Signal is the encrypted messaging app whose entire selling point is that nobody, not the phone company, not the police, not even the company itself, can read your messages. And Signal is now warning it may leave Canada. The reason is Bill C-22, the Liberals' so-called Lawful Access Act.

On Wednesday's Ezra Levant Show, Ezra explained that it would let police and CSIS ask a company whether you're a customer without a warrant, and let cabinet designate "core providers" that must build tools to hand over data and keep records of who you contacted and when. Something the Liberals insist  isn't a backdoor.

After the tech industry objected, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree made what Ezra called tiny changes, including cutting data retention from a year to six months. The bill was then pushed through the House in June with limited debate.

Signal isn't buying it. Udbhav Tiwari, a vice-president at Signal, told senators and MPs this week the bill would "fundamentally break Signal." Because any Canadian conversation includes people outside Canada, Ezra said, the app simply can't comply in one country. "A company is telling a G7 country, 'We would rather lose access to a G7 country than break our promise of privacy to our customers,'" he said.

Go Ad Free

Signal isn't alone. NordVPN says it will consider removing its presence from Canada. DuckDuckGo says it will pull its VPN. Canadian company Windscribe said it will move its headquarters and "take our taxes elsewhere." Even Apple's senior privacy director told a Commons committee that "when you build a back door into an encrypted device, anyone can walk through."

Ezra said this is how authoritarian drift always begins. Russia's Pavel Durov fled after refusing to hand Ukrainian protesters' data to the secret police, then built Telegram. Google left China in 2010 rather than keep censoring. "The smart money gets out quick," Ezra said. "Signal can leave Canada. You can't leave Canada, can you?"

He pointed to what's already happening without the bill. In June, two RCMP officers showed up at Action 4 Canada founder Tanya Gaw's door over her online posts. There was no charge and no letter. "That's not an investigation," Ezra said. "That's an intimidation."

And Washington has noticed.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said Canada's online news and streaming laws discriminate against American firms, Republican committee chairs Jim Jordan and Brian Mast warned C-22 harms U.S. national security, and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said it would weaponize American tech through secret Canadian orders.

Ezra predicts it won't end in a Canadian court, but with Canada getting slapped by the U.S. over trade.

"Countries that lose the rule of law lose their companies first," he said. "What kind of country is it where the only people left are the ones who can't get out?"