The coalition warns that despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ‘Canada strong’ rhetoric on the campaign trail earlier this year, his government has been largely silent on threats to Canada’s digital sovereignty.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Almost 70 public figures, academics and expert groups have written to Prime Minister Mark Carney urging him to defend Canada’s digital sovereignty against foreign tech giants and to scrap the strong borders bill that they say threatens Canadians’ privacy.
The signatories, who include author Margaret Atwood, former head of the federal public service Alex Himelfarb and former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, have signed a letter to be sent Tuesday to the Prime Minister that expresses concern about digital security and the influence of foreign-controlled tech companies on Canadians’ daily lives.
The coalition warns that despite Mr. Carney’s “Canada strong” rhetoric on the campaign trail earlier this year, his government has been largely silent on threats to Canada’s digital sovereignty.
“Empires once built railways. Now they build algorithms,” said Barry Appleton, co-director of the New York Law School’s Center for International Law, who was among the prominent Canadians to sign the open letter.
“If Canada cannot govern the code that governs Canadians, then we are no longer a sovereign democracy,” he said in a statement. “We will be tenants in Trump’s regime.”
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The signatories argue that social media, cloud systems, AI engines, data privacy protection, critical infrastructure and the mechanisms for making digital financial transactions are dominated by tech giants, such as Google.
On the list of the coalition’s demands is a cybersecurity law aimed at protecting critical cybersystems integral to public safety, national security and infrastructure in federally regulated sectors such as banking, transportation, energy and telecommunications.
The letter also calls for Bill C-2, the strong borders bill, to be scrapped – a call previously made by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and other groups.
It was signed by dozens of organizations, including the Centre for Digital Rights, the Centre for Free Expression and Reset Tech, a global non-profit that fights digital threats to security and safety.
They call for a sovereignty-first digital strategy, including measures to regulate AI.
They propose that Canada create a “digital sovereignty framework” with bills guaranteeing Canadian jurisdiction over data, cloud and AI, backed by “blocking statutes” against U.S. extraterritorial laws.
They also call for an audit of foreign-controlled systems, with a risk assessment of Canada’s digital and AI infrastructure to expose vulnerabilities posed by foreign surveillance and coercion.
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The letter states that Canada is heavily reliant on the U.S. in the digital sphere, including with at least 25 per cent of Canada’s domestic internet traffic “unnecessarily routed through the U.S., where it loses Canadian control and protections and is subject to U.S. surveillance and other forms of interference.”
“Furthermore, the majority of Canadian internet traffic with third countries is routed through U.S. territory or via U.S. carriers, with a similar loss of Canadian control and protections.” it adds.
The letter urges Canada to draw lessons from other countries that have stood up to President Donald Trump or Russia and China.
“In its trade deal with Trump, the U.K. did not back down on its Digital Services Tax or its Online Safety Act. We can draw lessons from Finland, Estonia and Taiwan, which have hardened their digital infrastructure and public spheres against attack or domination by a belligerent neighbour,” it says.
The signatories argue for the reinstatement of the digital services tax, which would have taxed big tech companies operating in Canada. It was scrapped by Mr. Carney after pressure from Mr. Trump.
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The letter also focuses on the strong borders bill, now before Parliament. As well as changes to tighten Canada’s immigration system, Bill C-2 would grant police and spy agencies powers to demand, without first obtaining a warrant, basic information on whether people have used telecoms and online services, which could include dating apps and websites.
“Bill C-2 opens the door to unprecedented surveillance and cross-border data sharing with the U.S. that, under President Trump, has become increasingly unreliable, authoritarian, and out of step with liberal democracies around the world,” the letter says.
Teresa Scassa, the University of Ottawa’s Canada Research Chair in information law and policy, who signed the letter, said Bill C-2 “contains a number of measures that are not about borders, but are about significantly increasing warrantless digital search powers in ways that will impact the privacy rights of Canadians, and also impact the operations of anyone who ‘provides services to the public.’ ”
The letter calls on the government to reintroduce a strengthened Privacy Protection Act, to protect minors.
It also urges Ottawa to extend privacy rules to political parties. Mr. Carney’s tax cut-focused Bill C-4 has been criticized by privacy advocates over the inclusion of an unrelated section that would shield federal parties from provincial privacy laws.
The letter was signed by Elizabeth Denham, a former B.C. information and privacy commissioner and who once also served as U.K. information commissioner.
In addition, the letter calls on the Prime Minister to modernize copyright law to stop foreign AI companies from exploiting Canadian news and culture without consent or compensation.
It wants the government to draw up a new online safety bill after the last one failed to become law before the election. The letter says a reintroduced bill should omit its predecessor’s new criminal penalties for hate-speech crimes and a proposed new peace bond to prevent people from future hateful behaviour.