Bill C-13 and the Modern Canadian Surveillance State*
On March 10, 2015 Bill C-13, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act, and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act came into force. Short-titled the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, Bill C-13 was unveiled by Justice Minister Peter MacKay during "Bullying Awareness Week" in November 2013. Invoking raw memories of the tragic suicides of Amanda Todd and Rehteah Parsons, the Justice Minister touted the new legislation as a carefully targeted parliamentary response to the need to protect our children from online cyber-bullying.
The truth of the matter is that Bill C-13 is deceptively named surveillance state legislation that would make Big Brother proud. Contrary to the Justice Minister’s rollout speech, most of C-13 has nothing to do with protecting young victims of cyber-bullying. The vast bulk of this legislation actually introduces a host of new powers, accessible by an array of government officials, which are aimed at making it easier for the state to investigate a wide range of illegal conduct, including criminal organization offences, on less than probable cause. It then renders all of these new investigative powers irrelevant, by immunizing “voluntary disclosure” by service providers, in apparent defiance of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in R. v. Spencer, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 212.
THE NEW INVESTIGATIVE POWERS
The vast majority of Bill C-13 is dedicated to the creation of a host of new investigative tools in the Criminal Code related to the search and seizure of Internet data and metadata. These new provisions are obviously dedicated to making it easier for state officials to investigate a host of offences unrelated to cyber-bullying, on less than probable cause. While amendments were certainly necessary to bring the Code up to date with modern technological advances, those made by Bill C-13 go far beyond this and raise a number of serious constitutional concerns.
What’s at Stake?
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