Shopify—Shopify publicly opposed Canada's Bill C-22 lawful-access legislation, warning it could force security backdoors and harm small tech firms
Between May and August 2026, Shopify's head of public policy and government relations for Canada, Michael Liboiron, and CEO Tobi Lutke publicly criticized Canada's Bill C-22 lawful-access legislation, which would give law enforcement expedited access to digital information from electronic service providers. At an ITIF webinar (reported June 24, 2026), Liboiron said the bill 'endangers small and mid-sized Canadian businesses' due to compliance burdens that 'can be existential,' and warned that weakening cybersecurity or enabling backdoor access 'sends a signal to the rest of the world' that damages Canadian tech's reputation. Lutke posted on X that the bill 'may well end up dealing a death blow to Canadian tech viability' and called for it to be scrapped. The bill passed the House of Commons in June 2026 with amendments (reduced metadata retention, no decryption/backdoor mandate) before heading to the Senate.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Encryption & Privacy | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| User Privacy | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.429 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
Financial Post: Shopify's policy head says Bill C-22 could handicap Canadian tech companies
Shopify public policy chief Michael Liboiron criticized Bill C-22's compliance burdens on small/mid-sized Canadian tech companies at an ITIF webinar; article also cites CEO Tobi Lutke's X post calling the bill a potential 'death blow' to Canadian tech.