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The Loonie Hour

Canada's State Surveillance Bill - w/ guest Michael Geist

29 May 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is Bill C-22 and why is it controversial?

0.031 - 19.069 Steve Saretsky

The mandate, they're actually extending this beyond just streamers. They're including devices like smart TVs and set-top boxes, all of which will have to promote Canadian content. They want metrics on how much Canadian content is being watched. It basically creates a surveillance map of just about everybody for an entire year.

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19.049 - 39.095 Unknown

Mainstream media has lost control of dominating whatever message that's want to been communicated. This then comes down to the economic, financial and debt story. I believe the Western world is terrified. There are citizens becoming acutely aware of how ineffective our economies are now actually running.

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39.215 - 47.065 Steve Saretsky

The other element that's got a lot of people concerned has to do with the assistance or support that these companies would have to provide to law enforcement.

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47.045 - 55.017 Unknown

The backlash is probably similar to some of the other bills, but I think there's been a whole bunch of companies now saying that they would potentially just leave Canada.

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55.058 - 60.546 Steve Saretsky

The Apples and Metas and Googles saying, we don't do this anywhere and we sure don't want to do it here either.

60.566 - 74.588 Rich Diaz

Why is this government so insistent on destroying like our basic constitutional rights? The insistence on being sort of a police state online and then being, you know, Teletubbies in the courtroom. I mean, if you're going to be a police state, just go full hog, you know? The dirty seat.

Chapter 2: How does Bill C-22 impact individual privacy rights?

77.318 - 86.669 Rich Diaz

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86.83 - 104.671 Unknown

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104.791 - 119.81 Unknown

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120.051 - 136.131 Unknown

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Chapter 3: What are the implications of mandatory metadata retention?

144.123 - 158.324 Unknown

Visit neighborhood.com. Welcome back to the Looney Hour episode 243. As always, join me with the three amigos. We've got the boomer over in Montreal, Rich Diaz, and... Oh, I screwed that up. Jeff, take two. Take two.

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159.626 - 160.667 Rich Diaz

I haven't moved.

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160.85 - 185.423 Unknown

welcome back all right take three take three we keep recording jeff keep the whole thing people like this stuff welcome back all right come on you can do it take four try it again go back to looney our episode 243 as always drum the three amigos we got the boomer over in halifax rich diaz in montreal welcome back to the show richard

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185.774 - 215.41 Rich Diaz

gentlemen hello hello habs i went to another game so now i'm officially broke but it was it was it was terrible game we lost i'm very sad i did meet one of our clients keith which was really fun she was there with her daughter who was it yuppie what's her name and sin number and address everything she's great she knows who she is i'm not sure if we should say her name but she was lovely she was there for her daughter she flew in from nova scotia there's a clue for you

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215.643 - 227.886 Rich Diaz

And it was really cool to see her. And yeah, so it was really fun. And I'm very sad I yelled. That's probably why my voice is very... But we didn't play well, so there you go. But it's still 2-1, plenty to play for.

227.946 - 232.535 Unknown

So Rich shared a picture of me of the game.

Chapter 4: How do tech companies react to Bill C-22?

232.555 - 244.008 Unknown

And he's the only guy in the whole stadium who's not wearing a jersey anymore. He's wearing this two-tone blue rugby shirt. It's weird.

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244.028 - 254.087 Rich Diaz

So share with everyone why. You probably showed off a suit and tie. Here's a hot take for you. I think it's completely ridiculous for adults to wear jockey jerseys.

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254.759 - 258.345 Unknown

No, you can wear hockey jerseys. It's a little bit frowned upon with a name on the back.

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258.806 - 268.402 Rich Diaz

I just think it's like, I'm an adult. I don't need to wear... I mean, I don't know. I know I'm going to get killed on this comment. I just think it's not my style. I would never wear a hockey jersey. Fire this guy.

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Chapter 5: What are the concerns around law enforcement access to data?

268.542 - 279.18 Rich Diaz

It's for children. Hockey jerseys are for children. But yes, Keith, you're right. It's a sea of red. And by the way, the red jersey is not even the nicest jersey. I think the white jersey is nicer. I'm not going to the game with him anymore, Keith.

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280.24 - 281.582 Unknown

My parlay is over.

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282.002 - 293.759 Rich Diaz

Yeah. Anyways, there you go. I'm the only one in the, maybe that's why we lost. Cause I wasn't wearing a Jersey of a teenager. There you go. Happy Keith. Now you, now everybody knows my deepest, darkest secret.

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Chapter 6: How does the legislation compare to international laws?

296.102 - 298.606 Unknown

Okay.

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298.686 - 299.487 Rich Diaz

Okay.

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299.507 - 317.453 Unknown

Yeah, guys, Halifax. We're clinging to like four or five degree weather. And. you know, that that's it. I got nothing awesome to share except next week. It's going to be a lot of fun. Oh yeah. Good segue. What are you doing next week?

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317.686 - 337.934 Unknown

We have the June 3rd of the Looney Hours in Toronto with the Looney Hour Investor Series with Ron Butler, friend of the show, and Dan Foch, who I don't think we've had Dan on the show yet, but he's been at several of our events. So we're going to do sort of a presentation style. Rich and Keith are going to sort of chat about markets and portfolio positioning, et cetera.

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337.954 - 339.576 Unknown

And then we've got a housing panel.

Chapter 7: What is the public's role in influencing these laws?

340.028 - 366.117 Unknown

with myself ron and dan so yeah i don't know there's a link there's only a few tickets left but uh if you're listening to this podcast there's happens to be some still left there'll be a link in the show notes below that will take you to an eventbrite page where you can buy a ticket That ticket includes, it's an open bar, so we usually lose money. And food. The Calgary guys, we lose money.

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366.137 - 371.767 Rich Diaz

No, we got killed in Alberta. I did not budget for the alcoholism from that part of the world.

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372.107 - 373.47 Unknown

I respect that, though.

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373.49 - 374.592 Rich Diaz

Respect the hell out of that.

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374.572 - 388.845 Unknown

One guy from Red Deer came. That pushed us off. Sorry, Steve. I interrupted you. I'll never forget that one Looney Hour event we had in Calgary. We did lawn bowling. We bought a lot of booze.

Chapter 8: What are the potential long-term effects of Bill C-22?

389.005 - 412.1 Unknown

Some guy walked out. The tickets were $20. Some guy walked out at the end of the night with leftover booze. He took a 24-pack home. And a full pizza. For $20. $20. That's not going to happen this time. Basically what I'm saying is if you don't come to this event, you're losing money. Yeah, that's right. Anyway.

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412.16 - 419.168 Rich Diaz

Oh, excuse me. One more thing for some of the people who might not know. It's not in the Danforth. It's not East Toronto.

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420.75 - 449.996 Unknown

Where is it again? It's Queen Street West somewhere. Anyways, it's downtown Toronto. It's a good spot. Don't worry about it. Just show up. Bring your Habs jersey. And anyways, we've got a special guest this week. We have... So I'll tee it up. We had him on before. I'm not going to read his 76-page bio. That's not a joke. He actually has a 76-page bio. So... Professor Michael Geist.

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He's a Canadian lawyer, professor, and one of Canada's best-known experts on internet law, privacy, copyright, telecom, and digital policy. He's a full professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. Basically, we had him on the podcast, Rich, I believe it was episode 86. We got on to talk about Bill C-11.

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477.907 - 497.192 Unknown

Yes, Bill C-11, which is basically the Streaming Act, which we have more updates on that this week. We're basically, if you're wondering why you don't get news media, for example, on your Instagram anymore, that was part of it. So we brought him on to talk about that. But we're bringing him back on because there's a lot of controversy circling around the internet today on Bill C-22.

498.314 - 516.628 Unknown

So Bill C-22 is called the Lawful Actness, basically slash surveillance bill. And effectively what it is, it's a proposed law, proposed lawful access legislation aimed at giving police and national security agencies faster tools to obtain digital information and

516.608 - 537.507 Unknown

Justice Canada says the bill creates new legal tools for timely access to information, including subscriber information, transmission data, tracking data, and production orders. In plain English, Ottawa says law enforcement is struggling because crime has moved online, and evidence is often held by telecoms, platforms, encrypted apps, cloud providers, and internet companies.

538.649 - 565.701 Unknown

And so effectively, the concern around it is that... It's creating a Canadian surveillance framework. So there's two concerns. One is mandatory metadata retention and technical mandates that could pressure companies to weaken encryption or build basically access capabilities. Effectively what they're saying, major tech companies have come out and said,

566.069 - 587.526 Unknown

They're warning the bill could create pressure to weaken encryption to allow secret government orders affecting secure products while the government has argued the bill is encryption neutral. Basically, they're creating backdoor... I mean, I'm not a techie guy here, but they're creating backdoor loopholes effectively for national security purposes.

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