Carney must scrap of significantly revise Bill C-22: Consumers
Toronto, ON: The Consumer Choice Center is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to scrap or significantly revise Bill C-22, as it poses significant privacy risks for Canadians, could lead to messaging and VPN providers choosing to leave the country, and threatens Canada’s trading relationship with the United States.
Jay Goldberg, the CCC’s North American Affairs Manager, commented on the proposed legislation.
“Bill C-22 represents a significant threat to the privacy rights of Canadians. The legislation would, among other things, force providers like Signal and WhatsApp to keep metadata from Canadians’ conversations for up to a year and provide law enforcement with backdoors into encrypted services. Because of these significant privacy risks, communications providers like Signal, as well as VPN providers like NordVPN, have threatened to leave the country should Bill C-22 pass as-is. This would significantly hamper consumer choice and privacy rights in Canada and should concern all Canadians,” said Goldberg.
The Bill is also being noticed south of the border. In a joint letter, Republican Congressmen Jim Jordan and Brian Mast warned that Bill C-22 would compromise the security of American companies’ “entire user base – including U.S. citizens.” This concern from senior Republicans indicates that the Bill is likely on the White House’s radar as well.
“The last thing Canada needs right now is to add another trade irritant into the Canada-U.S. relationship. The two countries, along with Mexico, are currently in talks about renewing the USMCA, the most important trade agreement Canada currently has. There are already several trade irritants on the Trump administration’s radar. Canada cannot afford to see the federal government further antagonize the Trump administration by passing legislation that significantly weakens privacy rights and threatens U.S. companies,” Goldberg added.