CC: Don Davies, MP Vancouver Kingsway
CC: Taleeb Noormohamed, MP Vancouver Granville

Hon. Prime Minister,

This is a letter urging you and your party to not vote in favour of Bill C-22, an act respecting lawful access.

Section 487 of the Criminal Code of Canada already provides law enforcement with sweeping abilities to request electronic data from service providers without said providers enduring consequences for their voluntary assistance. By mandating that encryption be effectively disabled for any service used by an electronic device, of which this is what it proposes as the introduction of access by a third-party means that there is no privacy.

This sort of legislation will make out every single person into a criminal by default should they choose to not comply with this. Not only that, it will permit a chilling effect on our technology industry, which relies on trust for activities such as transactions and secrecy in communications. Additionally, it removes telecommunication services from being reliant on being common carriers, as this will escalate to them having to inspect messages during interception.

I do not believe that Taleeb Noormohamed, the current Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation has the skill set and expertise to understand what he has brought forward. This is an individual whose technology career has only overseen e-commerce as an executive in luxury goods and vacation accommodation rentals. If he had any idea of the sort of challenges that this Bill creates, he would then understand the serious ramifications of naively permitting a method for other parties to peer into encrypted communications.

What I am trying to say here is basically this: your parliamentary secretary has no clue about what he is talking about.

His statement as follows:

I want to emphasize the word “existing”. The bill would not create new surveillance powers, new intercept authorities or back doors into any one system. It would make the court-authorized processes that we already have, warrants and production orders, which are tools that have always required judicial oversight, functional in a world that has moved online.

This is contrary to what is introduced in Part 2, 5-2 of Bill C-22:

The Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the obligations of core providers, including regulations respecting […] the retention of categories of metadata — including transmission data, as defined in section 487.‍011 of the Criminal Code — for reasonable periods of time not exceeding one year.

Section 487.011, changes the definition of transmission data under part c from the following:

transmission data means data that […] does not reveal the substance, meaning or purpose of the communication

To as such:

subscriber information, in relation to any client of a person who provides services to the public or any subscriber to the services of such a person, means […] information relating to the services provided to the subscriber or client, including […] information that identifies the devices, equipment or things used by the subscriber or client in relation to the services

This radical change in altering definitions from “transmission data” to “subscriber information” plus the change from “not revealing the substance” is the introduction of the backdoor when combined with the following from the Bill:

487.‍0142 (1) On ex parte application made by a peace officer or public officer, a justice or judge may order a person who provides services to the public to prepare and produce a document containing all the subscriber information that relates to any information, including transmission data, that is specified in the order and that is in their possession or control when they receive the order.

In order for a service to comply with this change to Section 487, it would necessitate the creation of a backdoor. Mr. Noormohamed either misunderstands what the bill actually states, has fed it through a third party and is taking the output from it as truth, or is intentionally being misleading. Let it be known that this change to the Criminal Code is a backdoor.

When Bill C-13 was introduced by then Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews, a bill which would have made substantial changes to Section 487, he cited that it was to protect children, citing Amanda Todd and Rehteah Parsons, two teenaged girls both of whom were victimised by predators. These changes did nothing to further protect children, and once again, Mr. Noormohamed is using the same tactics.

Will opposition to this bill label another political columnist as being “with the child pornographers” as Mr. Toews had inspired a response with to a previous version of the Bill? This government and the many that have come before them have not addressed the real harms that affect children. However, they’ve all been more than happy to use them as pawns when law enforcement wishes to seek new opportunities in order to control the lives of the average, hardworking Canadian.

There is no safe way to introduce third party access to encrypted messages between parties and children are not at risk due to encryption thwarting law enforcement.

Canadians have a right to privacy whether from telecommunication providers or the government in their day to day lives. This bill will make Canada less competitive in the technology industry and will have a chilling effect beyond.