a statement warning that the bill “could allow the Canadian government to force companies to break encryption by inserting backdoors into their products, something Apple will never do,” officials replied that it “categorically rejected” the claims. When the U.S. House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs chairs wrote that providers of end-to-end encryption “will inevitably face directives to create backdoors and architectural changes that bypass or weaken encryption,” the minister’s spokesperson said the letter reflected “a misunderstanding of how Bill C-22 would function in practice.” When Signal said it would leave, it responded that the concerns regarding installing capabilities to enable surveillance are false. In other words, the government thinks everyone is wrong and the risk of market exits are overblown.

Yet the warnings about Bill C-22 are not idle threats. Apple withdrew its Advanced Data Protection feature from the United Kingdom rather than comply with a Technical Capability Notice ordering it to create access to encrypted iCloud data, and is now litigating the order before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Signal previously warned it would leave Sweden over a comparable lawful access proposal, leading to long delays on the Swedish bill (it has still not passed). Given that Signal’s product is end-to-end encryption, compliance with a mandatory access regime would mean ceasing to be the service its users have chosen.

End-to-end encrypted services are among the most privacy-protective communications tools available, regularly used by journalists, lawyers, activists, government officials, and millions of others. If those encrypted messaging services exit the Canadian market because they cannot operate under Bill C-22’s secret ministerial orders, mandated metadata retention requirements, and a poorly defined “systemic vulnerability” carve-out, Canadians lose access to tools the rest of the world will continue to use, while replacement services with less privacy protection fill the gap.

There is still time for the government to engage with the substance of these warnings, including by accepting some of the targeted amendments proposed by a long list of expert witnesses. But the early signs are that it is again convinced that the companies are bluffing, that the critics are misreading the bill, and that everything will somehow work out fine in practice. It is time for the government to stop the gaslighting and start listening to the concerns by extending the committee hearings and opening the door to much needed amendments.