Bill C-22, The Lawful Access Act, is the Canadian Liberal government’s newest and most egregious effort to strip the rights and freedoms from it’s citizens, enforcing increasing surveillance and control.

Bill C-22 hands the Liberals sweeping new powers, allowing them to compel service providers to build technical capabilities for government access to user data, and to retain your personal metadata for up to one year for them to access.

Providers will face mandates to develop extraction systems, install access devices, and comply with ministerial orders (subject only to Intelligence Commissioner review). Further, strict confidentiality rules will gag companies from disclosing these access demands.

While the bill carves out exemptions to avoid creating “systemic vulnerabilities” in encryption, expanded Criminal Code warrants and production orders for subscriber and transmission data erode privacy protections and due process.

This is legislation that has never before been seen in the Western hemisphere.

For businesses, the costs of compliance development, retention systems, audits, inspections, and a risk of penalties of up to $250,000 per violation continuing daily, add heavy regulatory burdens. Some major companies have already expressed their willingness to move headquarters (and tax dollars) out of Canada permanently if this bill passes.

Smaller and foreign digital platforms have threatened to exit or avoid Canada altogether, rather than redesign services or risk liability. This only serves to accelerate the flight of tech investments and jobs out of Canada where they are desperately needed.

Apple, Google and Meta have all shared concerns or called this a deal-breaker. Signal, NordVPN, Windscribe, ExpressVPN and Proton have all spoken of pulling out of Canada rather than risk these vulnerabilities.

Even the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has formally opposed this legislation on behalf of tech giants Telus and Rogers, among others.

The US House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees sent a formal letter to Canadian officials warning that Bill C-22 would expand surveillance powers in ways that threaten the security, privacy, and constitutional rights of American citizens.

They fear it could compel US companies to build backdoors into encrypted systems, creating systemic vulnerabilities exploitable by hackers, foreign adversaries, and criminals. The bill’s vague “systemic vulnerability” exemption (subject to future regulatory interpretation) provides little safeguard, while secret ministerial orders, reviewed only by the Intelligence Commissioner and kept confidential, could force targeted providers, including those offering end-to-end encryption, to weaken encryption or alter systems for data access. These risks are heightened by ongoing US – Canada discussions under the CLOUD Act.

The European Court of Justice struck down the very same surveillance efforts in 2014, calling them unconstitutional and a disproportionate violation of fundamental rights.

Even the most pro-liberal Canadian voices are speaking out against it, referring to it as the end of our privacy rights in Canada, specifically Section 8; our right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure.

Carney is turning our country into a surveillance state one bill at a time, and few are paying attention.
Bill C-9 criminalizes hate speech, allowing the government to determine what we are allowed to say. Bill C-8 allows the government to cut off your internet access completely, if they consider your opinions to be a threat. With Bill C-22, they have the ability to surveil your activities and communications past and present, without a warrant and without your knowledge or any real oversight.

In summary, C-22 gives them the evidence to determine if you are a threat, C-9 allows them to label you as such legally, and C-8 allows them to silence your voice completely. Together, they attack our freedoms of speech, association and protection against unreasonable search and seizure – the very core of what we hold dear as Canadians.

Across the board, Canadians face diminished rights under expanded surveillance tools, while our economy loses more ground to more privacy-respecting jurisdictions.

How can anyone still believe that this government has the wellbeing of Canadians in mind?

To read Bill C-22, click here