Bill C-22 Update

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Signal, Windscribe, Nord VPN, Apple, Meta, Shopify, Easy DNS, Canadian Chamber of Commerce. They chose you.

[00:00:09]Ottawa chose your data. Think about a couple of dinner. They found a babysitter. First real night out in months. Nothing fancy. A quiet table, a glass of something cold, and nobody asking for anything. Her phone is on the table. His is in his jacket pocket.

[00:00:23]Three weeks earlier, he stopped for gas on the way home from work. Pulled in, filled up, drove away.

[00:00:30]Maybe 30 seconds at the pump. He did not speak to anyone. He did not know the man at the next pump. He did not know that man was someone Ottawa had flagged as a person of interest. There was no reason he would know.

[00:00:42]The threshold in Bill C-22 is not evidence. The threshold is suspicion. A minister, not a judge, a minister reviewed a report, signed an order in private. No court saw it. No lawyer challenged it. Nobody told him. The microphone on her iPhone activated.

[00:00:59]They're talking about the mortgage, about whether they can afford a week at the lake this summer, about the kids, about the dog, about the ordinary private things that belong to nobody but them. Ottawa is listening. And under Bill C-22, what they say tonight will be on file for a year. Good day, Canada.

[00:01:16]Haever Upplay here. You've heard the news. You've read the headlines. And now it's time to see the big picture. 10 days ago, we sat down and broke Bill C-22 apart. Every provision. The threshold change from belief to suspicion. The secret ministerial orders. What technical capability means when a minister, not a judge, a minister gets to define it in private. A year of metadata retained on every Canadian with a digital account. And schedule one, the list of agencies with access to all of it, left blank to be filled in after the vote without another vote. If you haven't heard that episode, the link is below. Go there first. Come back.

[00:01:54]Because today is the update. And the update is it is worse. There are people in Alberta right now who are furious about the Centurion breach. Good. Stay with that anger because I am going to need it in a moment. Here is what the Centurion breach actually was. A political party had voter data on their servers. Names, addresses, political profiles. It was allegedly shared without authorization. Nobody has named a single person who received a call because of it. No email, no text, no knock on the door. Nobody has raised their hand and said they used my information against me.

[00:02:28]As far as anyone can confirm, that is where the story ends. Stored, allegedly shared, nothing more that can be named.

[00:02:36]It is still under investigation. I am not defending anybody. If something criminal happened, it should go through the courts, all the way through. But I do remember a time in this country when you were innocent until you were proven guilty. When an investigation was allowed to reach its conclusion before the verdict was delivered. When the allegation was not the conviction. That is still how it is supposed to work. The people treating Centurion like a closed case, open investigation, no named victims, no verdict, no conviction.

[00:03:04]Those are the same people who are going to tell you to trust Ottawa with Bill C-22. And here is where that matters.

[00:03:11]The presumption of innocence they want applied to an unproven allegation still before investigators, Bill C-22 removes it. Not for suspects, for you, for every Canadian with a digital account on a suspicion alone. Without evidence, without a court. If stored data allegedly shared, still under investigation, no named victims, no verdict, is enough to make you furious, what do you call a law that does not just store but activates? Let me be precise about what Bill C-22 actually says. The bill includes provisions for what it calls technical capability. That is the language. Technical capability.

[00:03:49]Two words that sound like an IT department memo. A minister of the Canadian government can issue a secret order reviewed by no judge, challenged by no court, seen by no one outside the ministry, compelling a technology company to build access into their product. Access to your communications.

[00:04:06]Access to your location. Access to your device. As in, the microphone on your iPhone, the camera on your iPad, the location on your Android. Those are the technical capabilities a minister can compel a company to activate on a suspicion, without evidence, without a warrant, without telling you.

[00:04:27]Your husband's phone is on the nightstand. You are getting into the shower. You do not know that last month he stopped for gas beside the wrong car for 30 seconds. You do not know that a minister signed an order. You do not know the camera on his phone just activated. Ottawa does, and they will for the next year. I want the people who are calling their neighbors treasonists to sit with that image for a moment. And it is not only the camera. It is not only the microphone. Under Bill C-22, a year of metadata is retained on every Canadian with a digital account. All of them. On a suspicion, any of them.

[00:05:04]Metadata is not a technical term for a technical thing. Metadata is the map of your life. The community hall where your riding held its referendum organizing meeting is on that map. The doctor's office you visited on the Tuesday your employer does not know about is on that map. The church you attend on Sunday is on that map. The school your children go to is on that map. The name of every person whose phone was in the same room as yours is on that map. A year of that is not data. A year of that is a complete picture of who you are, who you meet, what you believe, and what you are organizing. And there is a referendum coming in October.

[00:05:44]In a province building toward an independence vote, that map is exactly what this government would want. Now, there are people in this country who have called Albertans traitors, treasonists, who say that talking about separation is what drives investment out of this province. These are the people who found their voice for Centurion, who raised the alarm bells over an alleged breach that is still under investigation, who had plenty to say about a provincial situation involving information that, as far as anyone can confirm, was never used against a single named person. No verdict, no conviction, and they are treating it like a closed case. Those same people have been completely silent about a federal minister having secret authority to activate the camera on your nightstand.

[00:06:31]They want to save Canada. They wave that flag. They call you a traitor for asking questions Ottawa does not want to answer. Ask them what they think about Bill C-22. Listen to that silence.

[00:06:41]Because those are the same people who are going to tell you that Alberta's questions are what scare business out of this country. So, let us talk about who is scaring business.

[00:06:49]Mark Carney told Canadians he was going to bring a trillion dollars of investment back to this country. A trillion dollars. He made economic restoration the centerpiece of his mandate.

[00:06:59]The man who would make Canada a destination again. Bill C-22 is sitting in his government's committee right now.

[00:07:05]And here is what the market said back.

[00:07:08]Signal built its entire existence around one promise, nobody reads your messages.

[00:07:13]Not the app. Not the company.

[00:07:16]Not the government. That is the product.

[00:07:19]That is the promise.

[00:07:21]Signal announced it will withdraw from Canada entirely before it breaks that promise. Not we have concerns. Not we are hoping for amendments. Out. Done.

[00:07:31]When Signal leaves, and based on everything they have said, they are leaving, think about what goes with it.

[00:07:37]The app that doctors use to discuss patient information. The app that journalists use to protect their sources, the app that abuse survivors use to reach help without leaving a trail their abuser can follow. Gone.

[00:07:48]Because Ottawa decided a suspicion is sufficient justification to demand a backdoor. Windscribe is a Canadian company headquartered in Toronto, founded here, employs Canadians. The CEO stated publicly that if Bill C-22 passes in its current form, he would rather move the entire operation out of this country than hand your data to this government. A Canadian CEO.

[00:08:10]Choosing to leave Canada rather than comply.

[00:08:14]NordVPN is reviewing whether Canada is a jurisdiction it can operate in. If [snorts] you are a NordVPN customer in Canada, you are using it because you do not want your internet traffic recorded.

[00:08:26]Bill C-22 says, "Not here you don't."

[00:08:29]Apple has fought backdoor orders in American courts, British courts, and European court. They told Parliament that the technical capability provisions of this bill would require them to build vulnerabilities into their products globally because a backdoor built for one government cannot be contained to one country. Once it exists, it is available to whoever finds it. They are warning they may withdraw specific privacy features from Canadian devices, the way they already did in the United Kingdom. As in, the privacy settings on your iPhone that you assumed were just there, Apple is saying those features may have to be removed from the Canadian version of their products. Your phone in Alberta would work differently than the same phone in any comparable democracy.

[00:09:11]Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp says this bill could turn their encrypted platforms into government surveillance tools. 3 billion people worldwide use at least one of their products. Now, Shopify was founded in Ottawa by a Canadian.

[00:09:26]Tobi Lütke built the most successful technology company this country has ever produced. He did it here. He stayed here.

[00:09:33]And Tobi Lütke, the founder and CEO of the most successful Canadian tech company in a generation called Bill C-22 a potential death blow to Canadian tech competitiveness, innovation, and cloud investment. Death blow. His words. He is not talking about feelings. He is talking about what happens when the Googles, the Amazons, the Microsofts, the companies that power the cloud infrastructure the entire Canadian economy runs on decide that a ministerial backdoor mandate makes Canada a jurisdiction they cannot operate in.

[00:10:05]When that calculation tips, the investment leaves. The AI partnerships leave. The data center build out goes somewhere else. The jobs go somewhere else. Easy DNS has operated as a Canadian domain registrar since the early days of the Canadian internet.

[00:10:20]They said publicly, clearly, and without ambiguity that they will not comply with Bill C-22. And they are prepared to go to court to defend that position.

[00:10:30]A Canadian company choosing a legal fight with the Canadian government over a bill the Canadian government claims is about protecting Canadians.

[00:10:39]The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the organized voice of 200,000 Canadian businesses, has formally warned that this bill deters foreign investment, weakens encryption, and signals to the international business community that Canada is hostile to the technology sector. 200,000 businesses. These are not foreign critics. These are not Alberta separatists. These are the companies and organizations that built and run the digital economy this country depends on. Carney said a trillion dollars. This bill is how you lose it.

[00:11:10]And the people telling you that Alberta's questions are what scare business away still quiet.

[00:11:16]Before we get to the big picture, today's episode is brought to you by the people who believe this conversation is worth having, our subscribers. The people who have sponsored an episode.

[00:11:26]The people who wanted a shout out. The people who have donated to keep the microphones humming. To them we say, "Thank you. And if you would like to help out, visit haverupland.com and sponsor an episode. Send a personal message, dedicate one to a friend, a family member, or support through a monthly contribution at Yak Stack.

[00:11:45]Now, here's the big picture. That couple at dinner, they finished their meal, they drove home. They talked about nothing important on the way back. They put the kids to bed. They turned off the lights. They still do not know. The order was secret. The year has not run out. The companies that built your privacy tools looked at Bill C-22 and made their choice. Ottawa looked back at them leaving and kept moving forward.

[00:12:10]The people who want you outraged about Centurion are not hiding what this bill says. They can read legislation. They are just not going out of their way to make sure you read it, too. That is the policy from the government they want Alberta signed into. Alberta should have their say about that. In October, they will.

[00:12:28]And now you see the big picture. Click that bell at the top right-hand corner of the screen to follow us for daily news, Monday to Friday. And check out Yak Stack for the full written version of today's conversation. Haver Upland signing out.