Strong Borders Act

# Bill C-2: Strong Borders Act — Plain-Language Summary

This is a large, wide-ranging bill covering border security, immigration, drugs, money laundering, and police/intelligence access to data. Here's what it actually does:

**Border, customs, and mail.** The bill requires airports, bridges, and similar operators to provide facilities to the border services agency for free, and gives border officers more power to inspect goods being exported. It also changes Canada Post rules so mail can only be seized or opened under specific legal authority, but expands Canada Post's own power to open letters (not just parcels) in certain situations.

**Drugs.** Health Canada gets a faster process to add precursor chemicals (ingredients used to make illegal drugs, like fentanyl precursors) to a controlled list. Police and military police doing lawful drug investigations can be exempted from certain Criminal Code offences (like conspiracy) so they can conduct undercover operations.

**Immigration and refugee claims — this is a major part of the bill.** It eliminates the "designated countries of origin" list; lets the immigration minister demand specific documents from refugee claimants and set deadlines; allows claims to be declared abandoned or withdrawn under certain conditions, including in some cases retroactively; requires refugee cases to pause if the claimant isn't physically in Canada; adds new grounds for finding a refugee claim ineligible (including entering more than a year after arrival, or crossing at an unofficial US border location); and gives cabinet broad new powers to suspend, cancel, or refuse to process immigration applications and documents en masse "in the public interest."

**Money laundering and terrorism financing.** Businesses now face a mandatory compliance process (rather than optional) when penalized, with the possibility of formal "compliance orders." Maximum fines increase substantially. More businesses must register with Canada's financial intelligence agency (FINTRAC), which also gains new information-sharing power with elections officials. Separately, the bill bans large cash transactions: businesses can't accept cash payments, donations, or deposits of $10,000 or more, and can't accept cash deposited by someone other than the account holder.

**Sex offender registry.** Expands what information offenders must report and when, and lets border services share arrival/departure information about registered sex offenders with police.

**Police and intelligence access to data.** This section modernizes how police, CSIS, and other investigators can compel companies (banks, phone companies, internet providers, etc.) to hand over basic subscriber information or account details, including through new "information demands," faster response requirements, and rules for emergency situations. It creates a brand new law (the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act) requiring designated "core" electronic service providers to build in technical capability to help police and CSIS access data when legally authorized, subject to a ban on forcing companies to create security weaknesses.

**Privacy.** Financial institutions get new legal room to collect and use a person's personal information without their consent, if that information came from a government or police agency and is used to detect money laundering or terrorism financing.

This bill amends the Customs Act, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Canada Post Corporation Act, the Oceans Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act, and the Criminal Code, and creates a new Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act, to expand search, seizure, information-sharing, and enforcement powers across border, immigration, financial, and digital-data regimes.

• Customs and mail inspection — CBSA officers gain rights of free access to premises handling export goods and to compel owners/operators to provide facilities at no charge; Canada Post's power to open mail without a warrant is extended from parcels to letters, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a Customs Act, CDSA, or other prohibited item.
• Drug scheduling and police exemptions — the Minister of Health can add precursor chemicals to a schedule through a temporary accelerated process without the normal regulatory process; the Governor in Council (Cabinet) can exempt police and military police from drug-related conspiracy, attempt, accessory, and counselling offences while conducting lawful investigations, with terms set by regulation rather than in the Act itself.
• Immigration ministerial and Cabinet powers — the Governor in Council may, if it considers it "in the public interest" (a discretionary, undefined standard), order that whole classes of applications not be processed, be suspended, or be terminated, and may cancel, suspend or vary visas and other documents or impose conditions on temporary residents; these orders are exempt from the normal *Statutory Instruments Act* publication/scrutiny steps, only requiring publication in the Canada Gazette within 23 days after being made.
• New asylum ineligibility and case-management powers — two new grounds of ineligibility for refugee claims are created (including a one-year filing deadline and an unauthorized land-border-crossing rule), retroactive to persons entering after June 24, 2020; the Immigration and Refugee Board chairperson may dictate how decisions and reasons are delivered, and claims can be found abandoned or withdrawn without a hearing in some circumstances.
• Financial-sector monitoring and penalties — FINTRAC's compliance-agreement regime becomes mandatory rather than optional, non-compliance can trigger a "compliance order" and further violation penalties; administrative monetary penalties rise to a maximum of $4,000,000 (person)/$20,000,000 (entity) per violation category (with cumulative caps tied to 3% of global revenue), and FINTRAC gains authority to share information with the Commissioner of Canada Elections; a new cash-transaction ban prohibits accepting $10,000 or more in cash for many business/donation transactions, with fines up to triple the amount involved.
• Expanded digital and data-access powers — police and CSIS gain new "information demand" powers to compel basic subscriber/account information from service providers without a warrant (with a minimum 24-hour compliance window and possible non-disclosure conditions lasting up to a year); courts may authorize production orders for subscriber information, warrants covering unknown "similar" devices, and requests to foreign telecom entities; a new Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act requires designated "core providers" (companies in categories to be set by regulation) to build and maintain technical capabilities enabling authorized access to data, backed by ministerial orders, inspections, audits, and administrative penalties up to $250,000 or offence fines up to $500,000, with confidentiality obligations preventing providers from disclosing the existence of such orders.
• Oversight mechanisms — several powers include internal review or appeal routes (e.g., Federal Court appeals for FINTRAC decisions, ministerial review of compliance orders under the new data-access Act, and five-year post-enactment ministerial reviews of core-provider regulations with public notice), but many Cabinet and ministerial orders (public-interest immigration orders, precursor scheduling, exemption orders) are not subject to standard regulatory publication/parliamentary scrutiny and carry no sunset clause.