The federal government is assembling more legal tools to identify who Canadians are online, track what they do there, and, in some cases, punish them for what they say than at any point in the country’s history.
That is the picture emerging from a cluster of bills advanced this spring, capped by Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, 2026, which the Liberals pushed through third reading June 18 after invoking a programming motion that curtailed committee study and shut down debate while amendments were forced through without debate—the motion barred any amendment not already submitted by a retroactive Monday deadline. The bill heads to the Senate when Parliament returns Sept. 21, but the manner of its passage has alarmed lawyers, civil liberties groups, technologists, and opposition MPs who say Parliament approved sweeping surveillance powers it never fully examined.
