CIRCLE WITH A DOT

Bill C-22 Creates New Surveillance Powers. The Privacy Commissioner Has No Role in Overseeing Any of Them.

Bill C-22 Creates New Surveillance Powers. The Privacy Commissioner Has No Role in Overseeing Any of Them.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is the federal body designed specifically to audit how privacy-affecting government and private-sector practices are conducted. Every recent lawful-access bill in Canada — Bill C-30 (Toews, 2012), Bill C-2 (Strong Borders Act, 2025) — included some statutory role for the OPC in the regime being created. Bill C-22 (Lawful Access Act, 2026) does not. The OPC has no audit role over the bill's one-year metadata-retention requirement, no review role over the Public Safety Minister's secret capability orders, and no complaint jurisdiction over the new regime. The bill instead points to the Intelligence Commissioner as the review body for ministerial orders — a different review body with a different scope. This article walks through what changed between the predecessors and the current bill, and what an OPC role could look like as an amendment.

(parliamentaudit.ca)

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Bill C-22 Doesn't Read Your Texts. It Doesn't Have To.

Bill C-22 Doesn't Read Your Texts. It Doesn't Have To.

Bill C-22 (Lawful Access Act, 2026) does not require police to read the content of your communications. It requires "core providers" to retain metadata — who you contacted, when, where, on which device — for one year, on every Canadian. Two former directors of the U.S. National Security Agency have been on record since 2014 that metadata is operationally equivalent-to or more useful than content for surveillance. A Stanford study found that five days of phone metadata is sufficient to identify medical conditions, religious affiliation, and sexual relationships. This article walks through what one year of that data reveals about an ordinary person — not as accusation, but as illustration of what becomes knowable about every Canadian under the bill as drafted.

(parliamentaudit.ca)

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Bill C-22 Is at Committee. Here Are the MPs Who Put It There — And How to Reach Them.

Bill C-22 Is at Committee. Here Are the MPs Who Put It There — And How to Reach Them.

On April 20, 2026, the House of Commons passed Bill C-22 (Lawful Access Act, 2026) at second reading. The bill is now at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU), which is the last realistic stage for substantive amendments. This article catalogues the load-bearing Liberal MPs in C-22's path to passage — the bill's sponsor (Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree), three Cabinet members who spoke for the bill at second reading (Justice Minister Sean Fraser, Secretary of State for Combatting Crime Ruby Sahota, Parliamentary Secretary Patricia Lattanzio), the Government House Leader who scheduled the debate (Steven MacKinnon), and the seven Liberal members on SECU led by Chair Jean-Yves Duclos. Each MP's public role on C-22 is described and public-record contact information is included so constituents can reach their representatives. Parliament Audit takes no position on whether the bill should pass; we publish the record and the contact channel.

(parliamentaudit.ca)

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Bill C-22 Just Passed Second Reading. With a Liberal Majority, the Path to Royal Assent Is Now Mostly Clear.

Bill C-22 Just Passed Second Reading. With a Liberal Majority, the Path to Royal Assent Is Now Mostly Clear.

On April 20, 2026, the House of Commons passed Bill C-22 — the Lawful Access Act, 2026 — at second reading. The bill is now at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, the last stage where substantial amendments are realistic before the Liberal majority votes it through. The bill mandates one year of metadata retention by "core providers," authorizes the Public Safety Minister to issue secret capability orders to electronic service providers, and lowers the police access threshold for subscriber information from "reasonable grounds to believe" to "reasonable grounds to suspect." Opposition is from a wide coalition: academic privacy law, civil-society groups, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, technology firms including Meta and Apple, and the Department of Justice's own Charter statement, which is silent on the metadata-retention question. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has no statutory oversight role under the bill as drafted.

(parliamentaudit.ca)

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