Carney government’s omnibus bill draws criticism and condemnation from experts and civil rights groups
On June 3, the Carney government introduced Bill C-2, a sweeping omnibus bill, also known as the Strong Borders Act. The Bill contains 16 parts and proposes amendments to several Acts, including the Criminal Code, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. It also enacts the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act.
Among other things, the Bill proposes to dramatically expand government and police powers to collect digital information without a warrant and would allow officials to change, suspend, or cancel immigration documents en masse.
The government says the Bill will help keep Canadians safe by equipping authorities with tools to secure the border, stop the flow of fentanyl, and address transnational organized crime.
However, experts have raised major concerns about privacy and surveillance and have compared the proposed immigration changes to the Trump administration’s hostile and inhumane immigration policies.
Impacts on Immigration
If passed, Bill C-2 would make significant changes to immigration legislation. Advocates and experts have criticized the amendments, which, among other things, authorize unilateral changes to immigration documents and impose additional conditions on people seeking refugee status.
Part 8 of the Bill proposes provisions which would allow the Governor in Council to order the cancellation, suspension, or variation of immigration documents such as permanent residency, study permits, and work permits if they believe “it is in the public interest to do so.” The orders could “apply to specific documents or individuals” and could be amended or repealed in certain circumstances.
Part 9 of the Bill proposes new eligibility requirements for refugee claimants to be referred to the Refugee Protection Division (which hears and decides refugee claims made in Canada). Asylum seekers would be ineligible, regardless of the safety of their home country, if they do not make a claim within a year of entering Canada (provided that they entered after June 24, 2020). The Bill also eliminates the exception that allows people arriving from the U.S. between ports of entry to apply for refugee status after 14 days.
The proposed changes have received widespread condemnation from migrant rights organizations, immigration lawyers, and civil liberties associations.
Amnesty International Canada described the Bill as an attack on “refugees’ right to seek asylum.” The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) warned that the proposed changes would disproportionately impact already vulnerable migrants such as people fleeing gendered violence and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community.
Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab defended the Bill, emphasizing the number of applications in the system and the need to “act fairly” to “treat people appropriately who really do need to claim asylum.”
Privacy and Information Sharing
Bill C-2 proposes major changes that would allow police agencies and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to obtain certain information without a warrant.
Part 14 of the Bill, among other things, would allow law enforcement to demand subscriber information without a warrant from a “person who provides services to the public” on reasonable grounds that an offence has been or will be committed.
This information would include whether service providers have provided services to any subscriber or client or to any account or identifier, the date they began providing services, and whether the service provider controls any information related to the subscriber.
As Michael Geist, a privacy expert and professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, points out, the demand provisions are so broad that they could be used to demand information from service providers such as physicians, hotels, and educational institutions.
Part 15 of the Bill creates the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act (SAAIA). The SAAIA establishes a regulatory framework to facilitate the process by which police agencies and CSIS collect information from electronic service providers.
Under this Act, the Minister of Public Safety could order “electronic service providers” to develop technical capabilities, including those “related to extracting and organizing information that is authorized to be accessed.”
Robert Diab, a professor at Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law, wrote in an article for Tech Policy that this law would “expand the state’s power to access private data in Canada than any law in the past decade.”
In addition to concerns about privacy and surveillance at home, experts are also disturbed by the implications for sharing data with foreign nations such as the United States.
Researchers at the Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs, warned of the implications of the Bill in the context of a potential bilateral data-sharing agreement with American law enforcement under the U.S. law called the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD).
Concerns over Civil Liberties Infringements
After the Bill’s introduction, experts and civil liberties groups immediately sounded the alarm about its Charter implications. Over 300 civil liberties organizations went to Parliament Hill on June 18 to demand the complete withdrawal of Bill C-2.
On June 19, the government released a Charter statement, attempting to justify the Bill in advance of future Charter challenges.
In response to a question about the Bill’s impact on civil liberties, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said that he believed that “we have [struck] the balance that while expanding powers in certain instances does have the safeguards and protections in place to protect individual freedoms and rights.”
The second reading of Bill C-2 in the House of Commons began on September 16.