This committee meeting was part of the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-22, an act respecting lawful access. Witnesses included officials from the RCMP, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the Department of Justice, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Sergeant Aaron Gilkes of the RCMP explained that a lower threshold of “reasonable grounds to suspect” is needed at the beginning of investigations to quickly confirm whether a suspect is linked to a device or service, allowing police to either exonerate individuals or build a case; he argued that raising the threshold to “reasonable grounds to believe” would slow down investigations and leave many cases unsolved. Assistant Deputy Minister Richard Bilodeau stated that Bill C-22 does not create systemic vulnerabilities or mandate specific surveillance infrastructure, and that any capability requirements would be developed through regulation and ministerial orders with security consultations. Shannon Hiegel clarified that the definition of “electronic service provider” covers any provider servicing persons in Canada or carrying out business activities in Canada, regardless of where the company is headquartered. Chief Superintendent Richard Burchill noted that the “reasonable grounds to suspect” standard would speed up the process of attaching a suspect to a device at the start of an investigation, helping address the backlog of cases. Normand Wong of Justice Canada cited statistics showing that 94% of child sexual exploitation cases are not cleared due to insufficient evidence or inability to identify suspects, and argued that the subscriber information production order is designed to help lower that number; he also noted that existing Criminal Code provisions already protect solicitor-client privilege, making a proposed amendment on that point redundant. Kimberly Gibner emphasized that the “reasonable grounds to suspect” standard is consistent with other Criminal Code tools and that the legislation was crafted to balance law enforcement needs with privacy rights, adding that the government does not believe the standard violates section 8 of the charter. Ramzi Nashef of CSIS noted that Canada’s proposed standard is already higher than that of Five Eyes partners, who often obtain similar information without any judicial authorization.
The committee debated several Bloc Québécois amendments. BQ-5, which sought to change the threshold for subscriber information production orders from “reasonable grounds to suspect” to “reasonable grounds to believe,” was defeated. BQ-6, which would have added protections for medical and solicitor-client privileged information, was also defeated after officials argued it was redundant. BQ-7, which would have raised the threshold for international production requests to “reasonable grounds to believe,” was likewise defeated, with officials noting it would create inconsistency with the domestic standard. On NDP-6, which proposed a 30-day default timeline for responding to production orders, Conservative MP Jacob Mantle introduced a subamendment allowing a judge to specify a shorter period if circumstances warrant; the subamendment was accepted by the committee. Procedural debate arose over the relevance of questions and the pace of work, with the chair noting that only one amendment had been passed in over 10 hours of clause-by-clause consideration.
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