Industry officials are denying that the federal government’s proposed cybersecurity bill will be used to silence online dissent, despite provisions allowing cabinet to secretly block access to telecommunications services without a warrant.Appearing before the Commons public safety committee, Andre Arbour, director general of telecom policy at the Department of Industry, said Bill C-8 — An Act Respecting Cybersecurity — is meant to protect Canada’s communications networks, not regulate speech. “Individual speech has no bearing on the ability of Bell Canada or Rogers to maintain their network or reliability of their services,” Arbour told MPs. “There is just no relation there.”Blacklock's Reporter said the bill would grant cabinet the power to “prohibit a telecom service provider from using all products and services provided to a specified person” if it “believes on reasonable grounds it is necessary” to protect the network against “any threat.” Such orders could be kept secret and would not require a warrant..Arbour said the powers are designed for emergency situations like cyberattacks, not for targeting individuals. “The authorities are scoped in terms of needing to protect the Canadian telecommunications system,” he said. “That means individual commentary of Canadians or their ongoing traffic online is not germane to that.”He said the measure could be used, for example, during a distributed denial-of-service attack that disrupts national communications. “It can’t just be on a whim,” Arbour added. “These are services Canadians rely on for life and death, being able to call 911.”.Conservative MP Sukhman Gill called the bill “sweeping” and warned it could give the government unchecked authority to deny internet access “without a warrant, without a trial, without any automatic review.” He pressed officials on what safeguards exist to prevent abuse.“The policy objective specifies the protection of the telecommunications system,” Arbour replied, insisting free expression would not be affected.A similar bill, C-26, died in the last Parliament after privacy concerns. Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne told MPs earlier this month that he was never consulted on Bill C-8.
