A privacy bill that takes away from the Privacy Commissioner

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The federal government tabled long-overdue privacy reform legislation yesterday, which is intended to work in concert with their Digital Asbestos For All Strategy, and while there are some needed updates within it, there are also some concerning aspects. For example, there will be more powers to demand deletions from online searches (“right to be forgotten” powers), and while they are going to give the federal Privacy Commissioner more powers like he’s been begging for, they are going to restrict him to only public sector complaints and hive off private sector complaints to this new Digital Safety Commissioner. They’ve also decided to jump on the “surveillance pricing” hysteria, which both lets Avi Lewis claim a victory, but they have no details on how this will work, to say nothing of the fact that consumer protection is a provincial responsibility!

I have regularly butted heads with the Privacy Commissioners we've had over the past 20+ years, but sidelining an organization with decades of experience to empower an as yet unconstituted body is frankly shocking. #BillC34

— David TS Fraser (@privacylawyer.ca) 2026-06-15T21:41:45.003Z

It's worth noting that there's nothing new in #BillC36 that has anything to do with "surveillance pricing". The provision that the Minister pointed to in his presser has been in PIPEDA since 2001.

— David TS Fraser (@privacylawyer.ca) 2026-06-15T22:42:03.453Z

The fact that they are taking the new Digital Safety Commissioner that is being created as part of the Online Harms legislation, and loading him or her up with these enormous new powers is concerning, as is the fact that this commissioner will report to government and not to Parliament. I worry about creating a new regulator with so much scope of authority that it will need to build an enormous bureaucracy off the start, meaning it will be slow to start up, slow to react, and eventually start empire-building, particularly given how much online regulation it is being asked to do in addition to privacy work. We will have to see if the government bothers to offer a justification for this model (which they may not!) but I suspect we’ve got a long summer ahead of Evan Solomon exhorting the opposition to pass this while pretending it’s the solution to all of our problems.

A modernized privacy law should be something that gets broad support, but I think the creation of this new super-regulator that reports to the government and not parliament may be this bill's undoing. #BillC36

— David TS Fraser (@privacylawyer.ca) 2026-06-15T23:09:34.362Z

1/ Spent some time going through Canada's new privacy bill (Bill C-36). At over 100 pages, there's a lot to unpack here. Here are a few initial observations, but I reserve the right to change my mind on any of this because it's a beast… 🧵

— Josh Tabish (@joshtabish.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T22:11:40.607Z

My Latest:

  • For National Magazine, I delve into Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on why all future Lieutenant Governors of New Brunswick needs to be bilingual.
  • My weekend column on how the Liberals have shamelessly reversed their policies so many times under Carney that they are virtually just Conservatives now.

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QP: More grousing about in-flight catering

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As the final sitting week of the spring sitting began, the PM was yet again absent, this time off in Evian, France, for the G7 meeting. Pierre Poilievre was also absent, leaving it up to Rhonda Kirkland to lead off, bafflingly, and she read the tired script about the country supposedly being in recession (we’re not), and the prime minister’s in-flight catering. Steven MacKinnon rose to point out that the Conservatives merely vote against any assistance for Canadians while Mark Carney brings back trade deals. Kirkland recited the scripted line that these were just “illusions,” and MacKinnon says that success looks like Canada creating twice as many jobs per capital than the U.S., high-speed rail, and the MOU with Alberta. John Brassard took over to sanctimoniously to cite the CFIB’s press release this morning on small businesses feeling uncertain, before moving onto the “recession”talking points. Tim Hodgson dismissed this, and listed project that are being built. Brassard tied again, demanding the government scrap their policies over the past six years, and Hodgson said the Conservatives are trying to fight the election from six years ago, and cited Danielle Smith’s optimism (not that it’s worth anything). Luc Berthold took over in French to cite the same reports and talking points, to which Joël Lightbound pointed out that the Conservatives voted against any measure to help Canadians. Berthold tried again, citing more newspaper stories, and Lightbound pointed to the tens of thousands of people in Berthold’s riding benefitting from government programmes.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she listed the ways in which Carney capitulated to the Americans and abandoned Europe to do it. MacKinnon said that there is another European phenomenon which they should sign onto, being high-speed rail. Normandin listed more sins of Carney’s in betraying Europe, and MacKinnon continued to praise high-speed rail. Martin Champoux took over to give the same condemnation of “abandoning” the EU, particularly around streaming levies and the digital services tax. Lightbound got back up to point out that the Bloc hasn’t spoken about culture with the budget.

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A long-term food strategy

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Yesterday, before jetting off to the G7 in France, prime minister Mark Carney was in Toronto to unveil the details of his national food security strategy. The initial announcement was a couple of months ago, when he announced the rebranding and expansion of the existing GST credit, and the details for this new strategy could bear fruit (groan!) in the long-term, but I worry that he is raising expectations that these measures will lower food prices immediately. They won’t. Building up new food production infrastructure via greenhouses and vertical farms will take time and a lot of dollars to get off the ground, as will creating new domestic processing capabilities, which we may not even have the necessary labour for. Same thing with bolstering the rules around competition in order to attract new entrants into a marketplace dominated by oligopolies—you can’t unwind that in a day, and certainly not without just inviting in more American companies, which would go against the notion of trying to ensure food sovereignty.

Again—these kinds of investments and commitments to increasing domestic production and processing are good, and overdue. But in the vein of you can lead a horse to water, corporate Canada is not all that keen on investing in things, including productivity measures, because they are too accustomed to relying on trade with the US (which they keep pinning all of their hopes on normalising once more, as though there will be no lasting damage from the country descending into outright fascism), and their whole modus operandi is about getting monopolistic power and becoming a rent-seeker rather than investing in productivity or innovation. And yes, Canadian food prices are very high, and only part of that has to do with the fact that we’re a cold-weather country that needs to import a lot of what we eat. This is a strategy built for the long-term, and that’s great, but I know that by September, Pierre Poilievre will stand up in Question Period every day and declare that this new strategy hasn’t reduced food prices, so therefore we must burn everything down for the sake of tax cuts and going harder on trickle-down economics (and the government will respond by patting themselves on the back). They’re going to have to do the hard work of pushing this and then actually defending, and I have doubts that they are capable of doing just that.

Jennifer Robson has additional thoughts on the announcement.

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My Xtra column points out how much Mark Carney patted himself on the back for doing the absolute bare minimum at this year’s Pride flag raising.

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QP: Changing up tactics in service of a stunt

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The PM was absent, in Toronto for an announcement before jetting off to Paris, while Pierre Poilievre was also absent. Melissa Lantsman led off, and she raised the death of a Toronto police officer earlier in the day, and asked for a government response. Gary Anandasangaree gave some words of condolence for his death. Lantsman asked which security agencies were engaged on this, as the officer was investigating the shooting of the US consulate in Toronto, and Anandasangaree listed some of the agencies, including the RCMP, involved and that this was a collaborative process. Jasraj Hallan took over, and he once again accused the prime minister of “stuffing his face” on in-flight catering and the costs associated with it, and Steven MacKinnon called for Hallan to up his game. Hallan accused the prime minister of not caring that Canadians are losing sleep because of food insecurity, and MacKinnon reminded him that we are in the midst of a trade war. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French to again complain about the costs of the prime minister’s in-flight catering. MacKinnon dismissed this given how much trade and investment the prime minister brings home when he travels. Paul-Hus kept railing about the costs, and François-Philippe Champagne rose to add his voice go the condolences for the fallen officer, before repeating the assurances of the prime minister’s trade prowess.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she said that with Trump looking to give up the New NAFTA altogether, so they sacrificed Quebec culture for nothing. MacKinnon got up to take a swipe at the Bloc, ignoring the question. Normandin suggested that the strategy of weakness was not working, and this time Marc Miller rose, and touted how much the government is investing in culture, including their cultural export programme. Martin Champoux took over to ask the same again, and Miller pointed out that the filmmaker Champoux mentioned is funded by the National Film Board.

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Reversing themselves on age verification

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The government’s online harms bill dropped yesterday, and while there are some good parts to it, there are some very, very bad parts that I am absolutely outraged about. Because this government has developed a real penchant for major omnibus bills, this contains parts of the previous online harms bill, such as the duty to act responsibly for platforms around safe design for sites and apps, which is the good part. It dropped the hate crime provisions that included restoring some of the functions of the Human Rights Tribunal around hate, which were controversial to begin with, but was also about trying to respond to the increasing amounts of hate being seen online. It seeks to create a Digital Safety Commission as the regulator in charge of the online harms scheme, who will oversee enforcement and implementation. It has a partial social media ban for youth under sixteen, but is also incorporating the age verification scheme of that Senate Public Bill, S-209, which has failed time and again, and which the Trudeau government opposed for all of the right reasons, including the fact that age verification cannot work without becoming mass surveillance (and yes, this is the part that I am absolutely livid about). (More from CBC here and here).

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mnxuplffys2b

Part of what is so infuriating is that they are putting the age-gating into this legislation, but there are no details on how that is going to work, other than mention of “age estimation,” which is poor technology when it can have trouble distinguishing between a fifteen and a sixteen year-old, and doesn’t work well for anyone who is racialised or trans (and certain age estimation technologies have been easily thwarted with fake moustaches). And remember, this is technology that everyone on the internet is going to be subjected to, which is inevitably going to involve mass surveillance, and the loss of internet privacy writ-large. The Liberals have reversed themselves yet again, shamelessly. (For more, here is Michael Geist’s first impressions of the legislation).

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My column highlights remarks that Louise Arbour made about diversity during her installation speech, given we are at a time of increasing ethnic/white nationalism.

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QP: Cherry-picking the Bank of Canada governor

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The PM was in town, but conveniently occupied on a Zoom meeting with the other premiers, while Pierre Poilievre was present, and in French, he led off by mentioning that his MP Bernard Généroux had a cardiac incident in the morning and is in hospital in stable condition, and offered the government a chance to offer their best wishes, to which Steven MacKinnon took the opportunity to do. Poilievre then got back to news, and he launched immediately into the “recession” talking points, cherry-picked statements that the Governor of the Bank of Canada and outright ignored that he said we weren’t in a recession, while also citing a United Way report. François-Philippe Champagne read the OECD growth projections, and that Canada was the second-highest. Poilievre asked his same question in English, and Champagne repeated his same response in English. Poilievre pointed out again that the Governor of the Bank said the economy was “weak” nine times, and demanded the government overturn their policies. Tim Hodgson pointed out Macklem’s statement about our economic resilience, and pointed to projects that got approved. Poilievre read about anxiety Canadians were having per the United Way report, while complaining that the PM was not answering, while Mélanie Joly insisted that the PM is a “serious person” who is working with the premiers, before mentioning the latest job numbers and our growing trade surplus. Poilievre kept insisting that we were in a recession, and demanded the government eliminate the industrial carbon price, the fuel standard, and capital gains taxes that are reinvested in Canada. David McGuinty said that Poilievre has no plan, he cherry-picks data, and then he cherry-picked his own data.

Poilievre says that MP Bernard Généroux had a cardiac event at caucus this morning and is now in stable condition in hospital. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-06-10T18:35:37.500Z

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and panned the government backing off on streaming levies, and worried about what else was being demanded. MacKinnon got up to gloat that the Bloc had a bad day when the mayors of Quebec’s biggest cities denounced their opposition to the high-speed rail project. Normandin led capitulations that are benefiting American companies, to which MacKinnon went on a paean about building things. Martin Champoux lamented that the biggest victim of these capitulations is Quebec culture, and accused the PM of being the “gravedigger” of their culture. Marc Miller shrugged this off as the Bloc in their fourth decade of doing nothing in Parliament, and that they are spitting on the support the government is giving to the sector.

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Expecting an online harms disaster

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The federal government will be tabling their online harms legislation today, and it looks like it’s going to include some form of ban on social media for youth under the age of sixteen, which is going to be little more than an invitation to create mass online surveillance, because everyone will need to verify their ages and identities in order to access social media or adjacent sites. Meanwhile, that will do very little to actually deal with the harms, and it’s likely going to be unconstitutional in the first place.

here’s me from earlier on power & politics talking digital safety act (tldr: age appropriate design codes + duty to act responsibly > age bans)

— Supriya Dwivedi (@supriya.bsky.social) 2026-06-10T00:48:36.353Z

As we anticipate a social media ban to be proposed by the Canadian government tomorrow, it's worth noting in the Charter of Rights: "everyone" includes young people and "media of communication" includes social media.

— David TS Fraser (@privacylawyer.ca) 2026-06-09T21:59:05.964Z

This being said, the Liberals are already going past Helen Lovejoy and going directly to “children are dying,” which makes me suspect that they are going to try and use their majority to ram this through, in spite of what are likely to be massive problems with it, and the fact that the problems that they are having with their lawful access bill are likely to be magnified. Any kind of online age verification is bad news no matter how it’s dressed up, and this is going to be no different in the end. I do not have confidence that they will be able to pull this off without a lot of hand-waving and “just trust me,” and “surely these companies can figure out a way to do it” when that way is more mass surveillance and siphoning even more data.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-06-09T19:08:01.734Z

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For National Magazine, I recap what Chief Justice Richard Wagner had to say during his annual press conference, particularly on defending judicial independence.

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QP: Poilievre makes common cause with the PQ leader

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The PM was present today, fresh from the Pride flag raising on the Hill, and Pierre Poilievre was present as well. He led off in French, worrying that in the midst of the “worst recession in the G7,” he lamented that the government planned to spent $90 billion on the high-speed rail that would “destroy farms in Quebec.” Mark Carney listed the jobs that this was expected to create. Poilievre dismissed these as “jobs for Liberal friends,” and again lamented the projected cost of the project. Carney praised that this would be the biggest infrastructure project in the country’s history, and we need to build. Poilievre switched to English to worry about the rise in bankruptcies and worried the government’s spreading was making it worse. Carney praised the number for jobs created in the past month. Poilievre countered with even more cherry-picked dismal numbers, and Carney dismissed this as Poilievre not believing in Canada. Poilievre insisted it was his patriotic duty to fight for the people who are suffering, and that he would make no lessons on patriotism from a guy who stashes his funds in a tax haven. The Speaker noted that there wasn’t a question, and so they moved onto the next one, and Poilievre cited delinquency rates, and blamed the PM for driving the country into recession, to which Carney insisted they are growing a stronger and more independent economy.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she accused the government of abandoning Quebec culture in the face of tech giants and Donald Trump, in exchange for absolute nothing. Carney responded that the question is why the Bloc keeps voting against investments in Quebec culture. Normandin listed the cancellation of policies and the abandonment of the flight against climate change, and that he is deregulating things like pesticides, all for the benefit of American corporations. Carney shrugged this off by listing things the Bloc voted against. Martin Champoux also accused Carney of abandoning Quebec culture for bargaining chips, and Carney said it was sad that the Bloc didn’t read the previous budget and the investments for culture therein.

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Political blackmail under the guise of a unity speech

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Pierre Poilievre kicked off his supposed “unity campaign” in Calgary yesterday (as he skipped the installation of the Governor General to do so), and gave a speech which was little more than a remix of the same campaign speech he’s been giving for three years now. And not even a good remix, but a shitty extended dub mix that is mostly just a lot of electronic noise. In it was the usual litany of invented grievances that Albertans have been touting for years—pretending that the federal government is somehow interfering in their jurisdiction, or that Justin Trudeau’s environmental policies were somehow strangling the province’s resource sector and that the global oil price crash of 2014 didn’t happen (just like the oil price crash of 1981 didn’t happen, and all of their woes were the fault of Pierre Trudeau). It’s a tired mythology that is not true, but is so intrinsic to the core of the invented grievances that have dominated Alberta politics for more than four decades.

But what is particularly dangerous about this kind of tactic is that it hijacks a potential national unity crisis for partisan ends. It makes unity conditional on the conservatives, federally or provincially, getting their own way as though there aren’t political considerations in the rest of the country either. As Andrew Coyne puts it, this message posits that the rest of the country needs to “prove” that it’s worth saving, and if that means dismantling what little federalism we have in this country, then so be it. The notion that the only Canada worth having is their narrow vision of the country, which is exclusionary and frankly mean, is not a unity message. It’s little more than the same kind of blackmail that Danielle Smith and Jason Kenney before her were trying to use in leveraging separatist sentiment to hold a knife to their own throats to force concessions from the federal government because they think it worked for Quebec. (It did not, and Quebec’s economy has never actually recovered). It’s fundamentally undemocratic, and shows them to be little more than crybabies who can’t handle the fact that sometimes democracy means you lose at politics.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-06-08T19:08:01.492Z

My Latest:

  • My latest for National Magazine on Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision and the warning they gave to judges about how to do a credibility analysis.
  • My weekend column takes note of the way in which Poilievre’s rhetoric tends to catastrophize what is happening, along his tendency to rewrite history.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on that Conservative MP trying to refuse his raise, and why that kind of populism is poisonous to democracy.

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QP: Still refusing to say “recession”

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The PM was absent, despite having just been at the installation ceremony for the new Governor General, while Pierre Poilievre was also absent, giving a speech in Calgary, leaving it up to Gabriel Hardy to led off in French, where he used the usual tired script of framing the “recession” accusations around use of food banks. Steven MacKinnon patted himself on the back for the good job numbers that were released on Friday. Hardy then tried to equate something Carney said about a “technical recession” when he was governor of the Bank of England, which MacKinnon ignored and instead listed the supports in the enhanced GST credit that went out over the weekend. Tim Uppal took over to read the script about a “recession,” and this time, Wayne Long got up to first praise Jeremy Hansen’s attendance, before exhorting the Conservatives to get on board with their plan. Uppal recited more of the the “technical recession” talking points, and Long continued to pat himself on the back for the programmes they are rolling out for Canadians. Andrew Lawton then loudly recited the same script, to which Tim Hodgson disputed the talking point about investment leaving the country, and listed projects moving ahead. Lawton took a swipe at Hodgson and kept shouting his script, to which Hodgson listed jobs being created at approved projects.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, unusually for a Monday, and he lamented the prime minister’s directive to wipe out all levies on web giants for Canadian content, to which Marc Miller accused the Bloc of turning up their noses at the $600 million for culture. Blanchet noted the comparison to the EU, who are adding to these levies, and Miller said that Quebec’s cultural media sector praised their investments. Blanchet railed that they re undercutting the cultural emotion, and Miller took a swipe back at Blanchet in return.

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