Public Safety / Bill C-2

HANSARD: Bill C-2 Strong Border Act debate

HANSARD: Bill C-2 Strong Border Act debate

HANSARD: Bill C-2 Strong Border Act debate speech

Click link to read the House debate - https://openparliament.ca/debates/2025/9/16/jenny-kwan-1/

Maclean's: Why Canada’s New Border Policy Could Screw Over Refugees

In June, Mark Carney tabled the Strong Borders Act to combat organized crime, fentanyl trafficking and illegal firearms at the border. As with many border-related issues these days, it largely stems from the Trump administration. “There were a number of elements in the bill that have been irritants for the U.S., so we are addressing some of those issues,” said public safety minister Gary Anandasangaree.
While Bill C-2 cleared its first reading in the House of Commons, many aren’t sold on the legislation. Immigration experts say it dramatically rolls back long-standing protections for refugees and migrants, and civil rights advocates say it gives Ottawa sweeping new surveillance powers that infringe on Canadians’ Charter rights.

What are the privacy implications of these expanded powers?

They’re expanding the ability for police and spy agencies to demand information without a warrant—based merely on “reasonable suspicion.” Canada Post, for example, could open your mail. Public service providers like doctors could be compelled to hand over private details. The bill would also enable information to be shared with foreign entities just with the consent of a minister. Some experts, including member of Parliament and NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan, have raised concerns that American anti-abortion states could use the provision to request information from Canadian abortion clinics.

The Guardian: With his immigration bill, Canada’s prime minister is bowing to Trump

Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, is bucking all of that lore after pressure from the US in the form of Donald Trump’s “concerns” about undocumented migrants and fentanyl moving across the US-Canada border. In response, the recently elected Liberal PM put forward a 127-page bill that includes, among other worrying provisions, sweeping changes to immigration policy that would make the process much more precarious for refugees and could pave the way for mass deportations.

If passed, Carney’s Strong Borders Act (or Bill C-2) would bar anyone who has been in the country for more than a year from receiving refugee hearings. That would apply retroactively to anyone who entered the country after June 2020. If they arrived on foot between official ports of entry, meanwhile, they’d have to apply for asylum within 14 days of entering Canada – a disastrous outcome for people fleeing Trump’s persecution. The bill also gives the immigration minister’s office the authority to cancel immigration documents en masse.

This bill has been widely condemned by politicians and advocacy groups such as Amnesty International and the Migrants Rights Network, who are rightly worried about just how much havoc a change like this could wreak. Jenny Wai Ching Kwan, a member of Parliament for Vancouver East, told reporters the bill would breach civil liberties and basic rights.

McGill Daily: The Continental Mosaic Immigration Sparks Unrest and Policy Shifts Across North America

However, the Strong Borders Act has faced immediate backlash. Critics, including MP Jenny Kwan, the Migrant Rights Network, and refugee advocates, say the bill mimics Trump-era US tactics and risks violating Canada’s international obligations to protect refugees.

“It’s an alarming shift,” Kwan said, describing the bill as a “massive rollback of rights” that can erode Canada’s long-standing humanitarian commitments.

The US factor looms large. President Trump has repeatedly accused Canada of failing to stop the movement of illicit fentanyl and irregular migration across the northern frontier. In February, Trump threatened and implemented short-lived tariffs on certain Canadian exports, rattling Ottawa and adding impetus for Carney’s government to show it can police its own borders more strictly.

“There are items in the bill that have been irritants for the US, so we’re addressing some of those issues,” Anandasangaree acknowledged, even as he insisted the bill is about Canadian security first.

The Strong Borders Act has already sparked protests and is mounting legal challenges in Ottawa and in major cities like Montreal and Toronto. Critics argue that Canada, long seen as a beacon of openness, is at risk of abandoning that tradition in the name of security. For Carney’s government, the challenge remains how to reassure a skeptical public that the system is both secure and fair without sacrificing the country’s humanitarian identity.

 

CTV News: Advocacy groups warn federal bill could give law enforcement sweeping powers to access information

NDP MP and public safety and national security critic Jenny Kwan has also voiced opposition to the bill, calling it a “sweeping attack on Canadian civil liberties.”

“It would allow the RCMP and CSIS to make information demands from internet providers, banks, doctors, landlords and even therapists, without judicial oversight,” Kwan said in the House of Commons earlier this month. “This is not about border security. It is about government overreach and Big Brother tactics, plain and simple.”

Bill C-2 is formally titled “An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of the border between Canada and the United States and respecting other related security measures.”

It was at second reading in the House of Commons before MPs broke for the summer break last week. Any other progress on the bill will have to wait until the House resumes in mid-September.

Hill Times: Government’s border security bill draws heavy criticism from civil rights groups

Since Bill C-2’s introduction, vocal critics of the legislation in the House have included NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s critic for public safety, immigration, and citizenship. On June 11, Kwan told the House that the “so-called stronger borders act makes Harper’s Bill C-51 look like child’s play.”

“Bill C-2 is a sweeping attack on Canadian civil liberties. It would allow the RCMP and CSIS to make information demands from internet providers, banks, doctors, landlords and even therapists, without judicial oversight. This is not about border security. It is about government overreach and Big Brother tactics, plain and simple. It is a violation of our privacy, and it will be challenged in court,” she said in the House.

In response to Kwan, Anandasangaree defended the bill, saying the Strong Borders Act would help keep Canadians safe.

 

City TV: Vancouver MP urges federal government to reinstate port police

The federal NDP says the Liberals need to include provisions to reestablish a port policing program in the government’s new border security bill.

The original Ports Canada Police was disbanded back in 1997. A 2023 report to the City of Delta, B.C., by former Mountie and money-laundering expert Peter German says the move has allowed organized crime to take root and proliferate through Canada’s ports.

“With its disbandment, policing of port property became the responsibility of the police force of jurisdiction. For Greater Vancouver, this meant a multitude of different municipal police forces and the RCMP,” German’s report explains.

NDP MP for Vancouver East Jenny Kwan says gang activity and trafficking through the country’s ports has “increased exponentially” since then.

She says harmful goods are entering Canada and also leaving its ports for destinations like Australia, New Zealand, and some African countries.

“We have actually left a giant hole for criminal activities to target us, and that has to be closed,” said Kwan.

Globe & Mail: PMO won’t say if Carney spoke with Modi about India’s alleged role in killing of Canadian Sikh leader

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says Ottawa continues to have “difficult conversations” with New Delhi about the 2023 killing of a Canadian Sikh leader, but the Prime Minister’s Office has declined to say if the matter was raised earlier this week in talks between Mark Carney and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi.

Mr. Carney ducked a question Tuesday about whether he and Mr. Modi had discussed the killing of the Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, during a one-on-one meeting that day at the G7 leaders’ summit in Kananaskis, Alta.

The Globe and Mail pressed the PMO on Wednesday about whether Mr. Nijjar’s slaying and Indian foreign interference were part of the discussions. Sikh organizations and human-rights activists have also sought clarification on what was discussed.

Mr. Carney’s press secretary, Audrey Champoux, would not comment on Wednesday. She referred The Globe to a statement the two leaders released Tuesday: “Prime Minister Carney raised priorities on the G7 agenda, including transnational crime and repression, security, and the rules-based order.”

After the meeting, the two leaders announced that they would designate new high commissioners and restore regular diplomatic services to citizens in both countries.

Bilateral relations went into a deep freeze in 2024, after then-prime minister Justin Trudeau and the RCMP said there was evidence linking agents of the Modi government to Mr. Nijjar’s slaying.

Canada expelled the Indian high commissioner and five other diplomats over the killing. India denied any role and responded with similar diplomatic expulsions.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan, an outspoken human-rights activist, said in a June 17 letter to Mr. Carney that re-establishing diplomatic normalcy with India when it has yet to account for its role in the death of Mr. Nijjar “sends a deeply painful message to Sikh Canadians who continue to live under threat.”

Major Sikh organizations and human-rights advocates also wrote a separate letter to Mr. Carney on Tuesday, saying the Nijjar killing was part of a co-ordinated campaign of transnational repression that “continues to violate Canadian sovereignty.”