A federal cybersecurity bill may still take some time to pass after the Senate discovered an error that effectively nullified half of the bill’s purpose.
The Senate on Thursday passed amendments to the bill to fix the alleged human error.
Broadly speaking, the amendment is a technical amendment, but the bill would have to be sent back to the deadlocked House for a second vote, prolonging a process that has already taken more than two years.
“This is unfortunate because this bill is very important,” independent Sen. Patty Labucane Benson said when introducing the amendment earlier this week.
He called on both houses of Congress to pass the bill before the current session adjourns.
“Canada’s telecommunications systems and critical infrastructure face unprecedented and growing cyber threats from state and non-state actors around the world,” she said.
“Canadians rely on these systems for their well-being.”
Bill C-26, first introduced in 2022, introduces new cybersecurity requirements for federally regulated industries and codifies national security requirements for the telecommunications sector.
Divided into two parts. The first section would amend the Telecommunications Act to give the federal government “clear and explicit legal authority” to prohibit Canadian telecommunications companies from using products and services from “high-risk suppliers.” .
Citing national security concerns, the government will use these powers to ban Canada’s next-generation mobile networks from using products and services from two Chinese state-owned telecommunications companies, Huawei and ZTE. Announced at the time.
The second part of Bill C-26 introduces the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act. The move would force companies in critical federally regulated sectors such as finance, telecommunications, energy and transportation to harden their cyber systems against attacks or face steep fines.
It’s unclear how quickly the House can work on an amended bill
As the CBC reported last week, this entire Article 2 would be null and void the moment it passes royal assent and becomes law, without any changes to the text. That’s because the government’s Foreign Intervention Bill C-70 was intended to repeal and replace parts of Bill C-26.
Amendments made by the House of Commons committee resulted in the provisions of Bill C-26 being renumbered without notice.
So instead of repealing a small section of the Cybersecurity Bill, the Foreign Intervention Act, which was swiftly passed by Parliament this spring, would actually repeal the second half of Bill C-26, the entire cybersecurity part.
Conservative senator Dennis Batters said if the error had been overlooked, Bill C-26’s “most effective clause” would have been repealed.
She said she wanted to know how to prevent this from happening with government bills in the future.
“I think as humans we make mistakes,” Sen. Hassan Yousaf, an independent who chairs the Senate National Security Committee, told the Senate on Wednesday.
“That embarrassment is enough to give them the realization that they need to do a better job.”
It’s unclear how quickly the House can act on cybersecurity legislation. The Conservatives, with support from other opposition parties, are continuing their campaign in the House of Commons, demanding that the Liberal government release all unredacted documents related to the failed green technology plan.
Despite weeks of deadlock in the House of Commons, Jennifer O’Connell, parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, said in a media statement that she expected the bill to pass quickly.
“This bill is focused on protecting Canadians; [that’s] “Why was it unanimously supported in the House of Commons?” he said in a media statement.
“I hope all political parties can work together in the same spirit to ensure this bill passes.”
