Senator Gold: Let me try to address your questions. You are raising an important issue. Please understand that nothing that I’m going to say in my answer is meant to diminish the importance of the issue that you raise.

The issue before us in Bill S-7 is simply this. Until Bill S-7 is passed, there is no restriction whatsoever on a border officer’s authority or ability to search a digital device. Again, I repeat, these represent a tiny fraction of the searches of persons who cross borders. Right now, there is no limit in law. There have been limits in policy, as we know. The court said we’re not saying that your policy is wrong, but it’s not prescribed by law. We have a guarantee of a reasonable expectation of privacy protected by our Charter. You can only limit that reasonable expectation of privacy or, indeed, any right if it is a reasonable limit prescribed by law.

The government introduced the bill to put in place, for the first time, a legal threshold with which officers must comply — and make Canada only one of two countries with such a threshold. Is it the right threshold? The government thought it was; the committee thought otherwise. I have no reason to assume that the chamber as a whole will not agree with the committee. The work of the committee, which was diligent, is to be respected. I’m putting on the record the government’s contrary position, which we did at committee. That’s my responsibility to do and I do it proudly.

Any legal standard — it could be “reasonable grounds to know” — can be misused by someone, either consciously or unconsciously, seeking to target a racialized group or member of a religious minority. There are many things we can do through training, education and holding those individuals to account to try to address this issue, which is a real one.

Bill S-7 is introducing a legal threshold where none existed before. The issue is really to find the right threshold to impose to protect our privacy.

All the other issues that you raised are really fundamental and important. They speak to the justice of how we implement our laws in this society, not simply digital devices, but driving and in every aspect, whether it’s going shopping and being trailed in stores. We’ve heard stories of our colleagues who have been subject to that. Nothing that I am saying is minimizing that at all.

Strictly speaking, whether the threshold is here or there is a separate question from whether or not it will be applied in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner, as it should be, and as we hope it will be.