Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act

Lawful access was first proposed under Bill C-74 (short titled the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act) by Former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin on November 15, 2005, but did not advance past its first reading in the House of Commons as his Parliament was dissolved on November 28, 2005.[11]

On June 18, 2009, Stephen Harper's Conservative government proposed two lawful access frameworks, Bill C-46 (short titled Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act) and Bill C-47 (short titled Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act).[12] These two policy proposals failed to advance beyond the House of Commons, as Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament on December 30, 2009, which was the second time within less 400 days (the first being on December 4, 2008).

Following the Conservatives' first failed attempt to introduce lawful access, Stephen Harper's government introduced three bills concurrently at the end of 2010: Bill C-50 (short titled Improving Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act), Bill C-51 (short titled Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act) and Bill C-52 (short titled Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act).[13] These three policy proposals failed to advance as the Conservatives were defeated by a motion of non-confidence vote on March 25, 2011. This resulted in a federal election held later that year on May 2, 2011, which resulted in a Conservative majority government.

After the Conservatives' second failed attempt, Harper's Conservatives introduced Bill C-30 (short titled the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act) on February 14, 2012. Bill C-30 was originally titled "Lawful Access Act" and tabled by Former Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews, but was withdrawn from the House of Commons and resubmitted one hour later under the new title, "Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act",[14] despite that "the bill actually made no reference to child predators except in its title".[15] If passed, Bill C-30 would have granted law enforcement and security intelligence agencies with expanded surveillance powers, mandated internet service providers (ISPs) to disclose Canadian subscriber information (such as metadata) without a warrant and compelled ISPs to reveal information transmitted over their networks without a warrant or judicial oversight. When criticized by Members of Parliament about privacy concerns and civil liberty issues, Vic Toews responded that Canadians "can either stand with us or with the child pornographers" on February 13, 2012.[16] The next day, on February 14, 2012, Vic Toews appeared on national television on CTV News and denied that he ever made these comments, calling it "a far crime from that".[17] In protest against Toews, the hacktivist collective Anonymous targeted him, revealing that he was having an affair, to highlight the dangers of anyone having warrantless access to Canadians' digital lives.[18] The hacktivist collective declared, "Anonymous will not allow a politician who allows his citizens no secrets to have any secrets of his own" on a video uploaded to YouTube.[18][19] Bill C-30 was ultimately abandoned and Former Conservative Justice Minister, Rob Nicholson, promised Canadians that future attempts to introduce lawful access "will not contain the measures contained in C-30" on February 11, 2013.[20]

Despite this declaration, the Conservatives introduced Bill C-13 on November 20, 2013, which was the fifth iteration for the bill.[11]