June 16, 2026 — OpenMedia is condemning the federal
government’s decision today to block any committee debate of
Part 2 of Bill C-22, the most dangerous and widely
criticized portion of its lawful access legislation. The
government has chosen to silence scrutiny of and fixes to
powers that will compromise the security of every person in
Canada.
Part 2 of Bill C-22 enacts the proposed
Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act. It would
let the Minister of Public Safety issue secret orders
compelling apps, messaging services, and other providers to
build government access into their systems — orders that
come with mandatory, permanent gag rules and no meaningful
judicial check. It is structurally similar to the provisions
the UK attempted to use to secretly order Apple to strip
encryption from iCloud, and which led to the end of advanced
encryption for iCloud storage in the UK.
Companies and
experts have widely condemned this portion of Bill C-22.
Signal has said it will leave the Canadian market rather
than comply. Windscribe is preparing to move its
headquarters out of the country, and NordVPN has warned it
may follow. Apple and Meta have raised public alarms about
what the bill does to encryption and cybersecurity. The
Citizen Lab, Professor Michael Geist, the Canadian Chamber
of Commerce, the Cybersecurity Advisors Network, and a long
line of legal and security experts have all called for Part
2 to go back to the drawing board. Even the bill’s own
watchdog, the National Security and Intelligence Review
Agency, told the committee it lacks the access it would need
to oversee these new powers.
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Every one of those voices
was asking for more scrutiny of Part 2. Today the government
decided there will be none.
“This is exactly what
people warned would happen when this government cobbled
together a majority and seized control of Parliament’s
committees,” said Matt Hatfield, Executive
Director of OpenMedia. “They are using that power not to
build something, but to gag debate on the most reckless
surveillance powers Canada has seen in a generation. When
Signal, Apple, the Citizen Lab, VPN companies and dozens of
civil society and academic experts are all telling you to
slow down, shutting off the microphone is not governing —
it’s hiding from the consequences of your own faulty
legislation.”
“Canadians were told the government was
open to hearing amendments to get Bill C-22 right,”
continued Hatfield. Instead, the government
is forcing through a secret-order regime it cannot defend on
the merits, on an artificial deadline of its own making.
Part 2 should be split off and sent back, not rushed past
the public before the summer break.”
The government
has signalled it wants Bill C-22 passed before the House
rises on June 19. OpenMedia is calling on MPs of all parties
to refuse to advance Part 2 without full committee study,
and is urging people across Canada to contact their MP
before the House rises.
More than 10,000 Canadians
have written to their MPs to demand they reject Bill C-22
through OpenMedia’s campaign at
https://www.openmedia.org/StopC22.
About
OpenMedia
OpenMedia is a community-driven
organization that works to keep the internet open,
affordable, and surveillance-free. We represent a community
of more than 230,000 people across
Canada.
