Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act

[7][8][9] The bill was widely opposed within Canada, particularly after Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told an opposition MP that he could "either stand with us or with the child pornographers" during a debate.

[10] There had been multiple attempts to introduce "lawful access" legislation, allowing police to avoid the necessity of a warrant to obtain information, since 1999 when the Liberal Party of Canada first proposed it.

[11] NDP MPs Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Carol Hughes have criticised the Liberal party given their previous support for near-identical legislation in the past.

[12][13] The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Canadian Lawyer magazine have suggested that such proposals may violate the Constitution of Canada, and be challenged before the Supreme Court as unreasonable search and seizure of digital information.

These have since been replaced with the correct version.In 2007, Toews' predecessor Stockwell Day stated that "we have not and we will not be proposing legislation to grant police the powers to get information from internet providers without a warrant".

[1] The bill would not only have granted these powers to police agencies but also to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Competition Bureau officials, as well as anybody "appointed" by the Minister of Public Safety to carry out such actions.

The government is telling us that the same information is available in the phone book, but the last time I checked, the phone book did not provide my geographic location at all times.Section 487 of the Criminal Code was left unchanged by Bill C-30; ts subsection 487(2.1) allows a police officer to search a building and "use any computer system at the building or place to search any data contained in or available to the computer system", among other things.

In addition, John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest), David Tilson (Dufferin—Caledon) and Rob Anders (Calgary West) were among the Conservative MPs who opposed the bill.

[17][32][33] Political criticism from the Liberals, NDP and Greens has suggested it was hypocritical for the Conservatives to introduce the bill, after scrapping both the long-form census and gun registry in the name of privacy.

Without commenting on the morality of the bill, the Canadian Network Operators Consortium noted that smaller, independent ISPs would likely be unable to afford expensive new equipment to allow authorities real-time monitoring of their customers and may have to discontinue business.

[11] The international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders opined the bill went too far, and failed to account for "respect for people’s private lives and the presumption of innocence".

[45] Federal deputy privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier argued the proposed powers are too broad: "As the legislation is written now, it could impact any law-abiding Canadian citizen.

[32] However, critics have said that other countries should serve as a warning to Canada, noting the many errors and broad overreach of their legislation, with police requesting the private information for mundane tasks such as determining school district eligibility.

The final flaw the Joint Select Committee found with the bill is “the potential for data on Australians to be shared with countries "at large", rather than limited to those that have also acceded to the Council of Europe convention or have an existing formal mutual assistance arrangement with Australia.” [56] The Electronic Frontier Foundation highlighted the fact that the warrantless British system has resulted in police making an average of more than 1,700 queries daily, for personal information about citizens from their telecommunications providers.

[64] Another Twitter user retrieved a copy of Toews' 2008 divorce particulars from the local Winnipeg courthouse and began spreading the contained information, which included details about his extramarital affairs with his family babysitter and a young Conservative staffer, the latter producing a child,[65][66] as well as his spending habits,[51] over the internet as retaliation to highlight the lack of privacy Toews' bill would afford Canadians.

Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird suggested the account was a creation of the NDP playing a "dirty, sleazy, Internet game".

[51][69] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated that Toews had referred them to online threats, and that they were "pondering" an investigation,[70] after the Anonymous hacker collective stated that it would be launching "Operation White North", and threatened to reveal further details from Toews' private life if the bill were not withdrawn, noting they "will not allow a politician who allows his citizens no secrets to have any secrets of his own.

[73] As a result of the opposition to the bill, the government referred it back to the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for possible amendment before introducing it for Second Reading.