Pirate Party Opposes Anti-Internet and Anti-Privacy Bills

Parliament Bills C-13 and S-4 pose imminent threats to privacy and net neutrality

Winnipeg, MB – June 11, 2022

The Pirate Party of Canada would like to express its strong opposition to the recent anti-internet and anti-privacy bills and actions by the government.

Here is an excerpt from our detailed post about these troubling bills and actions:
    
Bill C-13, the "Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act" purports itself as a protection from cyberbullying, but the truth is that only a small part of this bill is about cyberbullying at all. Rather, the majority of C-13 is about expanding police powers to seize Internet data from Canadian citizens without the currently required warrants. The passing of this bill into law constitutes a serious breach of personal privacy and will enable mass surveillance by the state in a way that bypasses standard judicial oversight. The mother of Amanda Todd, the teenager who took her own life due to cyberbullying and is the raison d'être for this bill, had called for this bill to be split to allow careful consideration of the privacy related provisions.

“In the face of recent revelations of spying on Canadians and the sharing of this data with the NSA, this level of government sanctioned privacy infringement without due process of law is truly troubling,” says Fred Hebert, member of the Pirate Party's Political Council.

The Pirate Party calls for careful debate on this matter in parliament. Use of time allocation and other tricky Parliamentary Procedures in order to shorten the debate and limit the public's input will only reinforce public perception that the government is afraid of detailed study of this bill.

Senate bill S-4 would amend the "Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act" to allow mass surveillance without warrants, continuing the intent of the C-30 spying bill. Under Bill S-4, a company could ask for a user's personal information and easily obtain it. For instance, requests based merely on allegations of a website's terms of service agreement being violated.

The Pirate Party calls upon the Canadian government to respect its people's privacy. The Pirate Party fully supports the Open Internet Policies necessary for a thriving information economy in a free and open society. If these bills are passed, a Pirate MP or government would seek to abolish them and sanction any company or individual who had compromised Canadians' privacy.

“The more people who see these heinous bills for the hidden threats they truly are, the better,” says James Wilson, Leader of the Pirate Party of Canada. “We will not sit idly by and let the wool be pulled over the public’s eyes. It’s time to hold our government to a higher standard.”

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For a complete analysis, please check out our blog post outlining our opposition, the negative effects of these bills, the appointment of privacy commissioner and the actions a Pirate MP or government will take.
https://www.pirateparty.ca/?p=6673

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