Civil-liberties groups raise alarm as Ottawa votes on foreign-interference bill

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The House of Commons is expected to pass a sweeping law to counter foreign interference on Thursday, creating new criminal offences, granting more power to the country’s spy agency and establishing a mandatory influence registry, amid concerns from civil-liberties groups and some politicians that it is moving too fast.

The Conservatives have roundly criticized the government for taking so long to introduce the bill that there is a risk of it not being in place by the next election, expected at the latest in October, 2025. Because of those concerns, the Official Opposition agreed to fast-track the legislation, which the Bloc Québécois and NDP also agreed to. It received just six days of study at committee.

While many parts of the bill will take effect soon after royal assent, the government said it needs a year to establish what it is calling the Foreign Influence Transparency Registry and the office that will oversee it. Such a registry has long been recommended by experts and while the government initially resisted implementing one, it now acknowledges it is “increasingly considered an international best practice.”

A growing number of reports and reviews have sounded the alarm on foreign interference in Canadian politics. The first report from the public inquiry into the matter led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, released in early May, called it “a stain on our electoral process.”

Last week, a report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) warned that the “threat of foreign interference is pervasive and persistent” and cautioned that Canada’s democratic processes and institutions are “an easy target.” That report also said intelligence services believe some parliamentarians are “semi-witting or witting” participants in foreign-interference efforts.

After Thursday’s vote in the House, Bill C-70 will go to the Senate where its leadership has also agreed to fast-track the bill and hold a final vote before they rise at the end of the month.

“We have a gun to our head to get this done,” Senator Hassan Yussuff told Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Justice Minister Arif Virani during a Wednesday Senate committee hearing on the bill.

Mr. Yussuff, a member of the Independent Senators Group and a former labour leader, told The Globe and Mail that given the bill’s complexity, it’s incumbent on senators “to study it in its totality, in terms of its broader implication.”

He said he has sympathy for the desire to have the registry in place before the next election but noted that the Senate didn’t choose the timeline.

“I don’t want us to shortcut,” he said.

NSICOP chair and Liberal MP David McGuinty said last week’s report is a “major clarion call for action.”

He stressed that the risks go well beyond Parliament and said there are also concerns about provincial and municipal politics, universities, boardrooms, community associations and non-governmental associations across Canadian society.

“Our democracy is on the line, our rule of law is on the line, transnational repression is on the line, our diaspora communities are on the line and being victimized,” he told reporters outside a Liberal caucus meeting on Wednesday.

“We cannot play with national security,” he said. “There are people’s lives and careers and reputations at stake.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and five other civil-liberties groups warned last week that rushing the legislation meant to stymie foreign interference risks enacting a law that will violate the Charter.

In an interview on Wednesday, two of the association’s directors, Shakir Rahim and Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, said they have concerns with the bill that have not been fixed through the House amendment process.

In particular, Ms. Bussières McNicoll said the organization is concerned by how much is left undecided in the legislation creating the foreign-influence registry. “It uses very broad and basic definitions and leaves crucial questions to future regulations,” she said.

For example, she said the exact scope of the registry, who and what arrangements will be captured by it, and what type of information people will have to provide to it all remains to be determined.

Another section of the law, creates a new sabotage offence under the Criminal Code, aimed at protecting domestic essential infrastructure – which is not related to foreign interference.

The CCLA and several other experts said in May that the provision is too broad and could infringe on legitimate protest. But instead of narrowing that section, Mr. Rahim said the House committee broadened it by including protections for construction of essential infrastructure.

He said the new offence does not adequately protect the right to protest and said it will give police more powers to shut down demonstrations, such as the 2022 blockade of the capital or past pipeline blockades.

Mr. Rahim said he supports addressing risks to Canada’s democracy, but “the solution to this problem can’t be at the expense of the civil liberties that are important for us to protect.”

In the House Wednesday, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said she is concerned that “we’ve gone perhaps recklessly quickly in bringing the bill forward.” Still, her office later confirmed that she will vote in favour of Bill C-70.

NDP MP and public-safety critic Alistair MacGregor said his party agreed to rush the bill despite wanting more time for review because of the threat of foreign interference.

The window to get the registry in place is so narrow, he said, that it factored into the House public-safety committee’s decision not to make the office responsible for overseeing the registry independent of the government. Had the committee passed such an amendment, Mr. MacGregor said it was told that it would take even longer to establish.

Conservative MP and foreign-affairs critic Michael Chong welcomed what he called the government’s belated action on the issue.

“Bill C-70 is a much-needed response to the existential threat to our democracy from foreign interference,” he said in the House.

When asked by The Globe on Wednesday if the government is committed to having the legislation in place prior to the next election, Mr. LeBlanc said “I very much hope so.”

“We’re going to certainly move expeditiously,” he said. “Ideally it would be in place before the next election, absolutely.”