SECU meeting 43 · 2026-06-11 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

The committee met to study Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access, focusing on clause-by-clause consideration of amendments. Witnesses included Normand Wong (Acting General Counsel, Department of Justice), Aaron Gilkes (Acting Officer-in-Charge, RCMP Lawful Access), Ramzi Nashef (Director General, CSIS), and Kimberly Gibner (Deputy Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Justice).

Normand Wong explained that the subamendment to Bloc amendment BQ-4 clarifies judicial discretion in production orders for subscriber information, addressing Privacy Commissioner concerns that the original bill might limit judges to ordering all subscriber data. He noted the subamendment maintains the bill’s structure while making explicit that judges can decide what specific subscriber information to order, balancing police needs and privacy.

Aaron Gilkes described operational challenges with production orders, noting that police often don’t know how different service providers categorize data, leading to nil or narrow responses. He supported the subamendment as it avoids requiring police to itemize every data type in advance, preserving flexibility while relying on judicial oversight to ensure orders are tied to investigation facts.

Ramzi Nashef stated that CSIS has limited involvement in part 1 of the bill, as subscriber production orders are a law enforcement tool. He noted that CSIS primarily uses the confirmation of service demand for early investigative steps in high-harm cases like espionage, but the subamendment does not directly affect CSIS operations.

Kimberly Gibner clarified that the subamendment retains judicial discretion by linking the order to the affidavit’s grounds, preventing police from drafting overly broad orders. She emphasized that police are constrained by investigation facts, and the subamendment avoids the need for repeated orders by allowing service providers to produce data according to their own categories.

Conservative members raised concerns about the bill’s scope and process, arguing for more time and Privacy Commissioner testimony, while Liberal members urged focus on the subamendment. After extensive debate, the committee adjourned without voting on the subamendment.

AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.

Witnesses · 4

Normand Wong

Acting General Counsel, Policy Sector, Department of Justice

Opening remarks

Looking at the amendment and the subamendment, I think this subamendment does just as Mr. Housefather indicates. It generally leaves the scheme of the production order intact while addressing what I believe the Privacy Commissioner was looking for, which was more explicit discretion for the judge to order specific types of subscriber information. I do believe that this is in the spirit of the current provision, but I understand that the current provision could lend itself to an interpretation for which the judge has limited discretion. This provides that it's up to the discretion of the judge to order what subscriber information will be produced.

Full testimony ↗

Aaron Gilkes

Acting Officer-in-Charge, RCMP Lawful Access, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Opening remarks

I suppose I can bring it back to the burner phone situation, because if we're looking simply for phone numbers, like you mentioned, there could be a phone that's being swapped or a SIM card that's being swapped. There are a number of different things they can change to try to maintain their anonymity. Some of the information you can recover from, for example, a service provider in this list would be devices being used or equipment being used. What we've seen in the past is that we've established, potentially, the residence of the individuals or individual involved in a crime, and we're able to see, as a result, that they've used multiple devices to access a certain website, for example. In the case of a bank fraud or something like that, it could be that a particular account was accessed by multiple different devices, but from potentially the same location. That gives us an indication that different devices are being used by a particular individual, even though they are swapping SIM cards or something like that. It's the same device or the same type of device being used, or it's a similar device that they're changing to try to mask their actual identity.

Ramzi Nashef

Director General, Policy, Planning and Accountability, Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Opening remarks

To be direct on part 1, from a CSIS perspective, I would say that the tools in part 1 for us are a little bit more limited than they are for law enforcement. The subscriber production order is a law enforcement-only thing. There's no CSIS element or equity in that piece. For us, the element in part 1 that does engage us is the confirmation of service demand. As has been talked about here and as I have said—but am very happy to repeat because it is an important point—what the confirmation of service demand does for us in a space where we're looking at highest harm investigations, which for us are espionage, foreign interference, terrorism and those sorts of things, is allow us to very quickly take some of those early steps. Those early steps are, as discussed, when we might have a phone number, and we need to know who is behind that phone number. We need a yes or no to be able to target a warrant or a production order at court. At the end of the day, that is an important tool for us. More generally, the elements that are most important, from an investigative perspective, for CSIS specifically, not for law enforcement, would sit in part 2 of the bill.

Full testimony ↗

Public Safety and National Security

Summary

Witnesses · 4

Bills mentioned