Cybersecurity bill won’t be used to kick people off internet, minister says

Industry Minister Melanie Joly responded to concerns that language in Bill C-8, which she said targets telecommunication service providers, would apply to online speech.

Expanded powers under the federal government’s proposed cybersecurity legislation won’t be used to kick Canadians off the internet for their online conduct, Industry Minister Melanie Joly told MPs on Tuesday.

Bill C-8 would amend the Telecommunications Act to ensure security is a stated priority of Ottawa’s telecommunications strategy and allow the government to compel service providers to act in the event of a cybersecurity incident.

Under the bill, the federal industry minister could issue orders to those companies — without judicial review and potentially with a non-disclosure clause — to remove equipment or services from their networks if it’s found to pose a security risk.

However, language in the bill that says the minister could order a service provider to prohibit or temporarily suspend providing “any service to any specified person” has raised concerns it could be used against individual Canadians, which Joly denied.

“It is important to be clear about what this bill does not do: it does not allow the government to shut down services for individuals. It does not allow the interception of private communications,” she said in her opening statement to the House of Commons public safety committee.

“Infrastructure security is not freedom of speech. This bill is about protecting networks, not regulating expression or ideas.”

Joly later said she would support amending the language in the bill to make clear it’s only addressing the telecommunications system and critical infrastructure, calling the concerns “a fair point.”

“The term ‘person’ was defined as basically ‘companies,’ and so I think it was just lost in translation,” she said. “But we can make sure that we can define that in a way that we’re not creating any form of misinterpretation.