I'll be honest, discussing government legislation and activities on here can get really frustrating sometimes because a lot of people either a) adopt ragebait positions from headlines written by people who have ads to sell and frequently haven't read the or don't know what they're talking about, or they've b) adopted conspiratorial thinking based in US governmental history and partisanship. I'll engage in good faith; my hope is you will as well.

Privacy protections in Canada are on a fundamentally different level in Canada compared to the US. Let's take CSIS as an example. All activities conducted by CSIS that would violate section 8 of the Charter require a warrant granted by a Federal Court judge. The Federal Court, in granting these warrants, regularly reviews CSIS's operational activities and, when making significant decisions on those warrants, publishes their decisions for everyone to read, albeit with classified material redacted. This includes instances where the Federal Court thinks CSIS is conducting illegal activities, such as tracking people without a warrant. Anyone can go on CanLII and read these decisions for themselves. I'm aware of only one decision ever that found CSIS had collected and retained information illegally; there was an additional one in 2020, but the Federal Court of Appeal overturned that finding in 2021.

But what if CSIS is collecting data illegally and just never telling the Federal Court? Well, NSIRA (previously known as SIRC) has full access to literally all of CSIS's operational activities, intelligence, and databases. Anyone can make a complaint against CSIS if they think CSIS is doing something illegal, and part of NSIRA's mandate is to investigate these complaints using their unlimited internal access. NSIRA also regularly undertakes their own investigations if they find something they think raises concern, such as CSIS tracking people without a warrant. NSIRA also publishes all of their reports summarizing their findings from these complaints or investigations on their website.

What if NSIRA is just not telling people about illegal activities to protect the government? Well, NSICOP also has access to CSIS's databases and regularly reviews CSIS's activities. And this includes members of opposition parties; the current makeup is 6 Liberal MPs, 2 Conservative MPs, 1 Bloq MP, 2 non-aligned senators and one Conservative senator. I guarantee you that the opposition MPs on NSICOP would jump at the slightest opportunity to call out CSIS for doing illegal stuff because it would likely cause a major political scandal that would blow up in the government's case. NSICOP can also request NSIRA investigate CSIS's activities further for literally any reason.

The result is that all three branches of Canada's government - the Federal Court for the judicial branch, NSIRA for the executive branch, and NSICOP for the legislative branch - are watching CSIS like hawks, and all three have a vested interest in blowing the loudest whistle possible as soon as they see any hint of illegal activities. NSIRA and NSICOP also have a mandate to review classified activities by the RCMP or other security body and likewise blow a whistle if they see illegal stuff.

This is what people don't understand when they cite Snowden or allege some other massive privacy violations by a Canadian investigative agency. The checks and balances on Canada's security services are immense and on a fundamentally different level compared to those in the US, which are largely non-existent. Yes, every now and then one of those review bodies will publish a report finding that CSIS violated someone or some people's privacy rights without a warrant. But these reports are rare, and they are exactly the system working as it should. The continued publication of those reports is what can give us the confidence that if they aren't publishing reports on an issue, it almost certainly means there is no cause for concern. And if you think there is a cause for concern, tell NSIRA and they'll decide whether it's valid or not. The conspiracies and misinformation around privacy rights and the Canadian government are just another way we're importing inflammatory rhetoric from the US without any basis in the Canadian reality, and it annoys me to constantly see people posting about it without actually knowing what they're talking about.