Russ Harvey Consulting - Computer and Internet Services

Canadian Legislation

Dangerous & poorly executed laws that restrict freedoms

Dangerous Legislation | Erosion of Freedom of Speech
Creeping Authoritarianism | Fix Canadian News

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Canadian flag waving in front of the Parliament Building on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
Let's be crystal clear: this government wants to control the internet — and, by extension, control what you read, see, and think online. Their mainstream media mouthpieces are no longer the dominant force they once were, and they know it.

 

And every time they dip their incompetent fingers into the digital pie, they botch it. It's a pattern of failure, a comedy of errors, except there's nothing funny about the stakes here.
— Dan Knight
Privacy is about government not being able to see what citizens are doing.
— Journalism Professor Sean Holman
Tyrants silence their opposition. Be very wary of governments "moderating content", no matter what noble justifications they have for doing so.
— Naomi Brockwell

 

Dangerous Legislation Restricts Online Content

The Liberal government has passed or is working on a series of very dangerous laws that restrict the Internet and appear to be aimed at controlling the news media and the freedom of speech. While these may not all be Internet-related, the newest legislation is dangerous to our privacy, civil rights and freedom of speech.

Don't be distracted: the government's surveillance push is still on! While everyone's talking about the new border bill, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree is still promising he will get Bill C-2 privacy-busting portions done. Meanwhile Ottawa is quietly pushing Bill C-8, a so-called "cybersecurity" law that could give the Industry Minister the power to secretly cut off someone's phone or Internet, without a warrant and with almost no oversight.

 

This isn't theoretical. Experts warn these powers could be used in ways that silence dissent, expose private data, and weaken everyone's online security.
— Open Media

Carney provides a very disturbing view of personal privacy in his book, Values: Building a Better World For All. Notice how he describes Western democracies like Canada:

Western society is morally rotten, and it has been corrupted by capitalism. This requires rigid controls of personal freedoms, industry and corporate funding. This is not a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better but temporarily worse. This will be a world of severely constrained choice, less flying, less meat, more inconvenience and temporarily more poverty. Assets will be stranded, gasoline cars will be unsellable and inefficient properties will be un-rentable.
— Mark Carney [emphasis mine]

Does that sound like the Canada you want to live in? It feels more like China's dictatorship. Carney, just like Trudeau before him, is getting richer while flying everywhere — but wants you to endure 15-minute cities with limited mobility, higher prices and fewer freedoms.

This is exactly what you can expect from Carney's “new government” which retains most of Trudeau's cabinet. Any change from the “lost Liberal decade” is unlikely. Carney has distain for the media, refusing to answer unscripted questions (often caught outright lying). Worse, Carney is following the U.K.'s footsteps into the destruction of free speech:

In recent years, Britain has become a poster child among western democracies for political censorship. The U.K.'s Free Speech Union reports that police make 30 arrests per day, 12,000 annually, for offensive online messages. Laws like the Communications Act 2003 and the Public Order Act 1986 have been wielded to silence jokes and political debate.

 

Police in England and Wales also record "non-crime hate incidents." No crime is required. A mean tweet can result in a police visit and a permanent record accessible by certain employers. The result: logged tweets from journalists, teenage Snapchat spats, and routine political or social commentary.

 

The U.K. is well down the wrong path, and Canadians should be concerned that Prime Minister Carney is following. On Sept. 19, the Carney government tabled Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act. It makes five changes to the Criminal Code — each one troubling for free expression.
— National Post

Fix Bill C-2 & C-8

Write to your MP: Fix Bill C2 and C8.

In an important new article for National Post, Christine Van Geyn outlines the many problems with Bill C-9, the so-called "Combatting Hate Act," which proposes changes to Canada's Criminal Code that could criminalize speech the government considers inconvenient or subjectively hateful. It would introduce a new "hate crime" offence with penalties up to life in prison, and ban the public display of certain "hate" symbols. Most concerningly, Bill C-9 rewrites the legal definition of hatred, lowering the threshold to "the emotion that involves detestation or vilification," as opposed to the current "most extreme manifestation” of those emotions.

 

It's hard not to notice the parallels between these changes and the slide toward censorship in the U.K., where thousands are arrested each year for social media posts. Canadians should be alarmed at how easily Bill C-9 could be used to silence opinions our government simply dislikes.
— CCF Update

Write to your MP: Fix Bill C2 and C8!

Canadian Legislation

Canada will be a police state by Christmas if Parliament passes bills C-2, C-8, and C-9 in their current form. Our freedoms are fragile — it is imperative that every Canadian contact their Member of Parliament, whether your MP is Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Bloc or Green.
— John Carpay October 7, 2025

Legislation being debated or passed by the current 45th Parliament includes:

Legislation from previous sessions:

Note: legislation details are located at the end of this page, with the current legislation followed by earlier legislation.

Government Acts Slowly — Most of the Time

While the world is moving faster than ever, government acts at the same slow speed it did historically — except when it wants to get sneaky legislation passed. Six months in, we have no budget and essentially nothing Carney promised has been accomplished except for the “fast-tracked projects” which were already underway before Carney joined the Liberals.

By its nature, statutory law lags behind technological progress. The process of passing a law is time-consuming in itself, but it does not even begin until someone recognizes a problem that needs to be addressed.

 

Once the problem is recognized, it must be defined in a way that legislators can understand, and consensus must be reached as to how to address the problem. This can be a lengthy process.
— Max Stul Oppenheimer

Dangerous Conflicts of Interest

It is also concerning that many of the Liberal Cabinet Ministers have serious conflicts of interest and/or are clearly ignorant about the subjects of their portfolios, including any related legislation. Carney himself lied about his conflicts of interest during the election, stating that he held nothing but cash and personal real estate, only to reveal in July that he was investments in over 560 companies including at least 103 serious conflicts of interest. While calling for Canadians to invest in Canada, Carney owned shares in only 3 Canadian companies after moving his Brookfield to the United States immediately prior to assuming the Liberal leadership.

It turns out that Canada's conflict of interest rules for MPs are a cruel joke, providing no guardrails. Most legislation is general in nature, lacking the very specific details required to trigger conflict. These rules are absolutely toothless and meaningless.

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The Erosion of Rights & Freedom of Speech

Canadian citizens have seen the erosion of many rights and the masking of government's machinery to obtain the truth. The government has given us little reason to expect that the rights of Canadian citizens will be respected while enforcing these dangerous pieces of legislation any more than they were respected during their creation.

It should concern every Canadian that the purveyors of so much misinformation this week (the Trudeau Liberals) are the EXACT same individuals who want the power to regulate and control the internet in order to "combat misinformation and disinformation online."
— Aaron Gunn, May 1, 2024
Cowardice is the only word to describe Justin Trudeau's failure to truly confront the crisis of antisemitism and violence in our streets.

 

There have been bomb threats against synagogues, bullets fired at Jewish schools, and brazen Nazi salutes. If none of those can drive this Liberal government to rise to the occasion and behave like leaders, it is terrifying to think what will.
— National Post

In the meantime, governments at all levels have ignored rising antisemitism and attacks on Jewish temples and Christian churches while passing legislation denying the ability to criticize Islam.

Pro-Hamas radicals hijacked what should have been a solemn day of mourning this past Monday — the two-year anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks in Israel.

 

Across Canada, demonstrations were held to mark the date. I was covering the protests in Montreal, where things took a disturbing turn. Concordia University cancelled classes, locked its doors, and private security stood guard as hundreds of protesters flooded the campus. It's still unclear how many were actually students.

 

Things rapidly devolved into chaos. Masked agitators chanted genocidal slogans, set off flares and smoke bombs, all while police stood by and watched.

 

What's most alarming is how authorities handled these protests. Crimes were committed in plain sight, yet police stood down, turning their scrutiny on journalists like us instead.

 

When pro-Hamas mobs block streets, fire flares, and shout for "intifada," it's tolerated. But when independent reporters show up to film it, we're the ones threatened with arrest.
— Rebel News

Unlike their attacks on the relatively-peaceful Freedom Convoy, the government has done little to address those blocking our streets while “praying” or calling for genocide and terrorism. Police are more likely to arrest Jews walking in their own neighbourhood “to protect the peace.”

Perhaps one of the most telling examples is the war against Christians resulting in 123 Christian churches burned after Trudeau told the First Nations (and the world) that churches had committed genocide in the Residential Schools.

Frances Widdowson's video, Kamloops Mass Grave Deception, shows the use of ground penetrating radar to claim there is 215 graves is misleading — claims the First Nations refuse to examine further even after receiving millions of taxpayer dollars for that very purpose.

It's Worse Under Carney's Leadership

Liberal “soft on crime” polices see criminals repeatedly released dozens or hundreds of times, including those charged with serious crimes. Often witnesses are still providing their statements while the accused are released, usually on very minimal terms.

Unfortunately, this has only gotten worse under Carney's leadership. We continue to see two-tiered policing where violent Islamic demonstrators are tolerated on our streets while peaceful pro-Israeli protests are disbanded. The Liberals brought in “catch-and-release justice” where criminals are quickly released even after committing additional crimes while out on bail.

Parks Canada and cities across Canada have turned down or revoked permits to perform for Sean Feucht, a Christian ministry from the U.S. Montreal went so far as send police to a church that hosted a Christian worship service with Feucht, fining the church $2500. During that service smoke bombs were tossed onto the platform, a dangerous act ignored by the police present in the building.

As a civil liberties lawyer I am deeply concerned with what has been happening with the @seanfeucht concerts across Canada. While park officials have discretion to revoke permits for legitimate safety issues, it is unclear that the decisions here are guided by safety or if that is a pretext to cancel a concert on the basis of its content.

 

Even more troubling is the fine for the Montreal church Église MR. The church hosted a worship service and was fined for failing to obtain a permit, which ought not to have been required. From my outside observations, the performance in the church was a free worship service open to all, using typical sound equipment used in any church service.

 

Canada is a democracy with protections for freedom of expression and religion. If you do not like a particular performance you are free not to attend. But it is deeply disturbing to watch politicians argue to shut down worship services at churches because they disagree with a particular message.
— Christine Van Geyn on X
At Rebel News, we did what the Montreal police should have done. We launched a reward campaign to identify and track down the thug who thought he could get away with attacking Sean Feucht's Christian worship service with incendiary smoke bombs.

 

Not only did we find him — but what we uncovered may expose one of the most alarming national security breaches in recent Canadian history.

 

The alleged smoke bomber is Gabriel Lepage, an employee of the Longue-Pointe military base in Montreal, working directly under the Department of National Defence.
— Rebel News

Muslims are never criticized by our governments for hate speech. Nothing is said about missing permits for radical Islamics on our streets calling for the destruction of Israel and the West. An Islamic supremacy conference with the theme “defeat of all non-Muslim world powers” was scheduled for Mississaugua.

Victoria, Canada — Muslim scholar and preacher Sheikh Younus Kathrada gave an extremist sermon to children at the Muslim Youth of Victoria praising kids who want to kill for Islam. He also led a prayer asking for Allah to curse and destroy Jews.
— Andy Ngo on X

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Creeping Authoritarianism

The rights of citizens are threatened by a new authoritarianism that would be comfortable in China or Russia. A Canada-based journalist, spoke about “creeping authoritarianism” in a disturbing indictment of the Liberal government's attacks on freedom of speech:

I'd like all of you to think of me as a time traveler from the not too distant future coming back to the present to offer you a glimpse of what could lie ahead for America:
  • I live in a time in which in the name of fairness you can't share the stories you write for my news publication on social media.
  • I live in a time in which in the name of the common good you can be kicked out of your bank and online payment system simply for expressing the wrong political views.
  • I live in a time in which in the name of social justice you can commit a serious crime but get a more lenient sentence if you happen to be the right skin color.
  • I live in a time in which in the name of safety you can be arrested for exercising your right to peaceful protest if you happen to be protesting the wrong thing.
Of course I'm not a real time traveler. I just live in Canada. Americans and perhaps those in this chamber surely think Canadians are too nice. We're too polite to embrace this sort of proto authoritarianism. But it's more accurate to say that our niceness made us susceptible to the new authoritarianism undermining the foundations of our liberal democracy.
— Rupa Subramanya, The Free Press

The Freedom Convoy is an Example of Overreach

A primary example is the use of the Emergencies Act during the 2022 Freedom Convoy. Courts later ruled that the Emergencies Act was unjustified yet the government continues to appeal that decision and persecute those involved.

The Freedom Convoy's challenges to our government's authority resulted in Tamara Lich and Chris Barber charged with mischief, a charge that seldom saw any jail time for environmental protestors or anyone else in Canada, never mind the Prosecution asking for seven or eight years.

The federal court decision of Justice Heather Perkins-McVey sentenced [Tamara Lich] to an 18-month conditional sentence (74 days credit for time served, 12 months house arrest, allowed out once per week for five hours) and [Chris Barber] to an 18-month conditional sentence (13 months house arrest), ending a long battle of legal uncertainty and government overreach.

 

It's concerning that so much public time and resources were devoted to pursuing harsh penalties against peaceful protestors while real criminals continue to threaten Canadian communities. For instance, the government spent over $21 million on legal costs related to the Emergencies Act challenge, funds that could have been better utilized in addressing actual threats to public safety.

 

As power continues to centralize in Ottawa, civil society must remain vigilant and hold government accountable. Freedom is preserved not through silence, but through courage, conviction, and moral strength.
— Dr. Leslyn Lewis on X

Lich and Barber were essentially political prisoners. The government reportedly spent $12 million in their prosecution. Donating even a few dollars to the Freedom Convoy resulted in you being de-banked, setting a very disturbing precedent when viewing the contents of pending legislation like Bill C-2, C-8 and C-9.

Freedom of Information Requests Blocked

It has become much more difficult to obtain information from governments. The Trudeau government has blocked access to critical information about its illegal activities, including for the official opposition and police. Unfortunately, this is not confined to the federal government, but also to provincial and municipal governments.

In Canada, privacy has been used as a shield against accountability. Governments have thwarted FOIA requests.
— Journalism Professor Sean Holman

Trudeau refused to release the names of eleven traitors to Canada serving as MPs and refused the Speaker's order to release details related to conflicts of interest related to SDTC, effectively shutting down the House of Commons and resulting in Trudeau's prorogation of Parliament.

House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus ruled that the Trudeau government defied the authority of Parliament by refusing to hand over documents pertaining to Sustainable Development Technology Canada and its gross misconduct.

 

The ruling comes after an opposition motion demanded the Trudeau government hand over all documents pertaining to SDTC and the misuse of government funds to benefit companies, in which its board directors executives had conflicts of interest.

 

Beyond rare exceptions for the sake of national security, the House of Commons has the absolute power to compel the government to produce any documents pertaining to the House's business.
— True North

We're seeing the same refusal to respond to demands by Parliament to release information by the Carney government, including missing or undocumented funds. They also refused to release a budget. When the government demands its citizens be transparent while they are not, you have a dictatorship.

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Fix Canadian News

Canadian media was failing to transition from the profitable news market that existed before the Internet. Instead Canadian news was going broke.

Subsidies and Fallout

The government's answer? To heavily subsidize Canadian news using Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 to fund it. This seriously jeopardized small independents by requiring them to provide funding but denying them access.

Failure to Hold Government to Account

The fear of losing funding jeopardizes the journalist's ability to hold government to account. Mainstream Canadian media is no longer exploring or reporting on alternative viewpoints. Instead, Canada's major news sources could now be mistaken for those from dictatorships like Russia or China.

Mainstream Media's Bias Scoreboard

Now it is only independents like Rebel News and Juno News that ask the critical questions about issues that could damage the government's credibility.

This heavy media bias was evident during the election. Mainstream media projected an unflattering view of Poilievre which resulted in the viewers depending upon TV news (primarily comprised of “the boomers”) voting accordingly. The top three offenders were:

  • The Globe and Mail: Carney +9, Poilievre -15
  • CBC News: Carney +5, Poilievre -11
  • CTV News: Carney +3, Poilievre -9
  • — Juno News

Fix Canadian Media -- News that informsl not divides!

 

News that informs, not divides.

Do you ever feel like the news is just exhausting — endless shouting matches or, worse, something you can't trust at all? That's a sign that Canada's news landscape is broken — and it's time we fix it!

We need news that informs, not divides. But local news outlets are vanishing, while algorithm-driven platforms control the narratives we see to maximize their profits and clicks.

Our media system is failing the people it's meant to serve. It's time to rebuild a diverse, strong, and local media ecosystem — one that delivers independent and trustworthy reporting from a range of perspectives.

Tell Canada's leaders to take action and fix Canadian media NOW! or learn more…

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Current Legislation Detailed

Bill C-2: Strong Border Act

Bill C-2: An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of the border between Canada and the United States and respecting other related security measures

Parliament's LEGISinfo includes status of Bill C-2 as well as links to the text of the bill.

Privacy Commissioner confirms Libs Bill C-2 gives govt SWEEPING new powers to access Canadians' personal information from service providers like banks & telecoms WITHOUT A WARRANT.
— Michael Cooper, MP
Bill C-2, Ottawa's so-called "Strong Borders Act," promises to secure Canada's frontiers with new surveillance powers, sweeping ministerial discretion, and higher penalties. But as veteran Canadian investigators know, the bill misses the point. It is an omnibus solution that expands the state's reach online, while leaving untouched the very legal choke points that have made Canada a permissive financial platform and fentanyl laboratory for cartels, Triads, and state-linked terror networks.

 

Canada wasn't always so overwhelmed by lethal foreign gangs. What happened? Overly permissive immigration rules and porous borders explain part of the story, but the deeper problem lies in the laws that have steadily eroded enforcement power since the early 1990s.

 

Instead of enabling prosecutions against transnational traffickers of humans, narcotics, and weapons, unintended consequences from misguided jurisprudence surrounding Canada's Charter of Rights now ensure these cases almost always collapse, or are simply avoided by the Crown.
— Sam Cooper, The Bureau

I strongly recommend reading the rest:The "Strong Borders Act," misses the mark — only deep legal reforms will confront Canada's fentanyl networks.

Law enforcement has been notoriously bad at documenting and disclosing their use of disclosure requests. However, the larger telecom and Internet companies release annual transparency reports that disclose lawful access requests. For example, last year Rogers released information involving 160,036 customers pursuant to a court order or warrant. There were a further 98,550 disclosures involving emergency situations (the data raises questions about what problem Bill C-2 is trying solve).
— Michael Geist
While Bill C-2 does not explicitly state that it is paving the way for new and expanded data-sharing with the United States or other countries, the legislation contains references to the potential for "agreement[s] or arrangement[s]" with a foreign state, and references elsewhere the potential that persons in Canada may become compelled by the laws of a foreign state to disclose information. Other data and surveillance powers in Bill C-2 read like they could have been drafted by U.S. officials.
— Kate Robertson, The Citizen Lab

Consider that Bill C-2 is being drafted while Canada is still negotiating with the U.S. regarding trade tariffs. Rather than dealing with massive border problems, Bill C-2 sells out Canadians' rights.

The Canadian government is preparing to give away Canadians' digital lives — to U.S. police, to the Donald Trump administration, and possibly to foreign spy agencies.

 

Police and CSIS, the Canadian intelligence service, will be able to find out whether you have an online account with any organization or service in Canada. They can demand to know how long you've had it, where you've logged in from, and which other services you've interacted with, with no warrant required.
— EFF
First, the scope of the information that can be demanded without a warrant extends far beyond yes/no basic information. The information demand power actually includes whether the person provides or has provided services to any subscriber or client, or to any account or identifier.

 

There is no definition or obvious limitation on the services in question or the person who provides them – it could be a telecom provider, physician, hospital, library, educational institution, or financial institution. It is critical to emphasize that this is not limited to communications services.

 

If served with the appropriate form, anyone who provides services is required to confirm whether they have provided services to any subscriber, client, account, or identifier. They must also disclose whether they have any information about the subscriber, client, account or identifier as well as advise where and when they provided the service. On top of that, they must advise when they started providing the service and list the names of any other person that may have provided other services.
— Michael Geist

Stop Bill C-2!

In response to pressure from the Canadian Constitution Foundation and other groups, the federal government has stripped the most controversial, privacy-violating provisions from its border security bill, C-2 in creating a new, scaled-back version, Bill C-12. Specifically, these five parts of Bill C-2 do not appear in the new C-12:
  • Provisions that would enlist financial institutions in snooping;
  • New powers for Canada Post to open letter mail without proper safeguards;
  • New powers to allow police to demand subscriber information without warrants;
  • New powers to potentially enlist electronic service providers in spying; and
  • A ban on cash transactions over $10,000.
While the CCF is encouraged to see the Carney government remove these sections from the new border security bill, we maintain the government should commit to formally withdrawing Bill C-2 so they do not resurface at a later time.
— CCF Update

House

Bill C-2, the Strong Border Act, contains provisions that threaten fundamental rights and freedoms protected under Canadian and international law. It must not pass as written.

Bill C-2 would circumvent private encrypted messaging, undermining security for millions of Canadians. If passed, it hands sweeping new powers to police, CSIS, and even "peace officers" could demand information from ISPs, online forums, doctors, and others to piece together a detailed picture of your life and associations, all without a warrant, and even share this sensitive information with U.S. agencies.

 

This bill is already at second reading in Parliament. MPs are deciding where they stand right now. That's why we need an official petition to make them respond directly, in the House, to the public outcry. Together, we've stopped reckless surveillance bills before. With enough voices behind this petition, we can do it again!
— OpenMedia

Add your name to the petition!

Learn More

Rebel News Petition

Rebel News also has a petition: Stop Mark Carney's Bill C-2.

Mark Carney's new Bill C-2 claims to be about border security, but it's actually a sweeping attack on Canadians' privacy. It gives police the power to open your mail and access your online accounts — all without a warrant — and even makes it a crime to use more than $10,000 in cash. This has nothing to do with stopping crime at the border and everything to do with building a surveillance state. Sign the petition now to stop Bill C-2 before it becomes law. — Rebel News

Stop Mark Carney's Bill C-2 — A direct attack on your privacy

Bill C-2 Includes Provisions Dangerous to Privacy

Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, should be named 'the Strong Surveillance Act.'
— John Carpay

Bill C-2 is supposed to deal with the “northern border” issues that concern the United States government. However, there are dangerous anti-privacy clauses embedded in this legislation. This does not give much confidence that Mark Carney's Liberals are any different than the disastrous Trudeau government.

[T]he key takeaway is that Bill C-2 is far from just a border bill. The government and law enforcement are running back the warrantless access playbook by inserting extensive lawful access provisions in an unrelated bill. This approach should be roundly rejected. If there is a case for lawful access, it should be debated on its own merits, in its own bill, and with its own study.
— Michael Geist
The concern is that the new powers in the bill allow police to conduct potentially invasive searches without probable cause and in some cases without a warrant, thereby failing to strike a reasonable balance between state interests and personal privacy.
— Tech Policy

The justification for all these dangerous attacks on personal freedom are that criminals use these networks.

Criminals have used telephones and mobile phones since they were invented. Drug smugglers use airplanes and boats, radios and satellite phones. Bank robbers have long used cars and motorcycles as getaway vehicles, and horses before then.

 

And while terrorism turns society's very infrastructure against itself, we only harm ourselves by dismantling that infrastructure in response — just as we would if we banned cars because bank robbers used them too.
— Bruce Schneier

Bill C-2 is surveillance legislation hidden in a "border" bill. It provides police with massive abilities to intercept, catalogue and examine all of our communication. Without privacy and freedom of speech (sure to be attacked using C-2) there can be no democracy. Mark Carney will get his wish for a country that emulates China.

Part 4 Removes Protections for Mail

Part 4 of Bill C-2 allows the government to read your mail for the first time since Confederation in 1867.

Part 4 amends the Canada Post Corporation Act to permit the demand seizure detention or retention of anything in the course of post only in accordance with an Act of Parliament. It also amends that Act to expand the Canada Post Corporation's authority to open mail in circumstances to include the authority to open letters.
— Rebel News on YouTube

Part 11 Limits the Use of Cash

Bill C-2 also limits cash transactions to $10,000:

Offence — cash payments, donations or deposits of $10,000 or more

 

77.5 (1) Every person or entity that is engaged in a business, a profession or the solicitation of charitable financial donations from the public commits an offence if the person or entity accepts a cash payment, donation or deposit of $10,000 or more in a single transaction or in a prescribed series of related transactions that total $10,000 or more.
— Bill C-2

Clearly, the government intends to use this to prosecute those engaged in cash-based illegal activities, but there should be other evidence in conjunction to ensure that the possession of cash is not the only requirement for conviction.

While the limits of $10,000 cash sounds significant, this could affect charity events where deposits of large amounts of accumulated cash, each of much lower amounts, were involved. There is also nothing to prevent future governments from lowering the minimum, even to the point where cash essentially becomes illegal in Canada.

His shocking new ban on transactions over $10,000 looks designed to pave the way for a Central Bank Digital Currency, a kind of electronic ">smart money" that would allow the government to track your spending, and even ">shut off" the currency if you try to buy things the government opposes, whether it's lawful firearms, a donation to the truckers, or even for things they deem hostile to the environment, like buying gas or eating meat.
— Rebel News
"This is similar to Quebec's Bill 54, adopted in March 2024, which empowers police to presume that any person carrying $2,000 or more in cash must have obtained it as the proceeds of crime," warns the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF). "Police can seize the money, and the citizen must prove his or her innocence to get it back."

 

"Law enforcement already has the tools to fight crime," they claimed. "In a free society, violating our right to use cash is not the answer."
— Rebel News

Part 14 Timely Access to Data and Information

Part 14 is one of the most concerning aspects of Bill C-2. This part provides unwarranted access to virtually anyone that provides services to the public.

Lawful access had traditionally focused solely on telecom and Internet providers. The problem is that the information demand power in Bill C-2 is not limited to telecom service providers. The bill includes a definition for an "electronic service provider" and a "core provider" but those definitions are not used in the section that establishes the information demand power. Rather, they apply to new requirements for those providers to support law enforcement by granting access to their networks.

 

The information demand power applies literally to anyone who provides services to the public
— Michael Geist

Bill C-2 doesn't define services and could require anyone providing any kind of service to you to provide details simply by filling out a form. No judge required:

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

The officer may demand this information based upon suspicions that a crime “will be committed” which is similar to previous Liberal legislation that provided the ability to convict someone on the basis that they may commit a crime in the future. A very slippery slope. Some believe the Liberals are likely to resurrect Bill C-63 given the nature of the provisions in Bill C-2.

In the meantime, the Liberals have yet to repeal legislation that sees criminals committing crimes while out on bail, even if they've failed to meet the conditions of previous bail recommendations as well as two-tiered justice with leniency provided for those with coloured skin (i.e., reverse racism).

Part 15 Lawful Access

Part 15 creates a standalone supporting Authorized Access To Information Act, purportedly to ensure that "electronic service providers have the capacity and capability to share information with authorized persons" according to David Fraser. It provides for the ability for the government to plug into telecom companies data. This led to foreign hackers to exploit these “back doors” which cannot be designed so that only authorized persons can access them. They are security vulnerabilities inserted into a system for government convenience. Secrecy should be the exception, not the rule.

Bill C-2, the so-called Strong Borders bill is a Trojan horse that contains a new law that allows the government to order backdoors in the communications infrastructure you use every day. The government can issue secret orders and service providers are prohibited by law from disclosing vulnerabilities that bad guys could be using to illicitly access data. This is the part of the "border bill" you haven't heard enough about.
— David Fraser, Privacy Lawyer

These requirements are extremely dangerous to privacy. Essentially, this fulfills the demands of a police state. Not only does the Part 15 require digital backdoors, but denies the ability of telecom/ISP services to share vulnerabilities with each other leading to a greater likelihood that such vulnerabilities will be exploited by foreign state actors as well as the government.

Bill C-2 Resources

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Bill C-8: The Cyber Security Act

Bill C-8: An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts

Bill C-8 is a Resurrected Bill C-26

Bill C-8 is essentially a repeat of the flawed Bill C-26 and provides for dangerous overreach into Canadians' privacy without some changes noted in OpenMedia's September 28, 2022 letter about Bill C-26.

Robbie Grant, a privacy and data protection lawyer with McMillan LLP, said Bill C-8 is "almost verbatim" a copy of Bill C-26, with only a few inconsequential changes likely made to improve the efficiency of the legislation. "It's the same bill back from the dead," he said. "The fact that it's almost identical in terms of language means the government is likely hoping this can be quickly passed," Mr. Ahmad said.
— The Globe and Mail

Bill C-8 Contains Glaring Flaws

Bill C8:
  • Terminates Essential Services
  • Undermines privacy
  • Lacks guardrails to prevent abuse
  • Has no justification
  • — Matt Strauss on X
The Canadian Constitution Foundation is concerned about the civil liberties implications of the Carney government's proposed cyber security bill, Bill C-8, which would allow the minister of industry to secretly order telecommunications service providers like Telus, Bell and Rogers to stop providing services to individual Canadians.

 

According to the bill, the government would be able to shut down phone and internet access if it has "reasonable grounds to believe that it is necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation." These orders would remain secret indefinitely, with the minister required only to present an annual report to Parliament on the number of orders made and their opinion on their necessity, reasonableness and utility.

 

The CCF fears this law could be weaponized to silence critics of the government at the whim of the minister, under the guise of vaguely posing some kind of "threat" to Canada's telecom system. CCF Litigation Director Christine Van Geyn said that the government cannot be trusted with such a power unless proper safeguards are in place.

 

"You may think that the idea of the government cutting off political dissidents from the necessities of life sounds far-fetched, but that's exactly what happened during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa," she said. "The federal government ordered banks to freeze hundreds of bank accounts without any judicial authorization, cutting protesters off from their money in the middle of a very cold winter."
— Canadian Constitution Foundation
On Thursday, CCF Counsel Josh Dehaas was in Ottawa with other free speech advocates for the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to talk about the problems with Bill C-8…. View Josh's entire testimony by clicking here — he begins speaking at 12:27:17.
— Jessica Goddard, via email November 1, 2025

Bill C-8 Contains Glaring Flaws

The main problem is that Bill C-8 contains glaring flaws that could permanently break Canadian privacy. Yet it's moving rapidly through Parliament, and could be passed without fixing its massive gaps in accountability and transparency.

 

The bill gives the government power to compel companies to weaken encryption, which compromises the very foundation of securing your online activities from banking to personal communications. It also lets officials issue secret orders that never expire with no oversight, no checks, and no avenue for challenge.

 

It could also require ISPs, banks, and other companies to hand over huge amounts of our user data, without strong safeguards to prevent misuse for non-cybersecurity purposes. Safeguards proposed by civil society groups during C-26 were only partially adopted, and Bill C-8 still carries major gaps in oversight, transparency and privacy protection.

 

Bill C-8 is basically a copy of C-26, which nearly passed before being sidelined by a typo. With so much political support already lined up, the government could push it through quickly without real debate or scrutiny.
— OpenMedia

Carney's Digital Emergencies Act

MP Matt Strauss outlines several of the serious issues with Bill C-8 in the current Parliament. He notes that the Liberals have learned nothing from their previous attempt with failed Bill C-26 including the failure to respect Canadian Constitutional rights.

Marc Nixon called Bill C-8 "Carney's digital Emergencies Act" referencing Trudeau's abuse of the Act to deal with political criticism by the Freedom Convoy.

Northern Perspective's coverage of the Conservatives hammering government officials about the Bill's sweeping powers includes relevant observations. Little protection is written into the Bill against the potential for the Liberals (or any future government) to secretly target individual Canadians without warrant or respect for their Charter rights:

 

Fix Bill C-8: Stop the fast-track of a flawed cybersecurity bill

Fix Bill C8. Strong cybersecurity. NO breaking encryption!

Canadians deserve strong cybersecurity, but not at the cost of our privacy. A new cybersecurity bill, Bill C-8, is moving rapidly through Parliament, but contains glaring flaws that could permanently break Canadian privacy. Secret government orders permitted by C-8 can weaken encryption and be kept forever secret — a direct attack on your privacy!

 

Since it was introduced in mid-June, Bill C-8 has moved rapidly through Parliament despite experts warning the government is simply reheating a broken bill that contains serious threats to your rights.

 

But we won some fixes last time to the bill C-8 is based on, and we can win on C-8 too!
— OpenMedia

Tell your MP: fix these unacceptable overreaches before passing Bill C-8!

Bill C-8 Resources

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Bill C-9: Combatting Hate Act

Bill C-9: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places)

The Carney government is steering Canada toward British-style censorship, says @cvangeyn in her latest piece. Bill C-9 (the "Combatting Hate Act") threatens to erode free expression by expanding vague hate speech laws and lowering the bar for prosecution.
— @CDNConstFound on X

Bill C-9 Risks Criminalizing Peaceful Protest

On September 19, 2025, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-9 with the declared intent to make Canadians safer. Instead, this legislative proposal creates new criminal laws that could make the denial of fundamental freedoms much easier.

 

"We must all work together to combat hatred and build a more inclusive, equal society." said Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, Director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "However, we must also remember that criminal law is not the solution to every social problem. As drafted, Bill C-9 risks criminalizing some forms of protected speech and peaceful protest — two cornerstones of a free and democratic society — around tens of thousands of community gathering spaces in Canada."

 

"People living in Canada are entitled to physical safety and have the right to worship safely. These are already protected by existing law", said Howard Sapers, CCLA Executive Director. "The majority of Bill C-9 does not address a gap in the law. Current offences such as mischief, intimidation, threats and harassment already give police the tools they need to protect public safety."

 

"The new intimidation offence is far broader than existing prohibitions and could criminalize peaceful protests simply because they are seen as disruptive", continued Bussières McNicoll. "The penalty of up to ten years in prison is very severe and could push activists into silence."
— CCLA

Bill C-9 Raises Free Speech Concerns

When they ban hate speech, they ban speech that they hate.

 

We've got Tamara Lich and Chris Barber having been found guilty of mischief, which is a very minor crime in the criminal code. You have people getting lower penalties for manslaughter in some cases. So it's weaponized because you also saw that when there were some Aboriginal protesters in Winnipeg protesting against residential schools and they vandalized a statue of Queen Victoria at the legislature grounds in broad daylight with police watching and nobody was charged.

 

And so we've got this double standard right now which is very troubling where if you are deemed to be protesting for the correct cause so to speak you're not going to get prosecuted even if you commit a crime. But if it's the incorrect cause like Tamara Lich and Chris Barber protesting against vaccine passports in Ottawa while they're going to prosecute you very very aggressively and seek jail time.

 

So if you see that double standard in place already for prosecutions as we do, what do you think is going to happen on speech? You know, it's not going to be feminist, Aboriginal, LGBTQ, climate change. It's not going to be people making extreme comments on those issues. They're not going to have to worry about getting prosecuted. It'll be conservatives, Christians, libertarians, classical liberals. Those are the people whose speech is going to be targeted.
— John Carpay

Allowing the government to choose which crimes are hate crimes based upon anything but a well-defined standard is dangerous, especially since Bill C-9 removes the requirement for hate speech to be approved by the province's Attorney General. We've seen local police hassling Jews and reporters while protecting violent Islamic protesters on the street.

The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is concerned that key aspects of the Carney government's proposed hate crimes legislation would unduly infringe on freedom of expression.

 

Among other changes to the Criminal Code, Bill C-9 would establish a standalone hate crime provision that would allow for up to life in prison for committing an act motivated by hatred, would create new intimidation and obstruction crimes related to buildings used for religious worship or primarily by identifiable groups, and would establish a new crime of willfully promoting hatred by displaying certain symbols such as terrorist flags or Nazi swastikas in a public place.

 

The CCF has identified the following concerns:
  • Overbreadth of the hate-symbol provision (s. 319(2.2)): It could chill legitimate speech in cases where it is unclear whether a symbol is "principally associated with a terrorist group" or "resembles a symbol" outlawed under the provision;
  • Extreme sentencing under the new hate crime offence (s. 320.1001): A person who commits mischief against property motivated by hatred could face up to seven years in prison, rather than the current two years;
  • Removal of Attorney General oversight: The bill would allow police to charge a person with hate speech without receiving the Attorney General's consent, which is an important safeguard for freedom of expression that has been part of Canada's law for decades; and
  • Lowering the threshold for "hatred": The definition of "hatred" added as a new section 319(7) appears to lower the bar for hate speech set by the Supreme Court of Canada in cases like R v Keegstra and R v Whatcott, which could chill speech and public debate.
"The new hate symbol offence only targets displays done with the intent to promote hatred, but without Attorney General consent as a safeguard, there is a real risk that people using these symbols in art, journalism, or protest will be charged first and vindicated later," Baron added.
— Canadian Constitution Foundation
Canada may be moving toward stricter enforcement of online speech, with social media posts potentially leading to jail time (just like in the UK). The proposed Bill C-9 would remove the need for Attorney General approval for hate speech charges and lower the threshold for what counts as "hatred," making it easier for police to arrest anyone with controversial views without oversight. Recent cases suggest courts are increasingly treating social media as "public," which means offensive — but non-violent — posts could result in criminal charges. Read the full article in The Hub by Josh Dehaas to understand what Bill C-9 could mean for Canadians and online expression.
— Jessica Goddard, via email November 1, 2025

Bill C-9 Resources

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Bill C-12: Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

Bill C-12: An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system and respecting other related security measures

Bill C-12 is Bill C-2 Revised

Bill C-12 was launched to remove some of the threats to personal freedoms contained in Bill C-2, but the Liberals have not yet cancelled that older legislation.

Bill C-12 revises a number of previous legislation, all grouped under protection of Canada's borders:

Removes Bill C-2 Ban on Cash, Warrantless Seizures

The Carney government introduced a new, less controversial version of its national and border security bill on Wednesday, omitting some contentious search powers. However, the government has not abandoned the original, more debated version of the legislation.

 

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree introduced Bill C-12, similar to the "Strong Borders Act" (C-2), but without sections granting broad law enforcement powers (like opening mail or demanding subscriber information without a warrant) or restricting cash payments/donations over $10,000.

 

This new bill proposes major changes to Canadian border security, data collection, anti-money laundering rules, the asylum system, and the Canadian Coast Guard.

 

Anandasangaree anticipates quick parliamentary support and committee debate for Bill C-12, after removing contentious parts from C-2, which will be debated separately, according to the National Post.
— Rebel News

Bill C-12 Resources

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Bill S-209: Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act

An Act to restrict young persons' online access to sexually explicit material.

This enactment makes it an offence for organizations to make pornographic material available to young persons on the Internet. It also enables a designated enforcement authority to take steps to prevent pornographic material from being made available to young persons on the Internet in Canada.
— Bill S-209, First Reading

Better But Still Has Technological Challenges

Bill S-209 replaces controversial Bill S-210 which died when the spring 2025 election was called. While there are improvements, challenges remain.

Bill S-209 is better than its predecessor as it seeks to exclude search and other incidental distribution, adopts a new standalone definition for pornographic materials, and sets a higher bar for the technology itself. Yet many concerns remain: the bill still envisions court ordered website blocking, including blocking access to lawful content by those entitled to access it. In fact, the bill expressly states that the effect of the blocking may "have the effect of preventing persons in Canada from being able to access material other than pornographic material made available by the organization." Orders that knowingly block lawful content is certain to raise Charter of Rights challenges.

 

Moreover, there are still uncertainties about enforcement as well as about what is included and what isn't (other bills rely on percentages for greater certainty). Bill S-209 still relies on technologies that raise both privacy and accuracy concerns and gets the government into the business of evaluating those technologies as well as determining what constitutes commercial distribution, particularly for free sites. The last bill raced through the House without extensive hearings, though it is apparent that some of the concerns raised in the public sphere were heard. This time, there must be extensive studies in both the House and Senate with a deeper understanding for implications, amendments, and alternatives.
— Michael Geist

Faulty Age Verification Technology

Bill S-209 will require government-approved identification to even visit such sites — opening yourself to identity theft and enabling the government tracking of every webpage you visit. It does add age estimation possibilities, but there may be issues there as well.

Defence — age verification or age estimation
7 (1) It is not a defence to a charge under section 5 that the organization believed that the young person referred to in that section was at least 18 years of age unless the organization implemented a prescribed age-verification or age-estimation method to limit access to the pornographic material made available for commercial purposes to individuals who are at least 18 years of age.
— Bill S-209, First Reading

Age-verification companies are lobbying hard to get their faulty technologies required by law on your device. Current technology cannot create an effective identification of legal adults without either compromising privacy or excluding those without such ID, placing profits before privacy.

Age verification just isn't worth it. The benefits for kids are debatable, and what you're really giving up is your personal data, which is more valuable than ever.

 

Many of these sites will implement the least expensive option that still meets the letter of the law. This will equate to long-term storage of your personal information in unsecured, unencrypted storage. Data breaches happen frequently, and these laws make the stakes even higher. Having your email and name that was used on a site made public is bad enough. Your government ID, address, and payment information being leaked could be devastating.
— PCMag

Age-verification technology frequently misidentifies users and leaks sensitive information about who we are and where we go, or both! You may not know who owns the sites you visit, but they'll know you.

Digital IDs

If we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated, sold, or even leaked in the event of a hack, then we lose so much more than data. We lose the freedom to be human. We deserve better. You deserve better.
— Apple CEO, Tim Cook

Bill S-209 could also be used to push through the universal electronic ID proposed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to be used as a tool to control citizens. Tying metadata to a digital ID would remove any hint of privacy and provide a bonanza for corporate and government spying. Every site that you visit, every comment you make online, every link that you click would become traceable (just like in China).

The surveillance economy has corporations culling huge amounts of metadata primarily for targeted advertising (but often collected “just in case” it can be used later). Serious data breaches already threaten our privacy and security.

While admirable in aim, the execution of these laws poses significant threats to everyone's online privacy. It's not simply a matter of hiding your porn habits from prying eyes. Allowing sites to collect PII with little to no restrictions is a direct threat to the safety of many users, and it is a big win for businesses that deal in this data.

 

Considering that these restrictions are often trivial to bypass with a VPN or proxy, I question whether these laws will truly improve the safety of children. What I can say for certain is that there will be lasting consequences to user privacy if countries and states continue down this path of censorship.
— PCMag

Canadian Youth Already Exposed in Schools

Bill S-209 doesn't address the sort of age-inappropriate activities being promoted in schools and public libraries nor public nudity in front of children at gay pride events nor Drag Queen Story Hour for children.

In an interview with BC Conservative leader John Rustad and CBC interviewer Stephen Quinn three explicit images were used to illustrate the sort of SOGI materials available in BC school libraries without parental approval including one showing a male adult masturbating a male child. These images were so offensive the segment showing these examples has since been edited out, but, hey, let's lock down the Internet to protect children!

SOGI provides this sort of information to school-age children in BC, Alberta and elsewhere. Apparently grade 6 is the time to discuss sexual acts in detail (but don't let them see it on the Internet).

A 'sexual health educator' from Saleema Noon came to my daughter's Grade 6 class this week. She taught the 11 and 12-year-olds that sometimes children aren't happy with the bodies they're born with, so they can change them! Imagine telling kids they can change their bodies if they hate themselves. That's the message the kids hear.

 

They also learned about anal and oral sex, and how gender is 'assigned at birth' but sometimes they figure it out later.

 

The school then had an assembly on Friday for all kids in Grades 4-7, where a trans-identified female came to speak to them.
— Billboard Chris on X

Parents, Not Government Censorship

The following opinion piece in the Times Colonist expressed the need for parents to become involved rather than governments or social media companies:

[W]hich brings to mind the advice of 14th century philosopher and theologian William of Ockham, credited for "Occam's razor," a problem-solving principle that suggests the simplest solution is usually the best one.

 

In 2024, that "simplest solution" is not necessarily complicated difficult-to-enforce legislation, but for parents to learn about the apps and social-media platforms children are using.

 

That's right, not tech experts, not government, not content providers — parents are still the simplest way to protect kids from online danger.
— Geoff Johnson

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Prior Legislation Detailed

 

Bill C-11: Online Streaming Act

Bill C-11: An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Bill C-11, also known as the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020, would repeal parts of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and replace them with a new legislative regime governing the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information for commercial activity in Canada. As the core of this regime, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act would be enacted to maintain, modernize, and extend existing rules and to impose new rules on private sector organizations for the protection of personal information.
— Government of Canada

Bill C-11 & C-18 Unfair and Poorly Executed

Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 were poorly executed attempts at government control of the Internet that failed to fix the issues which they claimed to address.

In less than two months, the government has reshaped the Internet in Canada with Bills C-11 and C-18 leading to streaming services that may block Canadian users and platforms that may block news sharing. The result is a cautionary tale for Internet regulation initiatives with Canada emerging as a model for how things can go badly wrong.
— Michael Geist

Not only did Bill C-18 fail to protect local news, but Canadian news has all but disappeared from social media while most of the promised funding has dried up. Now we're seeing massive layoffs.

Instead of admitting defeat, the Liberal government funded Canada's big media companies, effectively destroying any hint of investigative journalism as well as Canadians' trust in both the government and the media.

According to a 2023 report from the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, overall trust in the media among the Canadian population fell from 55 percent in 2016 to 40 percent. Among English-speaking Canadians, only 37 percent now say they trust the media.

 

The decline in trust comes at a time when the Trudeau government is increasingly intervening to support major private firms in the Canadian media landscape like The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and Postmedia. These measures include subsidies supporting the payrolls of qualified private news media, mandating Google to pay $100 million annually to support the journalism industry, and a tax credit for news subscriptions. At this point, some estimates suggest that there could soon be as much as a 50 percent subsidy on journalist salaries up to $85,000 per year.
— The Hub

Bill C-11 became law on April 27, 2023 without key amendments that would protect your posts and feeds from being regulated by the CRTC.

On April 27, 2023, Bill C-11 passed the Senate, as fundamentally broken as it was when it first left the House. Despite opposition from over 100,000 Canadians, the bill was passed without crucial amendments that would have protected user-generated content and online choices.
— OpenMedia

C-11 Controls What You Watch

The government told Canadians that it wanted to grab control back from big foreign Internet companies. Instead, Bill C-11 gives that control to the CRTC.

Bill C-11 will meddle with Canadians' ability to pick their own content and content creators' business, in the name of "protecting the economic interests of a niche of Canada's music and video industries," according to the Canadian arm of the Internet Society.

 

In a scathing submission, the non-profit group argues that "Bill C-11 seeks to turn the Internet into a mere extension of the Canadian broadcasting system — a dying artifact of 20th Century technologies."
— The Globe and Mail

The unfair CanCon rules will be applied to the Internet and allow the industry-friendly CRTC to determine what Canadians see and hear, removing choice for consumers.

The CRTC still can ask platforms for an end result, meaning it will still be in the business of picking winners who get promoted and losers whose content is downranked and hidden on online feeds.

 

Unless and until CanCon definitions are thoroughly revised, this will mean upvoting the narrow range of legacy media content to the top of our feeds over other content we actually like.
— OpenMedia

This will have an adverse affect on Canadian content worldwide, ignoring or imperiling international copyright and other agreements.

Our Freedom of Choice Denied

We should be deciding what we watch and listen to online, not our government.

First, after assuring Canadians for months that the bill did not regulate user content or that algorithmic regulations were excluded, the draft policy direction confirms that this was false.

 

Second, many of the policies are still wide open.
— Michael Geist
While protection of our feeds and content in the law would have been better than a revocable policy direction, some protection is much better than no protection at all.
— OpenMedia

Bill C-11 Ignores the Nature of the Internet

Bill C-11 seeks to mandate changes to streaming platforms' algorithms so that specific Canadian content rises to the top of our feeds.

Fixed timetables can NEVER compete with the ability to choose your program and its viewing time nor allow bing-watching of a series (with the exception of promotional periods when specialty channels run large blocks of one program to entice guest users to purchase the channel).

It ignores the fact that, unlike cable TV, everyone could simultaneously watch different content on an open Internet. Instead, it chose to censor the Internet.

CanCon Imposed on the Internet

Bill C-11 legislated that the CRTC would rule over what online material counts as “official” Canadian Content (widely referred to as CanCon) on almost all online services.

Unfortunately, the only beneficiaries of Bill C-11 are going to the big Canadian media companies (Bell, Rogers and Telus) that already get the lion's share of CanCon money.

This legislation ignores current and historic contributions by Netflix and other online streaming options.

Under Bill C-11, streaming companies like Netflix will also be forced to pay to produce CanCon — but will be ineligible to receive funding from the Canadian Media Fund, even when producing Canadian content.

 

Result? A direct money transfer from streaming platforms Canadians like, to legacy broadcast services we increasingly don't.
— OpenMedia

Small Creators Threatened

The testimony of those opposed to Bill C-11 (mostly smaller content creators) was shamefully ignored and worse, discarded as invalid:

But the government went beyond just ignoring witness testimony yesterday in the House of Commons. It now claims those views constitute “misinformation.”
— Michael Geist

Many of these small creators have carved out a niche in international markets over the last few years, markets that Bill C-11 will destroy.

Bill C-11 trades prioritizing Canadian content for a market of 38 million people for be-prioritizing that same content for a global market that runs into the billions of viewers.
— Michael Geist

Small YouTube and other social media creators could be forced to contribute to CanCon yet prevent them from benefiting financially. They may have to move out of Canada to retain the viability of their businesses.

 

CRTC Unsuitable

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC even MORE power to decide that even more content should fall under their regulation:

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC authority to:
  • Dictate how and where your content appears on digital platforms.
  • Affect your discoverability by artificially promoting some creators over others. Viewers may be pushed to watch content they aren't interested in, resulting in more skips and thumbs down, which would impact how your content is exported to global audiences, lowering viewership and revenue.
  • Apply complex “CanCon” rules that require you to prove your content is “Canadian” enough. This is easy for large Canadian media companies with teams who have been following these rules for decades, and makes it harder for smaller creators to benefit from any financial or promotional gain.
  • Push your content down in feeds if it doesn't meet CanCon requirements.
  • Regulate the length and type of advertising on your channel, which could mean less money in your pocket.
  • — Digital First Canada
Bill C-11 does not contain specific thresholds or guidance. In other words, the entire audio-visual world is fair game and it will be up to the CRTC to decide whether to exempt some services from regulation.
— Michael Geist

The CRTC is an unsuitable body for such authority; more so since it listens only to big media.

Fixing the CRTC would probably require legislation banning or severely restricting the big media companies from influencing the decisions made by the CRTC. A government in love with control is unlikely to ever create such laws.

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Bill C-18: Online News Act

Bill C-18: An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada received royal assent on June 22, 2023 without any major cleanup, permanently compromising the independence and diversity of Canadian news. It led to the cancellation of all existing funding agreements with Canadian news organizations.

Bill C-18 purports to address a real crisis — the drying up of advertising funding that previously supported news organizations in the 20th century. Unfortunately, Bill C-18 misunderstands that crisis, misdiagnosing why news advertising revenue has collapsed, and who is at fault for it.
— OpenMedia

The government spread misinformation, stating that social media companies like Facebook and Google are “stealing Canadian news.” That is not true.

Google doesn't "use" news content — we link you to it, just like we link you to every other page on the web.
— Google blog
Trudeau and his allies tried to frame this as a move to “save Canadian journalism,” when in reality, it was just another corporate welfare scheme for failing legacy media outlets that can't survive without government handouts.
— Dan Knight

Bill C-18 a Disaster for Canadian News

Bill C-18 has been a disaster for Canadian news, resulting in 24% less national news engagement online and a staggering 58% drop for local news!

News outlets relied on social media to drive traffic to their websites. By forcing Meta's hand, Trudeau effectively cut off a major traffic source for the very media companies he claimed to be helping. According to the Media Ecosystem Observatory, engagement with Canadian news outlets plummeted by 85% on Facebook and Instagram. That's an estimated 11 million fewer daily views — a devastating blow to an industry already on life support.

 

The Liberals pretended that Big Tech was the enemy, but the real victims of Bill C-18 weren't the tech companies — it was the Canadian media outlets who suddenly lost their audience. Small, independent newsrooms — already struggling to compete with taxpayer-funded giants like the CBC — saw their reach collapse overnight. And while Trudeau patted himself on the back for “standing up” to Meta, actual journalists lost their jobs.
— Dan Knight

Local news will all but perish in the process. Bill C-18 is mainly affecting the small independent news services that have managed to make the transition to digital services. For example, the Halifax Examiner which depends upon social media for most of its new subscribers, has been affected by this legislation.

Rather than increasing local content, our news coverage has become more centralized. Bell began to centralize news services (closing regional news centres) even before Bill C-18 passed:

[Bell Canada is] moving to a single newsroom approach across brands, allowing for greater collaboration and efficiency.

 

It's a consolidation of news gathering, news delivery. We are combining the news production function in a horizontal way so that you have one common platform that is serving news to the relevant outlet from one management team.
— Richard Gray

News Now Harder to Discover in Canada

The attack on these social media giants threatened the discoverability of Canadian news by making it dependent upon foreign media giants.

Earlier this year, the Trudeau Government — supported by the NDP and Bloc Quebecois — passed a bill known as C-18, which aimed to coerce social media companies, specifically Facebook and Google, to pay “government accredited media” every time one of their links was shared on the social media platforms.

 

[T]his is nothing more than an attempted government shakedown of tech companies to reward their favourite media outlets — who already remain almost universally dependent on government financing.

 

News and media companies PROFIT from the free advertising generated from social media platforms like Facebook. They use these platforms (at no cost) to distribute links to their content that directs back to their websites where they sell advertising and subscription services.

 

To then attempt to receive coerced payment for that free advertising is the height of arrogance and hubris that has rightly blown up in their face (and the government's).
— Aaron Gunn August 10, 2023

The government reacted by directly providing the funding promised by Bill C-18. This did nothing to protect local news, but resulted in the end of independent journalism. Effectively, the Liberals purchased the already mostly-liberal voice of Canadian media beyond the CBC. Canada now joins countries with state-controlled media like China and Russia.

This isn't just about lost clicks or revenue; it's about protecting our democracy.

 

Access to factual, non-partisan, quality journalism is crucial for holding governments accountable and empowering citizens to make informed decisions. Without it, misinformation flourishes, our conversations polarize and fall apart, and Canadians suffer.
— OpenMedia

Michael Geist's Unbiased Coverage

Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa, has extensive and unbiased coverage on Bill C-18.

The end result — at least for now — is a legislative mess that leaves no clear winners with Meta downgrading its platforms in Canada, Canadians cut off from their ability to share news on popular social media platforms, Canadian news outlets losing their second most important source of referral traffic, and the government looking to have made an epic miscalculation for having ignored the risks it created by establishing a mandating payments for links system with uncapped liability for the Internet companies.
— Michael Geist

What social media companies like Google and Facebook have been doing is providing links back to the news sources (i.e., the news outlets themselves). This is how the Internet works. By monetizing these links, Bill C-18 has broken consumer access to news stories on the Internet via social media.

The main beneficiaries of these links were the news organizations themselves. They post links in social media because it draws traffic to their site.

Today, producers of quality news want everyone who cares about their story to click through to their site and read all about it. That open flow of quality journalism has created the relatively robust online information system we use today.
— OpenMedia

Why News Media Monopoly Profits Are Gone

Once upon a time news media outlets had a monopoly on advertising and charged accordingly. This was before the Internet provided free and widespread access to information.

I used to pay a month's rent to run a two-week classified advertisement less than two column inches in the local newspaper to attract tenants for my three-bedroom suite — a month's income for an ad running half that long. Vacancies between tenants were common at that time because vacancy rates weren't as tight as today's market.

Those local newspaper monopoly profits are gone forever, replaced with unlimited opportunities to advertise online for free. Governments should not be propping up businesses whose market has collapsed because of technology, especially those which once took advantage of their monopoly.

It is true that the internet broke the business model for newspapers. Newspapers had been financially healthy for decades, but when the internet came along, the landscape shifted under their feet.

 

Sellers could now advertise on Craigslist, or put their products on eBay or Amazon, or build their own sites and market directly to consumers. That meant fewer dollars got spent on traditional advertising.

 

This development has been financially catastrophic for the news industry. But importantly, this is a tragedy without a villain.

 

It is normal for technologies to evolve and open up new capabilities, for innovation to happen as a result, players to compete, and winners and losers to emerge.

 

That's how markets work, and it's not usually deserving of intervention by the federal government.
— Sue Gardner

The Link Tax Issue

Bill C-18 essentially monetized links to news for just Google and Facebook.

Bill C-18 requires two companies (including Google) to pay for simply showing links to Canadian news publications, something that everyone else does for free.

 

The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called "link tax") breaks the way the web and search engines work, and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating access to news from Canadian publications.
— Google blog

While social media is dependent upon content, news media plays a very small part of that

C-18 Threatens a Free and Open Internet

The Internet is a wonderful source of freely available (but not necessarily free) information primarily because there is no cost to link to content elsewhere.

Social media provides the opportunity for Canadians to comment on the news — discussion that is an important component to a functioning democracy. These links also provide the ability to credit the source for quotations or other statements, much like the practice of citations at the end of an essay or other publication.

Hyperlinks thus share the same relationship with the content to which they refer as do references.

 

Both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. And they both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content.

 

The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content-neutral — it expresses no opinion, nor does it have any control over, the content to which it refers.
— Supreme Court of Canada

News Organizations Post Links on Social Media

The supporters of link taxes say that Google, Facebook and others benefit from these links. Maybe so, but the news broadcaster does as well.

The stated premise of C-18 is that by making links to news material available on their sites, platforms are taking value from publishers, and so they need to be forced to compensate publishers for that value to "enhance fairness" in the Canadian digital news marketplace.

 

But that premise makes no sense. We know that because news publishers have always been able to opt out of appearing in Google search results, and they don't.

 

In fact they do the opposite: they vigorously compete to maximize their presences on Google and on Facebook. News publishers want to appear on those platforms, because that's where people are finding news.

 

When someone sees a story on Google or Facebook, and clicks on it or shares it, that brings traffic to the publisher's site, increasing its reach and its revenue. Being on Facebook and Google helps publishers. If it didn't, they would just opt out.
— Sue Gardner

Link Taxes Failed Elsewhere

These policies have been tried and have failed elsewhere. The Canadian market is too small to control an increasingly diverse and internationally sourced content. Unlike Australia, we share a border with the country with the world's largest concentration of social media, television and movie conglomerates.

Had Bill C-18 succeeded in its stated goals, Canadian media giants Bell, Rogers and Telus would have been the primary beneficiaries rather than the small local news organizations that the government insisted it would save. Any new revenue would come at the expense of small Canadian creators like those reaching international audiences on platforms like YouTube and TikToc.

What About Local News?

We cannot fix the problem by propping up older systems whose funding model quit working when our options for information extended beyond the local newspaper.

Over the past five years, 106 local news outlets opened. While closures were majority print newspapers owned by large newspaper chains, the vast majority of the outlets that launched are digital and independently-owned.

 

Bill C-18, as currently structured, threatens these burgeoning operations.
— The Globe and Mail

Newspapers downsized their newsrooms and began to use Canada Press (CP) for news snippets rather than delving into issues that TV newscasts couldn't cover in depth.

To survive, local newspapers need focus on what they do best — cover local news and events. The print edition is all but finished because the cost of production and delivery can no longer be funded by display advertising that has already moved to TV and the Internet because that's where the audiences are.

There are already local mini online publications that focus on neighbourhoods such as the Oak Bay Local.

Not Everything is Bad

A preliminary review of the bill would not be complete without referencing one positive, namely a prohibition on discrimination, preference and disadvantage. Section 51 states:

 

In relation to news content that is produced primarily for the Canadian news marketplace by a news outlet operated by an eligible news business and that is made available by a digital news intermediary, the operator of the intermediary is prohibited from acting in any way that (a) unjustly discriminates against the business; (b) gives undue or unreasonable preference to any individual or entity, including itself; or (c) subjects the business to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage.
That is an excellent starting point for addressing the actual concerns of the platforms and news media.
— Michael Geist

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Bill C-26: Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act

An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts
— Bill C-26

While the intention of Bill C-26 is probably critical to protecting the security of Canada, the use of secrecy and non-transparency place both the Canadian public and telecommunications agencies at risk.

Cybersecurity cannot thrive on secretive and shadowy government edicts. The government must amend its legislation to ensure its activities comport with Canada's democratic values and the norms of transparency and accountability.
— The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto's Munk School
As written, Bill C-26 is designed as the government's spying wish list. Canadians deserve better than this half-baked legislation.
— OpenMedia

MPs are debating key provisions in cybersecurity bill C-26. Unless ordinary people like you speak up and demand rights-respecting amendments – C-26 is going to be drowned out by a partisan tug-a-war between parties.

We need as many people as possible emailing their MPs from across political parties. Share this campaign with everyone you know.

Cybersecurity Bill C-26 claims to improve our safety — but lacks ANY of the public transparency and safeguards we depend on to protect our fundamental rights.

 

People in Canada shouldn't have to sacrifice our fundamental rights for the strong cybersecurity protections that we deserve. Email your MP to fix C-26 with appropriate, rights-protecting amendments.
— OpenMedia
New cybersecurity protections are needed to protect Canada's critical infrastructure — but must be balanced with appropriate safeguards to prevent their abuse and misuse. We rely on access to essential services, like the Internet, to participate in democratic life; Canada can't afford prolonged attacks or Internet outages. While the new cybersecurity elements of Bill C-26 are designed to safeguard essential services better – like our access to the Internet – as drafted, they lack crucial provisions that promote public transparency, accountability, and oversight.
  • Bill C-26 empowers government to break into our private communications at the ISP level.
  • Bill C-26 forces ISPs into new information-sharing arrangements with Canada's spy agencies.
  • Bill C-26 continues to allow a government minister to order telcos to do anything they believe necessary for national security – and keep the order PERMANENTLY secret.
There's no reason why we can't have cybersecurity protections alongside the essential privacy and due process protections that allow us to participate in democratic life.
— OpenMedia

Bill C-26 Resources

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Bill C-27: The Digital Charter Implementation Act

An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts. Short title: Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
— Bill C-27

Bill C-27 aims to regulate not only privacy but also artificial intelligence (AI) via the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act.

While legislation related to consumer privacy seems an outlier in a discussion about Internet legislation, Bill C-27 will affect the future of the Internet in Canada because it is very difficult to separate the issues of consumer privacy, personal information and data, never mind artificial intelligence which is being embedded into both the software and online services faster than most people comprehend, including legislators.

The government's push to pass controversial AI regulations, which many view as prioritizing industry interests over consumer rights, is also holding up essential privacy reform.

 

Many Canadians rightly want regulations on AI. But the government skipped basic consultations on AIDA, and has repeatedly rewritten the bill even as it sits at committee, leading to chaos. As committee's consideration of AIDA amendments has not yet even started, keeping AIDA linked to privacy threatens to doom both parts of Bill C-27, meaning we risk ending up with neither meaningful privacy protections nor adequate AI regulations. This will leave us Canadians vulnerable and unprotected when we deserve so much better!
— OpenMedia

The Privacy Provisions

Bill C-27 is an attempt to update the privacy laws in Canada including replacing current protections. It would repeal Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPTA) and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).

Make Our Privacy Laws Work for You

 

21st century government privacy laws now! Sign the petition.

 

When it comes to privacy, Canada's government doesn't want to play by the rules. They're passing private sector privacy reform Bill C-27, but totally ignoring urgently needed reforms to the Privacy Act — the rules that govern how THEY respect our privacy!

 

In the meantime, we're suffering careless data breaches and shady information sharing from one public agency after another, because they know our privacy laws won't penalize their mistakes.

 

In today's digital age, personal information is collected, shared, and used as currency – by companies AND by governments. Now more than ever it's important that our laws keep up to protect us from changing technology. Tell our government: it's time to update and strengthen the Privacy Act so our laws start defending us from THEM.
— OpenMedia

While working on revisions for Canada's privacy laws, industry concerns were addressed rather than those of citizens or privacy advocates. That's like letting the fox design henhouse security.

Currently, companies that operate in Canada don't face significant repercussions for breaking our privacy laws. When fines for privacy violations were introduced in the European Union under their General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), companies began adjusting their business practices in order to comply with the new laws, and to avoid the potential fines.

 

But can we expect the same thing to happen in Canada? Maybe not. Canada's Bill C-27 will introduce weaker privacy protections than the EU's GDPR…and the fines will be watered down through the creation of a new tribunal slowing down the whole process.
— OpenMedia
The predecessor to Bill C-27…was condemned by former privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien as a “step backward” for privacy in Canada. Bill C-27 contains improvements…the government has listened to some concerns. However, it has clearly listened more to the concerns of industry. Human rights still take a back seat to commercial interests.

 

Privacy by design and by default are absent from the bill, which still does not cover the growing exploitation of personal data by political parties.

 

The exception for use of personal information without knowledge or consent for “socially beneficially purposes” still has major holes and scant attention is paid to the flows of personal data across Canada's borders.
— Toronto Star

The Privacy Commissioner then offered some encouragement and suggestions for improvement.

The OPC is encouraged by the introduction of Bill C-27 which is a recognition by the Government that Canadians need and expect modernized privacy laws that support innovation and enable Canadians to enjoy the many benefits of technology with the reassurance that their personal information will be protected.

 

Canadians should not have to choose between their participation in the digital economy and their fundamental rights.
— Privacy Commissioner of Canada

The Privacy Commissioner then offered 15 recommendations to improve the protections to consumers offered by Bill C-27 in an email to the chair of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology dated April 26, 2023:

  1. Recognize privacy as a fundamental right.
  2. Protect children's privacy and the best interests of the child.
  3. Limit organizations' collection, use and disclosure of personal information to specific and explicit purposes that take into account the relevant context.
  4. Expand the list of violations qualifying for financial penalties to include, at a minimum, appropriate purposes violations.
  5. Provide a right to disposal of personal information even when a retention policy is in place.
  6. Create a culture of privacy by requiring organizations to build privacy into the design of products and services and to conduct privacy impact assessments for high-risk initiatives.
  7. Strengthen the framework for be-identified and anonymized information.
  8. Require organizations to explain, on request, all predictions, recommendations, decisions and profiling made using automated decision systems.
  9. Limit the government's ability to make exceptions to the law by way of regulations.
  10. Provide that the exception for disclosure of personal information without consent for research purposes only applies to scholarly research.
  11. Allow individuals to use authorized representatives to help advance their privacy rights.
  12. Provide greater flexibility in the use of voluntary compliance agreements to help resolve matters without the need for more adversarial processes.
  13. Make the complaints process more expeditious and economical by streamlining the review of the Commissioner's decisions.
  14. Amend timelines to ensure that the privacy protection regime is accessible and effective.

Artificial Intelligence and Data Act

Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) was added to Bill C-27, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act.

The urgency was prompted by the speed at which AI is developing and becoming embedded into our systems without regulatory oversight. Companies like Microsoft and Meta have changed their agreements to protect themselves while scooping material to train their AI which leave consumers without protection if their data is misused.

However, not only was it bad to embed AI into pending consumer protection legislation, but the government seems to have once again listened to the demands of industry and ignored the recommendations of individuals and citizen-based privacy organizations. Like so many issues, the government seems determined to ignore public concerns.

There are significant issues with the 38 pages of last-minute changes to the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) released AFTER the public consultations were completed.

[O]ver 25 leading civil society organizations, experts, and academics released an open letter to the House of Commons Industry Committee, urging them to hit the reset button and fully scrutinize the government's controversial Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).

 

They recommend a full public consultation and redrafting of AIDA, starting with splitting AIDA from the other parts of Bill C-27, which deal with unrelated privacy matters, so that it can be subject to the careful democratic scrutiny it requires.

 

Highlighting what they describe as ISED's mishandling of "a process biased heavily toward narrow industry interests", the signatories call on MPs to ensure that any future public consultation is not stewarded exclusively by ISED.

 

The call comes two weeks after Industry, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) Minister François-Philippe Champagne published a beefy, 38-page package of proposed amendments to AIDA, rivaling in size the text of the original bill, and fundamentally altering its shape and implications.
— OpenMedia

AI regulation is not a simple process. Hurrying it through in the manner the Canadian government did is a red flag. Here's what OpenMedia says:

The government is currently debating Bill C-27 — a privacy reform bill that's somehow ALSO Canada's first AI regulatory bill — and might be our only AI regulation for YEARS!

 

Why the rush? Industry wants free rein to experiment with AI on us, right NOW. They're pressuring the government to pass a half-finished bill — NOT to take their time to hear from ALL Canadians and thoroughly protect our rights.

 

Regulating AI RIGHT is more important than rushing this bill through.

 

Why do we have two monumental pieces of legislation baked into one bill? Good question, one without a clear answer from our government.

 

The sneaky, secret reason? Since ChatGPT, Dall-E and all the other 'generative' AI techs started rolling out, AI industry stakeholders in Canada are demanding a loose bill with a light touch. The goal? Not so much regulating AI well; instead, they want plenty of legally permitted room to experiment on Canadians, our data, and our rights.

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Bill C-51: The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Department of Justice Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act.

Bill C-51 Should Be Repealed, Not Amended

Trudeau promised to amend the controversial and Draconian anti-terrorist Bill C-51.

Trudeau vowed to amend the "problematic elements" of the law, rather than simply repeal the legislation, noted Snowden. "Because he's afraid of being politically attacked on the basis of being soft on terrorism, regardless of whether or not this law actually helps prevent any terrorist attacks," he said. "This is just the way the politics of fear work."
— Edward Snowden

Criticisms

The Bill makes 6 broad changes to national security, anti-terrorism, and privacy law:
  1. It creates a new terrorism offence that criminalizes knowingly advocating or promoting "terrorism offences in general" while aware of the possibility that someone else "may" commit such an offence;
  2. It allows the preventive arrest and detention of a person if it is "likely" to prevent a terrorist activity that a "peace officer" reasonably believes "may" be carried out;
  3. It creates the new concept of "terrorist propaganda" and allows a judge to order the deletion of such material from the internet;
  4. It gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) the power to take measures to reduce "threats to the security of Canada", even if doing so would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the "Charter") or other Canadian law;
  5. It allows government institutions to share information with each other about "activities that undermine the security of Canada"; and
  6. It codifies the Minister's ability to put Canadians on a "no-fly list".
  7. — CCLA

The CCLA examination of Bill C-51 has other more specific concerns:

  • Free speech will be "chilled" because the offence is vague and overbroad.
  • The offence undermines anti-terrorism efforts.
  • The offence is unnecessary.
  • The offence applies to private conversations and may lead to increased surveillance.
  • There is a low standard for using preventive powers and an extended period of preventive detention.
  • A low standard for preventive powers may lead to religious and ethnic profiling.
  • The definition of terrorist propaganda is too broad because it references the new vague and overbroad speech offence.
  • Without an effective and independent self-initiated review body, judicial oversight in the Bill may be circumvented.
  • Customs officials may have difficulty understanding what material should be seized as terrorist propaganda.
  • The Bill radically and unnecessarily changes the nature of CSIS without changing its broad mandate.
  • CSIS.s power to "reduce" threats is too broad and may lead to countless Charter violations.
  • The new warrant procedure fundamentally misunderstands the Canadian constitutional system by allowing judges to pre-authorize violations of any Charter right.
  • There will be very little, if any, effective defence of the rights of people affected by warrants because the proceedings are secret.
  • CSIS.s new powers may make terrorism prosecutions more difficult or even impossible.
  • Oversight and review mechanisms do not accompany the significant increase in CSIS.s powers.
  • Allowing government institutions to share information about "activities that undermine the security of Canada" is a very broad standard and a radical departure from conventional understandings of privacy.
  • There are no internal or external safeguards to ensure reliability and proper relevance of the information that is shared, which may seriously endanger or cause major difficulties for Canadians.
  • The secretive process, lack of independent review, and government immunity from civil liability may lead to unfettered information sharing.
  • There is a very low standard to be put on the no-fly list but a high standard to be taken off.
  • The procedure for appealing the Minister.s decisions violates a Charter right.
  • — CCLA

I strongly recommend reading the entire Understanding Bill C-51 in Canada: The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015 to understand these criticisms in context.

Bill C-51 makes it easier for police to access information and to defeat encryption.

It allows for the sharing of entire databases with CSIS and the RCMP without cause:

The bar is so low that effectively “having a look around just in case” is sufficient justification for sharing massive amounts of information under the Act.
— BCCLA

Provisions Unrelated to Terrorism

A number of the provisions of Bill C-51 are clearly obsolete or otherwise don't belong in a bill aimed at fighting terrorism because they apply to common criminal activity rather than terrorism or a threat to national security.

A lot of what classifies as terrorism in the political context — individuals that the news calls terrorist — are really common criminals. But they do not constitute the kind of super criminal threat that is represented by our terrorism legislation.
— Edward Snowden
Provisions that have been found to be unconstitutional by the courts should no longer be enforced. However, they remain in the Criminal Code until Parliament amends or repeals them. This legislation promotes clarity in the law and would help to avoid confusion and errors by ensuring that the laws on paper reflect the laws in force.

 

Repealing provisions that are very similar to those found unconstitutional by the courts would help to avoid expensive, time-consuming litigation to achieve the same result and may prevent court delays. It recognizes the Government's responsibility for aligning the law with the requirements of the Charter.
— Department of Justice

The government's continued attacks on legitimate gun owners (farmers and hunters) while simultaneously ignoring the use of illegal weapons by criminals (Canada's “catch-and-release” justice) is concerning.

Mohammed Majidpour of Vancouver had been convicted 30 times for such offences as assault with a weapon and uttering threats but was still released on bail when arrested for assaulting a woman with a pole in September 2022. He's been released and arrested several times since. This guy gets out before the arresting officer finishes typing the report.
— National Post

The undeniable conclusion is that criminal attacks on civilians are not the reason for gun control. Rather, it is the protection of the political class.

Obsolete & Irrelevant Laws

The proposed legislation would repeal several Criminal Code offences that were enacted many years ago, but that are no longer relevant or required today, including:
  • Challenging someone to a duel (section 71);
  • Advertising a reward for the return of stolen property “no questions asked” (section 143);
  • Possessing, printing, distributing or publishing crime comics (paragraph 163(1)(b));
  • Publishing blasphemous libel(section 296);
  • Fraudulently pretending to practise witchcraft (section 365); and,
  • Issuing trading stamps (section 427).

The proposed legislation would also repeal other offences that are needlessly specific and deal with conduct that, if necessary, could be addressed effectively by other Criminal Code provisions. For example, the following offences would be repealed because the conduct they target could be addressed using other fraud provisions:

  • Impersonating someone during a university exam (section 404); and,
  • Falsely representing goods as having been made by a person holding a royal warrant (section 413).
  • — Department of Justice

Bill C-51 makes it easier for police to access information and to defeat encryption.

It allows for the sharing of entire databases with CSIS and the RCMP without cause:

The bar is so low that effectively “having a look around just in case” is sufficient justification for sharing massive amounts of information under the Act.
— BCCLA

Learning More

Learn more about the need to repeal Bill C-51 including issues related to unregulated surveillance.

Bill C-63: The Online Harms Act

Fix Online Harms, But Respect Our Rights!

Some aspects of the failed Bill C-63 were troubling, but there were good parts too.

Yes to Safety; no to censorship - pass sensible online harms legislation.

You don't have to choose between a better, safer Internet, and one that respects your privacy and expression.

 

Last year, the government promised to separate the good parts of Online Harms Bill C-63 from the ones that could hurt our rights — but that promise died when Parliament fell in January 2025.1 There's a huge risk our new government will either abandon the good work done to improve that legislation, or just ignore our online safety altogether. But we don't have to stand for either.

 

Tell your MP: it's time to get online safety right. Ask our new government to bring back the essential online protections in Parts 1 and 4 of Bill C-63, WITHOUT any measures that limit our online privacy or expression.
— OpenMedia

Demand rights-respecting harms regulation now!

 

The Failed Bill C-63 Online Harms Act

An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts
— Bill C-63

Bill C-63 died when Parliament fell in January 2025. Let's have legislation that keeps the good parts while removing the parts of Bill C-64 that included censorship rather than protections.

The bill may address an issue that is widely regarded as essential, but once Canadian privacy and civil liberties had the opportunity to review the fine print in the bill, many came away concerned.
— Michael Geist
Online Harms legislation…could be the worst yet. Don't forget — the government's first proposal for it was designed by and for CSIS and the RCMP, giving them an unlimited surveillance web over every Canadian on online platforms — and they would have passed it into law, had an overwhelming volume of citizens and experts not spoken up demanding a reconsideration.
— OpenMedia
They said it couldn't be done. But last week…the government finally separated dangerously speech-chilling proposals — like life imprisonment for speech, or punishment with no criminal conviction — out of Online Harms Bill C-63!

What's now IN

  • Age-appropriate design that lets young Canadians use online platforms safely;
  • Removal within 24 hours of child abuse material and adult material shared without consent — so-called "revenge porn";
  • Tools to empower YOU to get what you want from platforms, like easy ways to block other users, the right to appeal take downs of your content, and the right to speak to a human when you have a problem.
What's GONE
  • Criminal code changes that threatened life in prison for an act of speech;
  • A "pre-crime" proposal that proposed massive restrictions like home confinement or drug tests if a judge thinks you could be "at risk" of hateful speech;
  • An anonymous complaints system that would have Canadians file Human Rights Tribunal complaints against each other instead of blocking trolls and moving on.
What's left is a foundation of harm reduction principles Canadians can get behind, under this government and any future government. But C-63 is FAR from done, and there are lobbyists pushing hard to undermine the best and bring back the worst.
— OpenMedia

Redefining Hate Crimes

Why are the Liberals restoring amendments that restrict free speech by Canadians in a manner that will allow them to redefine hate crimes?

The justice minister of Canada has framed these amendments as a way to protect the vulnerable and hold individuals accountable for spreading hatred online. But let's be clear: there's a thin line between protecting individuals and infringing upon free speech. And that line is looking blurrier by the day in Canada. And when the government starts deciding what constitutes "hate speech," you have to start wondering: Who gets to draw that line? And based on what standards?
— Dan Knight
Bill C-63 doesn't just flirt with authoritarianism; it's a full-blown courtship, and it's dressed up in the finery of "progressive" values. This bill is about establishing the Digital Safety Commission of Canada — essentially, the thought police of the digital age. And let me tell you, nothing quite spells "independent" like a government-appointed bureaucracy, their pockets lined with the potential for bonuses, all for toeing the line of those wielding the gavel.
— Dan Knight

The Criteria is Suspect

A problem arises when hate speech is defined by what's acceptable to the government rather than what is dangerous to society. The criteria cannot be selective to political beliefs.

When an out-of-control leftist government (essentially a dictatorship) wants to curb free speech, you are on dangerous ground. Notice how the government has ignored months of militant Palestinian protests calling for genocide (“from the river to the sea”) while aggressively prosecuting members of the Trucker Convoy.

Indeed, you could not have asked for a starker contrast in protests than the Freedom Convoy and the Pro-Hamas Left — or a sharper contrast in how they have been treated by Canada's government. The truckers were met with draconian measures imposed by Trudeau — while he's used kid gloves on the pro-Palestinian protests.

 

But I wouldn't hold my breath for any real consequences, despite a new Canadian bill aimed at punishing "hate crimes." Bill C-63….

 

I'm no fan of this law — but we all know who it is meant to penalize, and it's not people chanting for the death of Jews. It's people who Trudeau considers his political enemies — people like the truckers who opposed his COVID-19 regime.
— Newsweek

The fact that the Canadian media has stayed silent about such contrasts demonstrates the dangers of a controlled media — the result of Trudeau's Bill C-18.

This government quickly passed Islamophobia legislation over a few incidents but said nothing as over 100 Christian churches were burned down across Canada other than to state “it was understandable.” After the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel they continued to trust unreliable resources in Gaza rather than support the only Western democracy in the Middle East.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists waged the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust — slaughtering babies, raping women, burning whole families alive, and taking hundreds of innocent civilians hostage. Since October 7, more than 1,200 Israelis have been killed. Terrorists are still holding 132 men, women, and children in captivity.
— American Jewish Committee
The question, as Europe has discovered, is whether law enforcement and political resolve will be sufficient to stuff an angry, Judeophobic genie back into a bottle most western governments blithely uncorked through their infatuation with multiculturalism, or in Quebec's case fixation on language, both of which, alas, necessitated a self-destructive indifference to the epidemiology of terrorism.
— National Post

Low Threshold; Excessive Investigative Powers

Privacy Lawyer David Fraser presents some significant concerns about the threshold for assessment and the excessive powers granted to investigators:

Bill C-51 makes it easier for police to access information and to defeat encryption.

It allows for the sharing of entire databases with CSIS and the RCMP without cause:

The bar is so low that effectively “having a look around just in case” is sufficient justification for sharing massive amounts of information under the Act.
— BCCLA
I think the thresholds for some of this are too low, resulting in removal by default. The new Digital Safety Commission has stunning and likely unconstitutional powers. As is often the case, there's too much left to the regulations.

The decision of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against Mayor Harold McQuaker and Emo Township councillors over their decision not to raise a Pride flag is a glaring example of political excess that could with Bill C-63's mechanisms.

Far from “going dark,” the amount of data available to policing agencies in Canada and abroad is at historic heights, making this truly the golden age of investigative surveillance.
— The Star

The fact that it offers to pay people to report their neighbours reeks of the sorts of propaganda control used by the Nazi Gestapo in World War 2.

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C-293: Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act

An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness
— Bill C-293

This private members bill — dubbed “the Vegan Act” — has already passed through the House of Commons and is presently awaiting passage by the Senate. The fact that it is barely known is of great concern.

One of the most alarming aspects of Bill C-293 is the discretionary power it would grant to officials to shut down agricultural facilities without clear, objective criteria. Such arbitrary actions could disrupt not only meat supply chains but also the wider agricultural operations linked to them, including feed production. This threatens to destabilize related sectors and could trigger cascading effects throughout the entire food system.

 

The bill represents an unprecedented governmental intrusion into personal dietary choices and market dynamics. A detailed examination of the bill does more than sow confusion about its intentions — it reveals a troubling spirit at its core.

 

Under this bill, public health officials could have the authority to close facilities they consider "high risk," such as meatpacking plants, during pandemics and even "mandate" the consumption of vegetable proteins by Canadians — measures that border on the absurd. It's hardly surprising that the private member who introduced Bill C-293 is Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who is known for his vegan lifestyle.
— Toronto Sun
This Bill allows the World Health Organization (WHO) to make agreements with Public Health directly, attempting to eliminate jurisdiction of the courts and the constitution. It allows Public Health control over communications infrastructure, instituting interlinking surveillance.

 

Once enacted, C-293 imposes mandatory medical treatments, explicitly controls your personal autonomy, affecting your freedom of movement and privacy, can expropriate farms and other property and relocate rural and urban dwellers (to 15 minute cities), for absurd reasons like 'deforestation increases the risk of pandemics.' Even with the absurd grants of power C-293 still gives more powers 'as appropriate,' not further defined.

 

No other bill represents such a clear threat to Canada and the rule of law given the complete absence of definitions of terms coupled with its comprehensive overreach into every aspect of life.
— Stop Bill C-293

The bill is overly broad and poorly defined. It threatens Canadian sovereignty by allowing WHO, an unelected body, to directly affect Public Health regulations.

Despite the failure of Bill C-293 to pass, the Liberal government went ahead and signed the WHO Pandemic Agreement. Canada is once again obligating itself to fund the third world while ignoring the desperate needs growing at home because of destructive Liberal DEI policies under the Trudeau administration.

This past weekend, the deadline passed for Canada to reject the World Health Organization (WHO) amendments to the International Health Regulations.

 

Canada did not reject these binding regulations, which would grant power to the WHO to influence Canada's public health response during global health crises.

 

Not only did Canada fail to reject these amendments, there was also no Parliamentary discussion surrounding these changes, which have potential implications for our national sovereignty and our ability to respond as we see fit in times of crisis.

 

Countries such as the USA and Italy have rejected these amendments to protect their national sovereignty.

 

Canada, however, has doubled down. Canada has not only accepted these bidding regulations but also appointed an interim Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, who is the Vice-Chair of the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework Advisory Group.
— Dr. Leslyn Lewis, MP July 21, 2025

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CanCon

When cable TV emerged in the 1990s, there were only so many channels and so many hours in the day available for scheduled programming.

Canadian content rules (CanCon) were put in place to ensure that Canadian TV wasn't overwhelmed with cheaper U.S. productions.

Bill C-11 imposes the twisted CanCon rules (which are based upon CAVCO CPTC certification) onto the Internet

The only beneficiaries are the big Canadian media companies and their overpriced cable packages.

Can You Identify CanCon?

The point of CanCon is to promote Canadian stories — but what stories are up to snuff, according to the government?

Your favourite movies and TV shows might not meet the official CanCon standards to be considered Canadian productions.

Take the quiz to find out if you can identify what qualifies as CanCon.

Find out which films and TV shows are certified “Canadian”?
Take the quiz!

CanCon — Not What You Think

This strict points system is choosy about which parts of a production count towards “Canadianness.”

The result? Content we'd all recognize as quintessentially Canadian slipping through the cracks.

Quality Not a Consideration

Unfortunately program quality was never part of the criteria. Schitt's Creek is one of the few exceptions.

Instead, CanCon rules recognized documentaries on the American Civil War and Ghandi, but not a program based upon The Handmaid's Tale by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

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Updated: October 30, 2025

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