Contentious Liberal plan to overhaul cybersecurity faces more scrutiny – National

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne is defending the Liberal’s plans to overhaul critical infrastructure protection in Canada amid continued concerns Bill C-26 could undermine both Canadians’ privacy and government transparency.

Bill C-26 would give Champagne and his successors the ability to order private companies, such as banks and telecoms, in five critical sectors tied to national security to hand over potentially sensitive information about Canadians. It would also enable the ability to share that information with intelligence agencies, domestic governments and foreign allies.

It would permit the federal industry minister to compel any person or entity in Canada to turn over information the government believes is required to implement the new cybersecurity regime, according to an analysis of the bill done by the Library of Parliament.

The powers have been described as “broad” by the federal privacy commissioner, and widely panned by civil society and privacy groups, including some who have warned that authoritarian regimes would look at the provisions “in the course of justifying their own unaccountable, secretive and repressive ‘security’ legislation.”

But Champagne told a House of Commons committee on Thursday that those powers are needed to allow the government to “act fast” to address a potentially catastrophic cyber incident.

“If we were to find that there was a failure or intrusion in a network that could have a systemic effect, you would want the minister of industry in the future to say ‘stop, or we disconnect that particular person or entity’ which is the source of the infection of the entire network,” Champagne said under opposition questioning. “The kind of power you need, you need to act very, very quickly.”

Asked why some of the orders could be made in secret, Champagne said “You would not want the actors, which are the ones who are trying to infiltrate our systems, to be aware that you’re asking them” to stop operations.

Both Champagne and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc pointed out that actions taken under Bill C-26 would be subject to judicial review. But while the legislation does require the orders to be openly published, the minister could also “prohibit the disclosure of their existence or some or all…