Bill C-22 passes third reading after Liberals adopt measures to limit debate

Bill C-22, the proposed Canadian legislation that would give law enforcement more power to monitor and collect personal communications and data, has passed third reading and will move to the Senate as the House of Commons breaks for the summer a day early.

The Liberal government moved to limit debate on the Lawful Access Act earlier this week in an attempt to rush the bill through Parliament. The House was set to adjourn for the summer on Friday, but today passed through several bills, including C-22, and rose ahead of schedule.

“To have amendments rammed down our throats without debate, without discussion, is patently wrong.”

The motion forced the national security committee reviewing Bill C-22 to not adjourn its Wednesday meeting until the bill was reviewed, clause by clause, and moved forward, resulting in its meeting stretching into the early hours of Thursday morning. The motion also prevented MPs from putting forward new amendments, and limited time for debate once the bill reached the House.

Now passed third reading, Bill C-22 will be sent to the Senate for consideration and possibly further amendments before it can receive royal assent and become law. Prime Minister Mark Carney did not personally appear for any debate on the bill amidst G7 meetings in France.

With Bill C-22 now in front of it, the Senate is set to break for the summer next week. Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon has indicated that he does not expect the Senate to deliberate C-22 until the fall, meaning it shouldn’t become law until at least later this year.

Sitting on the rushed committee on Wednesday, the Conservative Party’s shadow minister for public safety, Frank Caputo, called the government’s expeditionary move “the most aggressive programming motion” he’d seen in his five-year tenure in Parliament.

“A bill that was probably … a hundred pages and we have to get through amendments without discussion,” Caputo told the committee. “A court will consider the words that we pass on paper here someday, and they will consider the constitutionality of those words, and we are expected to pass those words without debate.”

“To have amendments rammed down our throats without debate, without discussion, is patently wrong,” he added.

Tech leaders have voiced concerns over C-22’s proposal to give law enforcement backdoor access to data and expand how long companies must store user metadata. Apple and Meta have urged the government to amend the bill, while some companies like Signal and NordVPN have said if the bill passes, they’ll leave the country altogether.

The bill has some new amendments compared to earlier iterations, notably cutting down how long companies have to retain Canadians’ metadata from one year to six months, but Michael Geist, the University of Ottawa’s Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law, said in a post on X that the changes might not be enough.

“The amendments will rightly leave many still concerned,”Geist said. “Companies considering exiting Canada due to Bill C-22 are unlikely to conclude that it fully addresses their issues.”

In a statement signed by multiple advocacy groups and academics, including Geist, The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) denounced the Liberals’ move to end debate on the bill, and urged the government to change course on “its undemocratic ways.”

“Bill C-22 is too complex and its impacts too significant to be rushed through,” the statement reads. “The government should not have used this draconian measure, should have allowed the study of the bill to run its course, and should have ensured that all government and opposition amendments were given full consideration and scrutinized in public.”

“Companies considering exiting Canada due to Bill C-22 are unlikely to conclude that it fully addresses their issues.”

The Chamber of Progress said in its own statement that amendments added to C-22, like a shorter maximum metadata retention period, are “half measures.” The industry policy coalition said that the bill’s core surveillance and interception powers still mean Canadians could be exposed to new privacy and security risks.

In an email statement to BetaKit, a spokesperson for the Office of the Minister of Public Safety explained the expedited process by saying that the committee “has been unproductive over the past few weeks,” despite agreeing to a specific schedule.

“There have been ongoing discussions to find a path forward and plenty of opportunities to debate amendments, but the official opposition has made a choice to stall and prevent the committee from doing its work by engaging in deliberate obstruction instead of strengthening Bill C-22,” the spokesperson said, adding “We must move forward through the parliamentary process so we can support victims and give law enforcement the tools they need to protect Canadians.”

The House of Commons will convene again in September.

With files from Sarah Rieger.

Feature image courtesy Gary Anandasangaree on X.