How does a treaty that's nominally about fighting cybercrime end up facilitating spyware?

Right.

And it's a good question.

And it's really digs into a subset of really the broader issues here.

But I think it's a really important one.

When we're talking about mercenary spyware, of course, we're talking about spyware companies that sell to governments around the world.

Some of the most powerful intrusion tools infecting phones with remote access intrusion capabilities and give the operators total access to the phone.

And this is something that Canada ultimately shouldn't really be part of.

So what has been the Canadian government's response? How is it, to this point, defending those lower privacy protections and, and the possibility that it could open the door to expanded surveillance powers for US authorities?

There's a very large number of voices that have raised concerns.

Um, m- the concerns with respect to information-sharing agreements like the CLOUD Act are part of a broader, um, and quite comprehensive set of concerns about whether or not the legislation is being adequa- adequately understood, transparently described, and properly studied before, um, amendments are considered and completed.

Um, it's, it's unfortunate because we now have a situation where the actual substance of the concerns about the bill are now becoming overshadowed by how flawed and troubling the parliamentary process itself has been.

authorities?

Well, you know, uh, there are-- There's a very large number of voices that have raised concerns.

Um, m- the concerns with respect to information-sharing agreements like the CLOUD Act are part of a broader, um, and quite comprehensive set of concerns about whether or not the legislation is being adequec- adequately understood, transparently described, and properly studied before, um, amendments are considered and completed.

Um, it's, it's unfortunate because we now have a situation where the actual substance of the concerns about the bill are now becoming overshadowed by how flawed and troubling the parliamentary process itself has been in terms of signaling whether there's a healthy and complete democratic debate unfolding.

Um, y- we've had a very rushed, uh, parliamentary, uh, process that led to the study of the legislation in the House of Commons.

Uh, many organizations, um, that are prominent and have important, um, uh, sets of input about how legislation of this kind should be studied were unable to put forward written, um, comments on the bill before the study commenced.

There's been widespread issues in Parliament itself with respect to, uh, MPs not being able to receive information, um, about the study of the bill because translation services haven't been able to keep pace with the frantic, uh, pace of how the bill's being moved through Parliament.

At a time, you know, when Ottawa is rethinking its dependence on the U.S What could Bill C-22 and, and this extreme fast-tracking of this bill, as you've just laid out, what could that potentially tell us about the state of trade negotiations between the US and Canada? And, and why do you think the government is risking binding more closely to the ever more aggressive Trump administration through this potential legislation?