How the New Government Bill on Strengthening the Border Could Affect Privacy

News Analysis

The Liberal government’s first major bill of the new Parliament introduced this week proposes sweeping changes to a number of current laws in a bid to reinforce border security, with some impacting privacy.

The Strong Borders Act, Bill C-2, proposes making it easier for authorities to search mail and goods coming in and out of Canada, and making it harder for some people to enter the country and remain.

Along with seeking to address fentanyl trafficking, a hot issue since U.S. President Donald Trump won re-election last November, the new bill would also make it harder to claim asylum in Canada.

The tabling of the bill on June 3 follows Ottawa’s $1.3 billion border security plan released in late 2024 in a bid to avoid Trump’s first wave of tariffs against Canada and Mexico, said to be linked to trafficking and illegal migration concerns.

The plan didn’t help Canada to avoid tariffs. It remains to be seen if this new bill will tip the scale.

Upon introducing Bill C-2, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said it is in response to his government’s commitment to keep Canadian communities safe and to work with Washington to strengthen the border. The long title of the act specifically mentions that it relates to the security of the Canada-U.S. border along with “other related security measures.”

The bill proposes to amend over a dozen pieces of legislation including the Criminal Code and laws related to customs, immigration and refugee protection, controlled drugs and substances, oceans, access to information, and proceeds of crime. Many provisions in the bill will have an impact on Canadians’ privacy, some experts say, but Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Bill C-2 will uphold Charter rights and respect the rule of law.

The bill seeks to make it easier for law enforcement to “lawfully access basic information and data that is necessary in the early stages of criminal investigations.”

This would include a peace officer or public officer making a demand to a service provider to identify whether it holds information on a specific subscriber or client, and if so, whether this includes transmission data linked to the client.

The threshold for making such a demand would be for the officer to have “reasonable grounds to suspect,” which is lower than “grounds to believe,” that an offence has or will be committed.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act would also be amended to grant the agency such powers.

University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist raised concerns about the provisions in a June 4 blog post, saying the government is reviving an attempt at gaining warrantless access to private information.

“Much like the government’s overreach last year on online harms, Bill C-2 overreaches by including measures on Internet subscriber data that have nothing to do with border safety or security but raise privacy and civil liberties concerns that are bound to spark opposition,” he wrote

Geist, whose main concerns are around issues related to the internet and data, his field of expertise, noted that the Supreme Court had already ruled that there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding internet subscriber information.

Aside from the digital space, Bill C-2 would also facilitate the search of material objects such as mail and packages.

The bill intends to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act and remove obstacles preventing police from searching mail when conducting criminal investigations.

The amendments would remove letters as a type of mail that cannot be searched if there are reasonable grounds to suspect non-compliance with some regulations or if the item being mailed is “non-mailable matter,” such as illegal items or obscene material.

In the proposed legislation, border officers would have to be granted access to premises where the goods destined for export are being reported or stored, in order to conduct inspections, something they can currently do at premises where goods are being imported.

Some aspects of the bill affecting privacy could be considered less controversial.

By amending legislation concerning immigration and citizenship, Bill C-2 would allow the immigration department to share information on its “clients” with other federal entities and other levels of government after entering information-sharing agreements. A client is someone going through the immigration system, whether they are asylum-seekers or new citizens.

There have been a number of immigration-related controversies with a security nexus in recent years, including the arrest of a father and son in Toronto who were allegedly planning a terrorist attack on behalf of ISIS.

The father, Ahmed Eldidi, became a Canadian citizen in May 2024 an was arrested two months later. Egypt-born Eldidi had entered Canada on a temporary resident visa before making an asylum claim.

Bill C-2 would also enhance the RCMP’s ability to share information on registered sex offenders with domestic and international partners.

The proposed legislation, 127 pages long, went through first reading in the House of Commons on June 3. As its names states, it is the second bill tabled by the government in the new Parliament.

Next, the bill will receive second reading in the House, where parties will explain their stances. It will then be referred to committee for review, where officials and experts will testify and parties will be able to propose amendments.