Well, no, this is a recently inserted block of text in the bill (confirm at the link above):
Exception
(2. 7)(b) However, a copy of the warrant is not required to be given
to a person under subsection (2. 6) if the judge or justice who issues
the warrant sets aside the requirement in respect of the person, on
being satisfied that doing so is justified in the circumstances.
Do these warrants have a fixed maximum duration of secrecy?
(Finding out what ISP a user belongs to, isn't really that private. If you look at the US comparatively, Homeland has a list of every single credit card transaction ever. The US doesn't need to ask an ISP if someone is a customer. What this does is simply confirm, and then the judge can create a warrant specific for that ISP.)
Such as compelling the ISP, or what not, to take action. The ISP is not the subject here. And obviously hiding the warrant from the ISP makes zero sense, as they're going to know who the person is anyhow.
This is stuff that goes back to phone taps. Nothing new here.
Like are you envisioning a "I totally have a warrant but I don't have to give it to you" type situation? I think it's fairly unlikely, and you would likely be able to get the search ruled inadmissible if a cop tried it.
Improperly down voted comments typically even out in the end anyway.
The public must have the ability to easily verify police conduct is appropriate, and it must match the cadence of the police work.
Er, the warrant is still there to be examined later, no? It's just not necessarily shown to the subject at the time of investigation.
The warrant is the receipt. Even if you believe it's fine most of the time I'm pretty certain most people would feel uncomfortable if they went to the grocery store and weren't offered one. You throw it away most of the time, but have you never needed it? Mistakes happen.
The stakes are a lot higher here. The cost of mistakes are higher. The incentives for abuse are higher. The cost of abuse is lower.
And what's the downside of the person being searched having the warrant? Why does it need to be secret?
There may well be reasonable scenarios a majority of people would agree that providing a warrant isn't feasible, but that needs to be codified in law in more detail than whenever the judge deems it so.
And everyone should be skeptical enough of government power that they mentally switch out "can" with "will".
| many of these rules appear geared toward global information sharing
Investigative work *should* be difficult.
| It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
This frame of thinking is critical with laws too! When the law fails how do you want it to fail? So you need to think about that when evaluating this (or any other) law. When it is abused, how does it fail? Are you okay with that failure mode? How easy is it to be abused? Even if you believe your current government is unlikely to abuse it do you believe a future government might? (If you don't believe a future government might... look south...)
A lot of us strongly push against these types of measures not because we have anything to hide nor because we are on the side of the criminals. We generally have this philosophy because it is needed to keep a government in check. It doesn't matter if everyone involved has good intentions. We're programmers, this should be natural too! It doesn't matter if we have good intentions when designing a login page, you still have to think adversarially and about failure modes because good intentions are not enough to defend against those who wish to exploit it. Even if the number of exploiters is small the damage is usually large, right?
This framework of thinking is just as beneficial when thinking about laws as it is in the design of your programs. You can be in favor of the intent (spirit of the law), but you do have to question if the letter of the law is sufficient.
I wanted to explain this because I think it'll help facilitate these types of discussions. I think they often break down because people are interpreting from very different mental frameworks. Disagree with me if you want, but I hope making the mental framework explicit can at least improve your arguments :)
I had this view as well until I realized it’s predicated on living in a high trust society. At some point you reach a critical mass of crime that is so rampant, and the rule of law has so broken down that it’s basically Mad Max out there, and then these idealistic philosophies start to fall apart.
You can look to parts of SE Asia or the Middle East to see some examples where that happened, and where it was eventually reigned in with extreme measures (Usually broad and indiscriminate capital punishment).
I know your comment is about fixing failure modes in the legal system, and I’m not defending government surveillance, or the idea of considering someone innocent until proven guilty, but what happens when the entire system fails due to misplaced idealism? Much worse things are waiting on the other end of the spectrum when people don’t feel like the government is adequately protecting them.
The question isn't about idealism or the realistic possibility of said idealism. The question, in my opinion, is whether we can only succeed as a species if a small number of people are entrusted with creating and enforcing laws by force when necessary.
That isn't to say we never need some level of hierarchy or that laws, social norms, etc aren't important. Its to say that we need to keep a tight reign on it and only push authority and enforcement up the ladder when absolutely necessary.
It will end poorly if we continue down the road of larger and larger governments under the fear of Mad Max, and this idea many people have that "someone has to be in charge."
> until I realized it’s predicated on living in a high trust society.
> You can look to parts of SE Asia or the Middle East to see some examples where that happened
> but what happens when the entire system fails due to misplaced idealism?
High authority + low trust + abuse gives you situations like we've seen in Russia, Iran, North Korea. These are pretty bad. The people have no faith in their governments and the governments are centered around enriching a few.
High authority + high trust + abuse is probably even worse though. That's how you get countries like Nazi German (and cults). The government is still centered around enriching a few but they create more stability by narrowing the targeting. Or rather by having a clearer scale where everyone isn't abused ad equally. (You could see the famous quotes by a famous US president about keeping the white population in check by making them believe that at least they're not black)
None of the outcomes are good but I think the authoritarian ones are much worse.
> when people don’t feel like the government is adequately protecting them.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? That implies that the road to hell isn't paved just by evil people. It can be paved even by good well intentioned ones. Just like I suggested about when programming. We don't intend to create bugs or flaws (at least most of us don't), but they still exist. They still get created even when we're trying our hardest to not create them, right? But being aware that they happen unintentionally helps you make fewer of them, right? I'm suggesting something similar, but about governments.
I see "High Trust Society" so much as a weird racist dogwhistle, but feel free to disabuse me of that notion.
I live in an extremely high crime area. Because cops abuse the law to keep their numbers up. If someone checked they would see that my local McDonalds car park is one of the biggest crime hotspots in the country because of administrative detections made on minor drug deals there.
It just so happens that my area is also where the government dumps migrants, refugees and poor people. Its also the case that they test welfare changes here.
I haven't had a single incident here in 6 years. We often forget to lock our doors. My wife takes my toddler walking around the neighborhood at night. I wave hello to the guy across the road who I have like 99% certainty is dealing drugs (Or just has a lot of friends with nice cars who visit to see how long it has been since he trimmed his lawn).
That said, if you turn on the tv 2 things are apparently happening. 1. We are under attack by hordes of immigrants tearing the country apart. 2. We are under attack by kids on ebikes mowing kids down in a rampage of terror.
Politicians, in order to be seen to be doing things, bring laws in to counter these threats. People bash their chests and demand more be done.
But the issue is that its just not happening. My suburb is great. The people are generally lovely, even those in meth related occupations.
When you complain about the trustiness of the society, consider that your lack of trust might actually be the problem? Nothing is necessarily going to break down because you didnt make your neighbors life worse by supporting another dumb as shit law. "Oh no crime is so rampant" buddy you need to get over yourself. Societies don't fail because of socially defined Crime they fail because people prioritise their perceived safety over everyones freedom.
> I’m not defending government surveillance, or the idea of considering someone innocent until proven guilty
Exactly what you are defending.
>what happens when the entire system fails due to misplaced idealism?
Its at threat from the idealism that you can just pass one more law to fix society.
>don’t feel like the government is adequately protecting them.
They come up with a bunch of dumbshit laws like the OP. Thats the result.
Collective notions of shame, actual networks of friends and families that reinforce correct behaviour or issue corrections.
Think about simply how credit networks form and function. And why visiting a food truck or medieval travelling doctor for your vial of ointment is different from buying special products from a brick and mortar establishment.
Basically if you or the network has a harder time back propagating defaults and bad credit in a way that prevents future bad outcomes then that is a loss of high trust.
This isn't about race really unless you are operating at the level of some biological or genetic connection to behaviour ... But that is a pretty strange place to be as there a whole host of confounding factors that are much more obvious and believable and I cast serious doubt that even a motivated racist would ever credibly be able to do empirical studies showing causal links between any given genetic population cluster and the emergent societal behaviour. These are such high dimensional systems it just seems insane to even think one could measure this effect.
The invisible substrate is the society unfortunately ... And we are all bad at writing it down and measuring it.
It's about giving up freedoms you might never get back, because it's not your decision anymore after giving them up.
People do not generally believe a seat belt limits your liberty, but you're not exactly wrong either. But maybe in order to understand what they mean it's better to not play devil's advocate. So try an example like the NSA's mass surveillance. This was instituted under the pretext of keeping Americans safe. It was a temporary liberty people were willing to sacrifice for safety. But not only did find the pretext was wrong (no WMDs were found...) but we never were returned that liberty either, now were we?
That's the meaning. Or what people use it to mean. But if you try to tear down any saying it's not going to be hard to. Natural languages utility isn't in their precision, it's their flexibility. If you want precision, well I for one am not going to take all the time necessary to write this in a formal language like math and I'd doubt you'd have the patience for it either (who would?). So let's operate in good faith instead. It's far more convenient and far less taxing
Moral: don't give up freedoms for temporary gains. It never balances out in the end.
I think a better way to phrase it would be:
> he who gives up a little freedom for a little security ends up with neither
If I'm over that when passing a speed camera in Victoria, AUS, I'll be pinged with a decent fine to arrive shortly.
Imagine if instead of a chime I got fined every single time, everywhere? All this new monitoring makes it a bit like that, at an extreme. I don't want to live in such a society.
Applies in the text you quoted, unlike true warrantless surveillance NSA-style?
You still have to get the warrant past a judge, and convince the judge of the higher bar for keeping the warrant secret.
I presume the distinction here could be between a search warrant, which you have to show the subject before entering their house, and a surveillance/wiretap warrant which you for obvious reason's don't.
(Meanwhile, FIVE EYES carries on as usual.)
Clearly some criminal investigations require not notifying the suspect.
Countries AND the government exist for and at the pleasure of their respective citizens.
The ISP can see the warrant. The judge creates a warrant. The court sees the warrant.
Where did you get that idea?
edit: it seems the comment I replied to was edited
When people criticized the left, nobody was arrested, nobody got put in jail. During Obamas term, despite the fact that the Patriot act was renewed, nobody ever went to
Its only when right wing people started getting deplatformed for anti vax or race realism rhetoric is when this whole idea started that "liberal governments are actually evil and want to control every citizen and suppress free speech", which all contributed to Trumps victories, and consequently Republicans proved that they were the ones anti free speech in the first place.
[1]https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jailed-o...
Why should Trump's actions be the measure to okay to Canada's measures against personal freedom? Trump and Canada can both take away personal freedoms and both are bad.
Can we stop with this nonsense at any point?
The government can declare an emergency. Certain actions can be taken during an emergency which are outside what is typically allowed or bypass normal processes. The actions are subject to a mandatory judicial review within 60 days. The judicial review happened. The government was found to have acted out of line. It's current working its way through appeal courts.
The way you phrase this is, imo, intentionally implying "the government is ALLOWED to freeze your accounts at will". The reality is more in line with "I can murder someone at will.". Yes, yes I can. Because we don't have precogs and a pre-crime division. That doesn't mean it's allowed or accepted.
Direct your energy at this law. This is _actually_ a huge fucking problem.
And again, the only argument against this is "well you don't want to have the government have power to deem anyone as in breach of public safety in case there is a tyrannical government that misuses this power"
which is hilarious because people think a tyrannical government is going to give 2 fucks about laws in the first place, which is literally happening today.
That's not the truth. Everyone's affected and the risk will only continue to rise if we let such bills pass. One day it will be too late to do anything, as mass surveillance will be so entrenched as to not be able to form any kind of opposition or to do any kind of serious journalism without getting squished in the beginning before you even get started.
Found the federal govt employee or boomer who bought real estate in the 90s
/s
The federal housing minister literally 2 days ago stood up in the House of Commons and associated the housing cost catastrophe with the war in Iran that's been happening for a week.
Thankfully prices on that front are slowly declining. Another $200k to go at least before they make any sense.
You can tell where things will land with this generally it's not bad.
If it were Texas or the South where the justice dept. leans a different way it could be a problem.
Canada is a bit like Europe where they have statist mentality, kind of hints of lawful, bureaucratic authoritarianism - not arbitrary or political or regime driven, but kind of an inherent orientation towards 'rules' etc. where the system can tilt wayward, but that's completely different than regime, or 'deep institutional' issues and state actors that do wild things.
That is to say, though the "vibe" may be as you say, the law now permits, if not now, at some future instance people with different perspectives or vibes can use the law as written, to other ends.
In short, yeah it may not be Texas now, but a "Texas-like" vibe could germinate and use the laws in the books later.
There is no such thing as a set of 'hard fast rules' like 'software' which governs us.
It's always going to depend on the quality, characteristic and legitimacy of institutions, among other things.
'The Slippery Slope' can be applied in almost anything and I don't think that it is a reasonable rhetorical posture without more context.
'Written Laws' is not going to really stop anywhere from 'becoming like Texas'
If the last decade and a half has taught us anything, it's that you can't rely on the state and arms of the state to remain consistent permanently.
In the absence of a free media, as in the US where it's controlled by a handful of billionaires, the people can be manipulated to vote in a government that will run roughshod over precedent and norms.
Canada and European nations are not very 'liberal' in the sense a lot of people would like - they are communitarian.
We lament Trump breaking norms ... the office of the Canadian PM is almost only bounded by norms, he has crazy amounts of power - on paper.
A Trump-like actor in Canada (maybe UK as well) could do way more damage.
I think that the quality of the judiciary is subjective but real, it can be characterized.
I don't have a problem with this law as it is written, to the extent it's used judiciously, which I generally expect in Canada - but that's only because of an understanding of the system as a whole, not as it is written.
A Trump-like actor in Canada would do far less damage than in USA. There is no position they could held that would give them the power to do lot of damage. The Queen (nowaday King) has no power. If they tried to use it's constitutional powers as written they would be laughed out. The Governor General, who may act on behalf of the Queen would be laughed out too if they tried to take any decision. The Prime Minister seems all powerful but they are one motion from the House of Common from being overthrown. When one's become POTUS, they are basically POTUS until the end of their term. The exception is impeachment which is a very complicated process that never worked. In Canada, the House of Common can simply vote the Prime Minister out. The Prime Minister is very powerful, I agree, but only as long as they behave.
If the PM holds enough popular support and has even a narrow majority that he can effectively whip, he's almost above reproach.
Everything at the top in Canada is 'convention' even the Constitution and there's barely any real constraint at someone driving a truck through all of it.
The US executive is very different because it's an independent election: it's almost impossible to get rid of a President, and relatively easy to deflect blame.
Australia's round of axing prime ministers had some essential logic to it despite the move being relatively unpopular with the electorate: it wasn't about whether the party would lose power, it was about whether replacing the prime minister would let them retain seats they faced otherwise losing.
It's a mammoth difference when the election for executive power and legislative power are linked and it shows.