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Comment by AlanYx | Hacker News Reader

It's a confluence of two things: (i) Canada's government policy community tends to be heavily influenced by legislative trends in the UK/Aus/NZ; this particular one is almost a direct import from the UK's ill-advised Online Safety Act, though worse in some ways, and (ii) a series of Canadian Supreme Court decisions, most notably 2024's Bykovets, which the security intelligence apparatus in Canada feels has totally hamstrung data collection.

Both (i) and (ii) have led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good.

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> led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good.

I'll take the other end of the bet claiming that they think they are doing good. I am pretty sure they know what they are doing full well, and it ain't good.

I'm in the middle. I have some sympathy for the Canadian intelligence community's perspective here; in recent years, much intelligence potentially preventing major criminal public safety incidents has had to come through five eyes partners because the legal situation for domestic collection has become unworkable. CSIS refers to the situation as "going dark", which is an unfortunate US terminological import.

That being said, C-22 goes way beyond what would be halfway reasonable to solve the main issues in a fair and rights-respecting way, and I have absolutely no sympathy for the reasoning and goals imported from the UK's Online Safety Act.

In the video from the CBC Gary Anandasangaree specifically mentions that the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) has been lobbying him for this legislation, and that he recently met with them to reaffirm his commitment to passing it.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7198040

C3P wants encryption backdoors, has been involved with lobbying for encryption in numerous other countries.

I think there could also be some lobbying from Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P). C3P's site is filled with anti-encryption and anti-privacy disinformation, and they are a major Chat Control lobbyist in the EU. They are also currently trying to kill the Tor Project by attacking anyone who funds it.

That's hardly surprising. I assume C3P is staffed by parents who have lost their kids. One can hardly blame them for trying to subvert privacy. Frankly their presence is a good thing; the more people who lose their kids to creeps, the stronger the social reaction to preventing that should be.

But factually I suspect we're almost as safe as we've ever been, so thankfully, their voices aren't too loud.

It's LPC policy to listen to these kinds of lobby groups, no matter how unhinged they might be.

A significant participant in a lobby group with similar aims, Nathalie Provost, is actually a sitting MP in Quebec.

C3P is not staffed by parents who have lost their kids.

I've had some professional interactions with one person who works for the org, and she came across in a very negative way. I don't want to use pejoratives, and perhaps it's understandable that people who spend so much time on this issue become emotionally invested in it to an unhealthy level, but people so emotionally charged are not well-positioned to craft balanced, rights-respecting digital policy.

> Both (i) and (ii) have led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good.

You can summarize a lot of government actions of any spectrum with: "The road to hell is full of good intentions"

When I was young I believed this was the explanation. I though I was smart and everyone else (with politicians at the top of the list) are stupid. But then I learned humility, and I don't believe in good intentions anymore. They can claim good intentions, and mostly they do, but their motives are far from anything that can be called "good intentions". They are not stupid, you know. They just try hard to look stupid. The more stupid politician looks like, the more chances he is just pretending to avoid responsibility. The purpose of their actions is exactly what they get as the result. If they succeed of course.

> But then I learned humility, and I don't believe in good intentions anymore.

I don't either, I agree with that's how they sell it, the problem is that the marketing works and good intentioned people rally behind it, so the saying still applies.

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