--- title: Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22 description: Canada's Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, has passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate. It would let the Minister of Public Safety order... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/canadians-are-running-out-of-time-to-oppose-bill-c-22-mo8ipxn1d twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22 | daily.dev og:description: Canada's Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, has passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate. It would let the Minister of Public Safety order... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/canadians-are-running-out-of-time-to-oppose-bill-c-22-mo8ipxn1d og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Mo8iPxN1D.png og:image:alt: Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22 **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Canada's Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, has passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate. It would let the Minister of Public Safety order companies to build encryption backdoors for law enforcement, as long as it doesn't cause 'systemic insecurity.' Services would have to retain metadata for up to a year, even for people not suspected of any crime. The bill could also expand data sharing with foreign law enforcement, including a proposed US cross-border agreement without Canadian court oversight. CCLA and Citizen Lab researchers call for withdrawing Part 2 of the bill entirely, and some senators have questioned its constitutionality. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What does Canada's Bill C-22 require tech and telecom companies to do? Bill C-22, Canada's Lawful Access Act, would let the Minister of Public Safety order telecom companies, messaging apps, and other digital services to build backdoors for law enforcement access, provided it doesn't cause 'systemic insecurity.' It also requires services to retain user metadata, including who people communicate with and where they go, for up to a year, even without any suspicion of crime. _Developers building encrypted messaging tools can track legislation like this shaping backdoor mandates on daily.dev._ ### Could Bill C-22 let US law enforcement access Canadian user data? Yes, Bill C-22 could expand sharing of Canadians' personal data with foreign law enforcement, including the United States. Canada has been negotiating a cross-border data-sharing agreement with the US that would let American police obtain information about Canadian internet users without any Canadian court oversight. _Teams handling cross-border user data can follow how laws like this reshape compliance obligations on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 67 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-23). **TL;DR:** Commenters are strongly opposed to Bill C-22, seeing it as an authoritarian overreach that erodes privacy and constitutional rights, while expressing deep pessimism that political action can stop it given majority government control and public apathy. **Sentiment:** 0% positive · 15% mixed · 85% skeptical **The pushback** - The bill would let U.S. law enforcement access Canadians' data without Canadian court oversight, raising fears of lopsided reciprocity. - Restrictions on government powers in the bill are seen as weasel words that don't actually limit data retention or real-time wiretapping. - Majority government and a largely uninformed or apathetic public make it unlikely the bill can be stopped. - Services may be forced to retain data that mainly catches low-level criminals while organized crime evades detection via private channels. - Concerns that gag orders and vague future rulemaking give authorities broad, unchecked latitude. **By community** - hackernews (heated): Overwhelming opposition to the bill mixed with fatalism about stopping it, alongside a sprawling, contentious side-debate about Canadian politics, media bias, and comparisons to the U.S. **Hottest debate:** Whether Canadian media and political apathy (versus genuine lack of options) are to blame for the bill's likely passage, which spiraled into a heated argument about Canadian partisan politics. **Open questions** - What practical options remain for individuals to protect their privacy if the bill passes? - Will major messaging and tech services block or restrict access for Canadians rather than comply? - Will the Senate actually amend or block the bill, or merely defer to the House as usual? - Will tools like Tor be blocked under the new rules? **Highlights** > I read it a few weeks ago. Something that really bothers me is that parts are written like big tech ToS that are designed to make it sound like they’re doing something for you, but they’re not. The restrictions on powers are one example. There’s almost nothing there, but they say something like “are not allowed to compel service providers to retain data that will identify the content of your communications.” That’s bullshit weasel words. Everyone is keeping that stuff and nothing restricts the “written sometime in the future” rules from compelling service providers to produce all of the data they’ve collected. There’s also no restriction on compelling real time wire taps. If that was a real restriction it would say something like “retain, capture, or produce.” There are also gag orders falling out of the sky like it’s raining and no mechanism to eventually force transparency when they’re used. They also have broad latitude to define and redefine a ton of rules that haven’t even been written yet. I know of some places that do conferences and I don’t know what they’ll do if classified as a service provider. Imagine KYC on a couple hundred people trying to participate in a 2 hour conference. Edit: And I think it’s a big win for organized crime. The police will only know how to use the easy tooling to catch the lowest level, dumbest criminals. The higher up criminals will (or probably already do) use private servers for communication. Does anyone think organized crime is relying on WhatsApp or Snapchat? That’s what the low level suckers will be using (and getting caught by) so everyone can pretend the police are doing their job. > — [donmcronald on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50214186) > Fun fact: the government is already talking to companies who have customers to prep the infrastructure needed to handover any data requested, as in, they are almost guaranteed it will pass. > — [tamimio on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50213841) > The bill is going to pass, there is quite literally nothing I can do to stop it. And when I say literally nothing, I mean literally nothing. My MP (the man I voted for) crossing the floor to join the current ruling party showed me exactly how much political power I have: absolutely fuck all. > — [SkyeCA on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50214387) > there is literally nothing people can do. the party in charge has a majority government and a media biased enough to sell this bill as a positive thing. the only thing that could make a difference is if apple, whatsapp, and instagram all blocked canadians from using those services. the liberal party and the media would still find a way to blame trump for it, and the pm's popularity would increase. > — [slopinthebag on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50213137) > This govts to attitude to the dignity of its citizens is demoralizing. I have more hope in the outcome of a US annexation than I do for any significant positive policy direction. it’s done. Bureaucracy has triumphed and there’s nothing to save. > — [motohagiography on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50212682) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50202114) · 149 points · 67 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare](https://daily.dev/posts/canada-s-bill-c-22-is-a-repackaged-version-of-last-year-s-surveillance-nightmare-impojsbty) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Canada is about to weaken every lock on your private messages — dontsurveil.me](https://daily.dev/posts/canada-is-about-to-weaken-every-lock-on-your-private-messages-dontsurveil-me-m4kan4bmy) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Canada’s Bill C-22 and the security cost of collecting more data](https://daily.dev/posts/canada-s-bill-c-22-and-the-security-cost-of-collecting-more-data-crrj7lqrz) · Tailscale · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Apple and Google push for judicial oversight of Canada’s lawful-access bill](https://daily.dev/posts/apple-and-google-push-for-judicial-oversight-of-canada-s-lawful-access-bill-pl1zdvq0e) · The Next Web · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#encryption](https://daily.dev/tags/encryption) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/canadians-are-running-out-of-time-to-oppose-bill-c-22-mo8ipxn1d) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/canadians-are-running-out-of-time-to-oppose-bill-c-22-mo8ipxn1d","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/canadians-are-running-out-of-time-to-oppose-bill-c-22-mo8ipxn1d"},"datePublished":"2026-10-23T17:54:52.437Z","dateModified":"2026-10-23T19:56:28.704Z","description":"Canada's Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, has passed the House of Commons and is now before the Senate. 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