Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree pushed back hard against major tech companies today, defending the federal government’s controversial new legislation amid growing industry opposition.
Google, Apple, Meta, and several VPN providers operating in Canada have all publicly opposed the bill, warning that it could force companies to build vulnerabilities into their software. Anandasangaree rejected that characterization outright.
“Let me be absolutely clear. There are no backdoors available through this bill,” he said. “What we have said is that anything that may cause systemic vulnerabilities does not have to be applied by an individual service provider.”
The minister also turned the privacy argument back on the tech sector, questioning their credibility on the issue.
“We’re living in a world where big tech, whether it is Apple, Google, or the range of other big tech companies, are operating without any type of accountability, without any type of protection of privacy,” he said. “The companies that are coming forth and talking about privacy protection and vulnerabilities better step up and provide their path to how they’re protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.”
When asked directly whether tech companies are misinforming the public, Anandasangaree said yes, particularly around encryption.
“I believe there are a number of areas of misinformation, and to be very clear, the encryption issue is one we will clarify because this bill was never meant to breach encryption,” he said. “We will clarify it in the bill, and we look forward to working with the opposition on appropriate language that we can live with.”
He also pushed back on concerns about metadata collection, saying the bill is being misread.
“The level of misinformation out there really doesn’t speak to what the bill says. Metadata does not imply that we are looking for backdoor ways of collecting information,” he said. “This is about retention of data, and if you look at the Five Eyes and G7 countries, they have very similar legislative tools embedded within their lawful access regime. Canada, incidentally, is the only country that doesn’t have a lawful access regime. This is something that needs to happen.”
The government says changes are coming, but hasn’t said when. So we’ll have to wait and see what amendments will be made to Bill C-22.
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