RE: https://ottawa.place/@Cassandra/116682485584524974

Clause-by-clause on Bill #C22 at SECU starts in five hours (3:30 Eastern Canada). Televised. https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/SECU/meeting-41/notice

The committee has given itself three hours. Witnesses are senior people from CSIS, Justice, Public Safety and the RCMP. I would expect questions to these witnesses to be limited to things like what the bill changes and how it would operate. They are obviously not people who are inclined to identify problems at clause-by-clause when the House wants to rise for the summer and they want these surveillance powers themselves. But also procedurally: clause-by-clause is about the text of the bill, not new evidence.

But also again: opposition members will try to derail through procedure. Points of order, points of privilege, motions, voice votes, whatever. It will waste time but ultimately they don't have the numbers to overturn the chair's rulings, as incorrect as they may be. Majority government rules.

Zero percent chance the clerk will have his ringer on.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/SECU/meeting-41/notice

#FediLaw #CanPoli

"Bill C-22 builds the blanket model of data retention that the European courts have consistently rejected, as it would require providers to retain, for up to a year, the date, time, duration, origin of communications, and location of the devices involved. The result is a surveillance map of the movements and communications practices of virtually all Canadians for a year, the very opposite of what recognizing privacy as a fundamental right envisions." From @mgeist.

https://mas.to/@mgeist/116691913037603373

#C22 #FediLaw #CanPoli

Michael Geist (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image As the AI strategy launches today, the disconnect is dizzying: my post on how the government cannot claim privacy as a fundamental right in the morning and then rush through mandatory metadata retention that overrides it in Bill C-22 in the afternoon. https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2026/06/new-privacy-rights-in-the-morning-mandatory-metadata-retention-in-the-afternoon-how-bill-c-22-undercuts-the-ai-strategy-before-it-launches/

mas.to

Do I want to inflict clause-by-clause on myself? It's a miserable experience at the best of times, trying to figure out what an amendment to a bill that amends an act actually does.

https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20260604/-1/45519

SECU Meeting No. 41

Meeting No. 41 SECU - Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security

Jenny Kwan proposes the first amendment, despite not being a regular member of the committee (because the NDP doesn't have enough MPs to merit a permanent spot).

And then immediately into a Conservative point of order on briefs that have yet to be distributed. The Liberal Chair evades a direct answer. A different Conservative asks if the (non-partisan) Clerk has a ballpark answer on how many briefs are outstanding. The Chair declines to let the Clerk take the mic.

Gross. So gross.

Some discussion of the difference between storing information on one’s phone versus the cloud. Negative a hundred points to the DoJ for assuming a hypothetical judge is necessarily a "he.”

Discussion of amendments getting slightly derailed because the witness didn't have copies of the amendments. Good thing we're rushing this shit.

The Bloc points out that the witnesses are specifically there from the pro-surveillance camp, not the privacy camp. Every answer from their perspective is “your proposed amendments to Bill C-22 as the government drafted it would make it harder for police.”

First voice vote fails (on an amendment apparently recommended by the Privacy Commissioner). 6 no, 5 yes. C'est comme ça.

Conservative echoing the Bloc that the witnesses are here to "give more access to law enforcement," not to balance that with Canadians' Charter right to privacy.

I think we're still (after an hour and a half) on clause 4. The bill has 48 clauses. The most controversial is 41. Seems unlikely they'll get through by 6:30.

"So far you've been very good at giving me clear answers" says the Liberal MP to the witness who agreed with his hypothetical about Karla Homolka getting photographs of abuse developed at a photo store decades ago.
100% of government witnesses agree: they could not possibly speculate on why the Privacy Commissioner recommended amending Bill C-22.
Conservatives looking to introduce a motion to invite the privacy commissioner. The (Liberal) Chair said they're not allowed, because of a previous decision of the committee, which he declined to pinpoint. The (non-partisan) Clerk whose literal job is procedure made what looked to me like a skeptical face and moved out of frame.
Okay, that's enough for me for now. They for sure won't be done by 6:30 but I don't know if they'll keep going or come back another day.

Sunday morning, currently no indication on the SECU website of when the next clause-by-clause meeting on #C22 will be held (parl.ca/secu). (Probably Tuesday.)

The most recent meeting for which there are published minutes and a transcript is May 7, a month ago. This means they're doing clause-by-clause without minutes, without transcripts, and without submitted briefs and objections.

I'm musing about a letter to whatever Senate Committee ends up studying this, pointing out that they don't have to legitimize this farce. They can, this chamber of sober second thought, insist on a bare minimum Parliamentary standard of democracy and respect for official languages and Charter rights. Apparently it's as easy as splitting the bill.

What fun that would be for historians, if the independent senators declined to endorse a police state. At the very least they could slow it down a bit.

Ah, the blessing of having friends you can send questions to like "are you able to spit up examples of the Senate splitting a bill"?

Yup! C-103 from 1998 (the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency / Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation) and C-10 from 2002 (firearms / cruelty to animals).

Procedurally it looks like a motion that happens when the bill gets referred from the Senate to committee for study. It could be that if the bill gets sent to committee whole then a motion to split the bill *at* committee would be considered out of order. So that helps establish timeline.

If anybody wants to watch FOUR hours of clause-by-clause on Bill C-22 today: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/SECU
SECU - Home - House of Commons of Canada

The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security reviews legislation policies, programs and expenditure plans of government departments and agencies responsible for public safety and national security, policing and law enforcement, corrections and conditional release of federal offenders, emergency management, crime prevention and the protection of Canada's borders.

I didn't inflict any more of clause-by-clause of Bill C-22 on myself yesterday but I just checked out the last few minutes of the televised meeting and it looks like they're up to clause 6 (of 40 something). So that's dragging on.

You know, if C-22 is stuck at parl.ca/SECU for a while (on a Liberal subamendment to an amendment to clause 6 of 40-some), now might be a good time to email additional objections to the clerk (officially non-partisan) and chair (extremely partisan, majority rules). Demand information, assert rights, gum up their progress.

Ask how many documents the majority government, demonstrably itching for a police state, has withheld from the Parliamentarians who are currently pro-privacy. Ask for the complete list (surely tracked somewhere), including dates submitted and published. (I believe proposed amendments were due June 1.)

Confirm that the explanation for the delay is that the Liberal majority government is underfunding human translation services? And then using its professed deep belief in official languages to withhold expert evidence and mass public opposition from non-government members of the committee? While insisting that clause-by-clause happen in the absence of written documentation?

I only watched the last few minutes of last night's broadcast, but what I saw was a Liberal subamendment where even the bilingual lawyer mouthpiece for it stumbled over the alinéas.

You cannot make good law without a clear written record of evidence.

Regardless of what the chair rules, this *is* a breach of privilege, not just for members but also for the public itself. MPs are supposed to be representing us. Their legitimacy comes from us. Even if the opposition loses the vote on the numbers every time, we can tell the chair he is wrong. We can insist that our elected representatives respect democratic rights, official language rights, and privacy rights. I would argue the non-partisan clerk owes a duty to the public too.

They are misusing official languages rights to expedite the violation of privacy rights. We can say no to this.

The Clerk of parl.ca/SECU acknowledged receipt of my email and failed to engage with any of the substance.

This is unsurprising, since "non-partisan" often gets interpreted as "required to uphold a bad system" (as opposed to "truthful no matter who looks bad as a result").

Is it that a Parliamentary committee does not, as a matter of course, track correspondence? Are there not systems in place for that?

Or, is it that the Clerk thinks Canadians aren't entitled to know who submitted information (opposition) that has been withheld on the pretext of respect for official languages while the government bulldozes the law?

Neither response is great when your actual job is democracy.

#C22 #CanPoli #FediLaw

There's also been some weirdness with the Privacy Commissioner's brief.

When I wrote to the clerk, it was listed under Information > Briefs (https://www.ourcommons.ca/committees/en/SECU/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=13454852) as having been posted on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 4:46 p.m., except there was no name attached to the link to the brief. Meaning, instead of "Privacy Commissioner" being the name above "Brief," it said nothing. This hid it from ctrl-f finding.

I asked the Clerk to fix it, meaning add the name to the website (in both languages). Now there's no brief posted Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 4:46 pm. That seems odd.

You *can* read a brief from the Privacy Commissioner, still dated May 21, 2026, but now posted on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 at 4:09 p.m., again without attribution.

Also posted without attribution yesterday, a document dated April 16, 2026, from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, pointing out quite politely that C-22 fails to provide for "timely and effective independent review," making it inconsistent with NSIRA's mandate. The French version is dated 16 avril 2026. So this critique with suggested written amendments was submitted bilingually weeks before committee study began and published nine days after proposed amendments were due?

SECU - Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access

@Paulatics Hey. I wonder if you would be open to the idea, if it comes to that, of introducing a motion to split Bill C-22 when it arrives in the Senate, in the hopes that the most problematic aspects of it will get voted down / returned to the House.

There's some stuff happening during committee study at SECU that's pretty appalling in a democracy. I've been posting a lot about it (above if you want to scroll). I could also provide the information in some other format if you prefer.

Basically I'm hoping the Senate will decline to be complicit in this.

I don't want to wait until C-22 has been referred to whichever committee (Legal? TRCM? SECD?) to flag it: it could be too late then, if second reading endorses the principle.

Clause by clause meetings, C-22

Thursday, June 4, 2026, 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026, 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 11, 2026, 3:30 p.m. to 11:59 p.m.

Today's witnesses "to be determined."

https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/45-1/SECU/meeting-43/notice

Notice of Meeting - SECU (45-1) - No. 43 - House of Commons of Canada

Notice of Meeting - SECU (45-1) - No. 43 - House of Commons of Canada

Quick dip in to clause-by-clause on C-22. Apparently they're 2.5 hours into the study of a single amendment. Good job, objectors.

Conservatives forcing police officers to explain different ways they pursue cases if a judge says "no, you're not entitled to that information."

Steps include: talking to more people, including colleagues, lawyers, and witnesses. So onerous, investigating.

I have no clue what the subamendment actually is. That shit's not written down anywhere the public can view it.

Jenny Kwan's petition against C-22 (https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7416) seems very slow to load at the moment. I wonder if there's a burst of signatures during SECU meetings.

(Over 12,500 last time I checked.)

Thing that just happened: a Liberal complained on the record about not getting paid enough to listen to officials explain the legal changes they're making.

A different Liberal, trying to argue the Conservatives are off-topic: "Once again, the bill has nothing to do with the privacy of people and their personal information."

The thing is that to understand what's going on, you need to understand:

1. the current state of the law
2. the changes the bill would make to the law
3. the changes the amendment would make to the bill
4. the changes the subamendment would make to the amendment.

It's not like a track changes document. It's a challenge to grasp even with good paperwork (and good faith).

Looks like SECU didn't get through clause-by-clause on Bill #C22 yesterday. Another marathon meeting is scheduled for the 16th. https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/SECU/meeting-44/notice

The petition opposed is now up over 13,500 Canadians. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7416

48 briefs have now been posted on the website, including the Privacy Commissioner, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and many, many more. https://www.ourcommons.ca/committees/en/SECU/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=13454852

Notice of Meeting - SECU (45-1) - No. 44 - House of Commons of Canada

Notice of Meeting - SECU (45-1) - No. 44 - House of Commons of Canada

Oh, fun, I scared them enough to get a multi-paragraph email from the Clerk. Many things unaddressed, including the affront to democracy, but including the following assurance re: the brief from the Privacy Commissioner, which experienced a lengthy "technical issue" re: attribution: "The document was never removed from the website."

Apparently I missed some shenanigans at SECU, so I'm checking out the last few minutes.

So far it's a Conservative MP asking what sound like quite reasonable questions about changes to the law, specifically why they're lowering certain legal standards, contrary to judicial rulings on police powers in vague cases, like what cases specifically are they hoping to catch here? It is always surreal to hear Conservatives being the ones arguing for less police surveillance.

Edit: I think SECU's just suspended for a vote in the house on a different bill. Not so much shenanigans.

Ah, the shenanigans were in the House. See Government Business, No. 13, disposing of further discussion at clause-by-clause and report stage.

https://mastodon.social/@OpenMediaOrg/116760366128760193

I have learned, from watching Jenny Kwan at the last few minutes of SECU last night, that what the majority Liberal government is doing right now to silence debate is called a guillotine motion.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/liberals-pull-out-guillotine-motion-to-shut-down-debate-on-police-search-powers-bill

#C22 #Ottawa #CanPoli #FediLaw

Liberals pull out 'guillotine' motion to shut down debate on police search powers bill

The majority Liberal government is pulling out the "guillotine" for one of its most contentious pieces of legislation.

nationalpost

The government's compromise position: "We're still going to spy on you, violating Canadians' privacy rights while making technology less safe, but we'll only make tech companies store the data for six months."

#C22 #Ottawa #CanPoli #FediLaw

https://ottawa.place/@the5thColumnist/116768738223926689

Richard W. Woodley 🇨🇦🌹🚴‍♂️ (@[email protected])

Token Tweaking ? https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/how-the-carney-government-will-scale-back-its-police-powers-bill-sources/article_597820b9-9a88-4737-8f56-0d0383bf3e9e.html?source=newsletter

ottawa.place

Does anyone happen to know what "recognized international technical standards" describe what is meant by a "credible" risk that an unauthorized person could access secure information?

#CanPoli #FediLaw

@OpenMediaOrg @mgeist

@Cassandra and how easy is it to quietly change that six months later

@Cassandra

", the bill has nothing to do with the privacy of people and their personal information."

Wow When they are done for the day, they're going to need heavy duty equipment to clear the room of bullshit

@TrueNorthSpice Some people in the room laughed at it. What a talking point.
@Cassandra I'm glad they were loudly ridiculed.
Talk about lying!

@Cassandra

Making such a bald faced lie tells me they are running out of arguments and it smacks of desperation

@Cassandra i got "connection timed out"
@forestine I choose to interpret that as a good sign.
@Cassandra @forestine i don’t want to burst your bubble but there were lots of issues with the HoC’s websites last week, so it’s not only this petition. Nothing has officially been shared but we low-tankers suspect a DDOS attack…
@Cassandra 217k and you can't fucking listen? Fuck outta here...

@Paulatics The basic synopsis is:

1. Government underfunds human translation services.

2. Government tries to pass authoritarian law, opposed by privacy experts, tech companies, and many, many regular Canadians (Bill C-22).

3. Government uses fact of official language rights / obligations plus "delays at translation" to withhold, from members of the committee / the public, submitted evidence of opposition / necessary amendments while insisting on expediting the study of the bill.

That, in my opinion, is undemocratic. It certainly isn't respect for official languages or the democratic process. It would be cool if the Senate would refuse to endorse this way of proceeding.

(If you choose to look at the briefs submitted, note that amendments for clause-by-clause were due on June 1: https://www.ourcommons.ca/committees/en/SECU/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=13454852)

SECU - Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access

@Cassandra Anddd they just cut off debate and public lawful access to any new amendments made just to ram the bill through a house vote.

What to do now? :(

@lra007_ Okay, what I understand happened is that the lights started flashing in the committee room, which means there is a vote in the chamber, which per parl.ca is about Bill C-26, which looks budget-y. So the committee is suspending its meeting on C-22 to go vote in the House on C-26.

(I guess the vote before they suspended was they'd need unanimous consent for that MP to keep speaking while the lights were flashing (which IIRC could be half an hour). Presumably he will be the first speaker when they resume.)

@Cassandra I'm really hoping you're right, this shit got me nervousss 😭
@lra007_ No, I was just responding to what happened at the meeting. I hadn't seen this motion. This is fucked up.
@Cassandra Oh!!.... maybe we are a little cooked then
@lra007_ Thanks for flagging that for me.
@Cassandra I serve on both the Legal committee and the Transport and Communications committee. No sense yet of where the bill will end up.

@Paulatics FYI on Bill C-22, there is more democratically appalling stuff happening in the House of Commons. The government is now short-cutting clause-by-clause debate after withholding expert evidence from members and the public.

I'm really hoping you and the Senate will object to this abuse of process.

(Perhaps by a motion to split the bill before it gets sent to committee, if it is too late after that.)

https://mastodon.social/@OpenMediaOrg/116760366128760193

@Cassandra @Paulatics I just read about this and it's utterly appalling.

Clearly many people have problems with it. Solution? Drive it through without any care.

I'll write my MP about, for what it's worth.

@Cassandra Do you have a reference to them wanting to bypass the Translation Bureau will all of this stuff? I tried to find it, but kinda got lost.

(It's totally fine if you can't!)

@stephanie I haven't heard them say they want to bypass the Translation Bureau. I have heard them say they can't share information because of delays at Translation Bureau. Underfunding it and then using it as an excuse.

Edit: I first learned about it at this meeting: https://ottawa.place/@Cassandra/116682281755924824

🔥Cassandra🔥 (@[email protected])

Shenanigans. Delays in documents getting distributed because translation is backed up and even documents that are submitted in both languages require "review" before being shared. So, briefs that have been submitted to committee have not yet been shared with committee. But: the (Liberal) chair’s deadline for members to submit amendments to Bill C-22 was yesterday because they want to do clause-by-clause on Thursday. Such respect for the legislative process.

ottawa.place
@Cassandra We have a townhall next week.. not looking forward to that
@Cassandra @stephanie Classic conservative strategy.
@Cassandra I tuned in. There was in-depth discussion about different evidentiary standards that I'm too ignorant to fully grasp. They declined to hear from DDG and Nord VPN as well, I think

@cargot_robbie Reasonable grounds to suspect versus reasonable grounds to believe? It's... yeah. A distinction in law.

I would say it's not unusual to decline to hear from more witnesses when they've reached clause-by-clause already. (The witnesses that are at the table now are supposed to help with understanding the bill, not give new evidence.)

@Cassandra ah that makes sense about the witnesses then. Caputo kept referencing prima fascie (sp?) which is what really lost me. They did some explaining of RG To Suspect vs RG To Believe, but if they ever explained that one I must have missed it.

I gathered enough to know that the bill as written adopted quite a low standard of evidence for Use Of Service Confirmations, and they debated raising it. I can't recall if that amendment was adopted 🥱☕

@cargot_robbie Huh. In case it's helpful, a law school explains: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/prima_facie

It's not immediately apparent to me why that would be a topic of discussion yesterday.

On suspect vs. believe, this looks promising: https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2016CanLIIDocs120

prima facie

LII / Legal Information Institute
@Cassandra I'm wondering if I'm just missing it, but is there a link to the broadcast on that page? It has the info for the building but I can't seem to find a link for viewing, at least not yet
@cargot_robbie I think it gets posted to the committee page once it starts, but here's another option: https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20260609/-1/45571
SECU Meeting No. 42

Meeting No. 42 SECU - Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security

@Cassandra I wondered if it would appear once the meeting starts. I'll keep an eye out for that, but thanks for the direct link just in case 💖✨
@Cassandra The link did indeed show up on the first page! I also took the opportunity to highlight bill C-22 to a bunch of gen AI critics just now
@Cassandra on the offchance @Paulatics hasn't considered this