Hon. Paula Simons: My question is for the Government Representative.

The United States and the United Kingdom are both working on laws that could have a serious impact on end-to-end encryption online. While I understand the appeal of breaking encryption as a way to fight crime or root out terrorism, end-to-end encryption can also be a way to protect our most private conversations, including conversations about health care and abortion.

Indeed, a growing academic consensus, led by cybersecurity scholars such as Stanford’s Riana Pfefferkorn, argues that data protection and privacy are essential to safely accessing reproductive health care in our digital age.

My question to the Government Representative is this: With Canada’s own online harms bill in the offing, will the government commit to strong protection for end-to-end encryption to help protect Canadians’ privacy and health information?