Chamber of Commerce Warns of ‘Serious Threat to Privacy of Canadians’

Google Canada's Sabrina Geremia, vice president and country manager, appears via videoconference as a witness at a Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 6, 2023. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

A parliamentary committee has requested internal and external documents from tech companies to see what kind of discussions they are having around upcoming legislation in Canada—a move that critics say violates privacy rights and sets a precedent for such probes.

The House of Commons heritage committee wants to see what big tech companies Meta and Google are planning in reaction to proposed legislation it is reviewing, the Online News Act. The act would require tech giants to pay Canadian media companies for linking to their content, which tech companies have indicated may lead them to block the news content rather than pay for it.

The committee requested on March 20 all communications—including emails and text messages—about options the companies Meta and Google are considering in relation to all Canadian regulation since Jan. 1, 2020, including the Online News Act (Bill C-18).

Canada’s Chamber of Commerce President Perrin Beatty voiced concerns in an open letter on March 19. He spoke not to the merits of this legislation itself, but rather to the investigation of internal communications as the committee reviews the bill.

“The motion sets the stage for a major fishing operation that affects the rights, not only of the companies themselves, but of third parties as well,” Beatty wrote. It affects the democratic right to engage in public debate on legislation without “fear of retribution for their views,” he said.

The motion would put “a chill” on many other organizations and enterprises in the country, Beatty said, if they began to worry that their internal discussions about legislation could be divulged.

The motion is directed at the bill’s opponents, Beatty said. “We urge the committee to avoid setting a precedent that would make it easier for future governments of any political stripe to attempt to intimidate its opponents in this way.”

Beatty accused the committee of “stealth and haste” to sneak the motion past the attention of a majority of Canadians, as the motion was only announced March 16 and passed March 20.

Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez, who introduced the motion, did not respond to The Epoch Times inquiry as of publication.

The committee also agreed on March 20 to summon Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify on the company’s threat to block news from Canadians on its social-media platforms. Zuckerberg has been summoned by a parliamentary committee three times in the past four years and has never appeared.

The summons is not binding on people outside of Canada, but the government could enforce it if Zuckerberg comes to Canada.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.