Michael Cooper, a Member of Parliament, is accusing the Liberal government of shutting down efforts for the Privacy Commissioner to testify about concerns he says are central to Bill C-22.
In a message presented as a breaking development, Cooper claims his motion calling for the Privacy Commissioner to appear before Parliament was blocked. He frames the decision as an attempt to prevent the commissioner from speaking publicly about what he characterizes as serious risks tied to the legislation. Cooper’s position is that the Privacy Commissioner has already raised an alarm over the bill, arguing that it would grant the federal government broad new authority to collect personal information and conduct surveillance on Canadians.
Cooper argues that the commissioner’s warning is directly relevant to the public and to lawmakers, because the bill would change how personal data is handled and could expand the range of powers the government can use. From his perspective, the motion to compel testimony would have provided a forum for the commissioner to explain the concerns, including how the bill’s provisions might affect privacy rights and civil liberties.
According to Cooper, the government’s choice to silence the commissioner is not a neutral procedural step. Instead, he presents it as a deliberate move to limit scrutiny and avoid accountability. He suggests that if the Privacy Commissioner’s concerns are as substantial as he claims, those concerns should be heard openly, debated, and assessed before decisions are made about the bill’s final form.
Cooper’s criticism also emphasizes the contrast between the commissioner sounding the alarm and the Liberals allegedly refusing to allow testimony in response. He implies that the government is more focused on advancing the legislation than on examining its privacy and surveillance implications. The framing he uses suggests that the government is steering the process in a way that avoids direct expert input from the country’s privacy regulator.
The core of the dispute centers on Bill C-22. Cooper presents the bill as a vehicle that would provide “sweeping new powers” for the government. While the excerpt does not list specific mechanisms in detail, the thrust is clear: the bill is portrayed as expanding the government’s ability to obtain personal data and monitor Canadians. Cooper’s claim of sweeping authority indicates he believes the scope of the bill’s powers goes beyond what would be considered narrowly tailored.
Within the political context, Cooper’s allegations highlight a common tension in legislative debates: whether concerns raised by independent oversight authorities are taken seriously. He portrays the Privacy Commissioner as having identified potential harms, and he argues that refusing the commissioner’s testimony undermines transparency.
The statement also implies that the parliamentary process itself is at stake. If the motion is blocked, Cooper argues, then Parliament may fail to receive critical evidence and analysis before moving forward. That, in his view, would leave lawmakers and the public without a clear explanation of how the bill could affect day-to-day privacy.
In this message, Cooper uses urgent language—calling the development breaking—and employs emphatic wording to underline the significance he attributes to both the commissioner’s warning and the Liberal government’s alleged action. The overall narrative is built around two linked claims: first, that the Privacy Commissioner warned about Bill C-22; and second, that the Liberals blocked Cooper’s motion intended to bring the commissioner’s views to Parliament.
The excerpt therefore reads as a political intervention designed to rally public attention to privacy and surveillance issues connected to the legislation. Cooper’s objective appears to be to cast the debate as not merely about procedure, but about whether elected officials will allow oversight experts to speak when major new data collection and surveillance powers are being considered.
As presented here, the story concludes with the argument that instead of engaging with the Privacy Commissioner’s concerns, the government has moved to prevent the commissioner from testifying. Cooper characterizes that outcome as a form of silencing, positioning it as a barrier to accountability around a bill he says could significantly expand government surveillance capabilities.
Source: (as provided in the prompt, no explicit Source handle or creator name was included in the text you supplied)
Michael Cooper, MP: BREAKING Liberals SHUT DOWN my motion for the Privacy Commissioner to testify on Liberal Surveillance Law C-22. The Commissioner has SOUNDED THE ALARM on a Bill that gives the Govt SWEEPING new powers to collect personal data & surveil Canadians. Now they want to SILENCE him.. #breaking
— @MichaelCooperMP May 1, 2026
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