Thanks go out to RodgeGrabTheCat and Rentlar for pointing out the ever-changing landscape of this legislation.

Greenpeace talks about how C-2 has been repackaged into C-2 plus C-12, C-8, and C-9. Many of the problems which people expressed concerns about still remain. C-2 has also not been withdrawn and may continue to remain a threat.

In the same article, Greenpeace also still points us to sign their C-2 petition and so the C-2 petitions are still important.

Greenpeace Petition Link

https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/act/stop-bill-c-2-defend-our-human-rights-privacy/

https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/story/72808/carneys-bills-explained-c-2-c-12-c-8-and-c-9/ October 23, 2025 “Let’s break down the biggest issues with Bill C-2 (now broken down into C-2 and C-12), and Bill C-8 and Bill C-9. All three Bills are being considered by the Federal government and pose serious concern to human rights, constitutional rights, and privacy rights.”

Bill C-12

“the new Bill C-12 repackages Bill C-2 ‘leaving intact the measures to block refugee hearings, impose arbitrary retroactive one-year bars, and grant ministers mass immigration status-cancellation powers.’ This would allow the government to cancel en masse people’s immigration applications and even cancel visas or permanent residence cards of people already in the country.”

Bill C-8

“give the Minister powers to break encryption security and install backdoors into Canada’s networks for surveillance purposes. This means that the government could surveil all your online activities from banking to personal communications.”

“the bill would authorize warrantless seizure of sensitive private information; and collect and share communications, metadata, locational, and financial data.”

Bill C-9

“Bill C-9 criminalizes protest, dissent, free expression, and assembly in a clear violation of charter rights.”

“Bill C-9’s intimidation and obstruction offences are overly broad, vague, and pose the risk of criminalizing peaceful protests.”

Read for yourself and consider sending in your respectfully worded opinions by email correspondence to the Parliamentary Committees linked below.

Bill C-12 Links

https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-12

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-12/first-reading

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/SECU?parl=45&session=1 (no meetings have been scheduled yet)

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/SECU/Contact

Bill C-8 Links

https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/en/bill/45-1/c-8

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/c-8/first-reading

https://www.ourcommons.ca/committees/en/SECU/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=13156377

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/SECU/Contact (yes, the same committee as C-12)

Bill C-9 Links

https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-9

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-9/first-reading

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/JUST/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=13154115

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/JUST/Contact

New Petitions

How can we organize new petitions? The C-2 House of Commons petition was put together by a Facebook group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/VictoriaProtests/

I am not on Facebook and the same may be true of many Lemmy users.

If you are one of the users on Facebook, would it be difficult for you to join their group and point them at this thread?

Lemmy has users who will sign a petition. Lemmy probably does not have people who will band together to create petitions since you have to trust another person with your real name and your email address.

Facebook users know each other by name. Facebook users are suitable for banding together to create petitions.

Dual Lemmy-Facebook users can let the rest of us know about new petitions. Lemmy users can act as additional votes on each petition. Lemmy users can also spread news to their contacts outside of Lemmy.

Maybe this time when creating petitions, focus more on the issues and less on who to blame. Some people refused to sign the petition against C-2 because they felt that it was an attack on the party that they voted for. It’s supposed to be about the issues. But, people are sensitive to the wording. Let’s not lose valuable votes.

At the end of the day when a bad law gets enacted, no one is able to tell the police “Oh, I am sorry, you cannot arrest me because I voted for Party X.” You will get laughed at and still go to jail or get kicked out of the country for doing things that are normal to you right now. Focus on the issues because it is the issues that matter for every Canadian.

Petitions are also a great way for youth to get involved in the political process and actually have a vote.

If you can help, please act quickly. C-12 has been sent to committee. C-8 is about to start committee meetings. C-9 has already started being discussed in committee meetings. Some of these laws may get passed before the end of 2025 if people don’t collaborate on creating new corresponding petitions.

Thank you for sharing. Let me look into it and get back to you.

Perhaps I explained it poorly. Getting a petition published now would make it visible to the public. It could have become a talking point.

According to the official website, petitions will not survive dissolution and will need to be recreated. Since petitions which make it to the website remain visible to the public, it could have become a historial petition which would have still been visible and searchable.

As it stands, we now just have a post on Lemmy which will get buried amongst the other Lemmy posts. But approximately 21 days after Parliament resumes, a petition could get created. And so people who are interested in collaborating on this petition happening at that time or on other possible topics can still get in touch with me at any time.

The bill has already received royal assent and has passed into law, flaws and all. It is still perhaps a lot more reasonable to ask for a bill to be undone than to have people draft another 100 pages of a bill which only undoes some changes.

Why raise the concept now? The primary and only stated reason which I could find for pushing the bill to become law expediently without due consideration and without necessary corrections was to be able to complete the registry and other parts of legislation by June 2025 or perhaps slightly later, ahead of an October 2025 election. This reason will no longer exist. Hence it would seem logical to create a new bill to repeal these changes and then spend the needed time to get the changes right in yet another bill.

As it stands, a lot of people may be going to jail who have nothing to do with foreign interference. As I said, do not threaten anyone, do not intimidate anyone, be very careful not to cause any damage during a protest, do not make use of violence, and a whole host of other things which could be used as justification for putting someone unliked into jail for life. No requirement exists anymore to prove any link to foreign interference and the wording makes it appear that it does not even matter if no such link exists.

If someone invades the country and you use violence, could you end up being placed in jail? Is it ridiculous? You tell me what you think.

Quite the opposite regarding the petition. It is true that there is essentially no chance of any of the outstanding petitions being read. What is important, though, is trying to get this petition going through as soon as we can. A petition which makes it onto the website will remain visible to the Members of Parliament and to Canadians in general, even after dissolution of Parliament, bringing the potential for a much wider audience.

The very fact that petitions are not allowed to include links demonstrates the risk-adverse technological policy applied to Members of Parliament when it comes to links, such as pointing out a thread on Lemmy. But they’ll gladly visit a link on one of their own websites if asked to do so.

As for the possible methods for undoing a bill, that’s why the wording of the petition asks for multiple possible actions, depending upon the timing.

Edit: Upvoting you for taking the time to raise good points.

My best guess would be that a minimum of five supporters helps to weed out some inappropriate petitions. Having more than five can help to meet the minimum in certain circumstances, such as someone falling critically ill and not being able to participate any longer. Having more than ten could create an additional administrative burden.

Supporters are expected to be valid people, actually be in support of the petition, and be responsive to email.

If we could provide more than 10, imagine what might happen. If 2000 people were allowed, those people might just be people from the initiator’s address book who know nothing of the issue. The burden would fall on the House of Commons to poll each person until 5 of them agreed to the petition. With the realistic limits, the initiator is expected to be sufficiently serious and responsible about the petition process.

Great questions!

1] What organization is it?

The https://www.ourcommons.ca/ website is used by a part of the Parliament of Canada, and specifically, the House of Commons. For a legislative bill to become legislation (law) in Canada, two organizations of the Parliament of Canada, the House of Commons and the Senate, must each go through 3 of their own rounds of process. For each of these 2 organizations, as part of their respective third round, a majority of the respective organization must vote in support of the bill.

Even when these majority votes allow a bill to pass into legislation, it is possible that the legislation is great but it is also possible that the legislation is terrible, or somewhere in between.

The House of Commons represents the federally elected officials. It is also possible for a Member of the House of Commons not to be elected in certain circumstances, such as with Prime Minister Carney.

2] What is a petition all about and where does it appear?

As Charles mentioned, it is possible to submit a paper petition. This discussion will instead focus on electronic petitions but some of the information applies to either one.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/procedure-and-practice-3/ch_22-e.html “Petitions addressed to the House of Commons and presented to the House by its Members constitute one of the most direct means of communication between the people and Parliament.”

https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/procedure-and-practice-3/ch_22_1-e.html “In Canada, provisions for petitions (long a feature of the pre-Confederation legislative assemblies) have always been part of the written rules of the House.” Canadians have enjoyed the right to petition the House of Commons to comment on bills, legislation, or other matters affecting Canada, based not on the Constitution but instead based on well entrenched, centuries-old tradition and established precedent.

Practically speaking, petitions may fail to meet some requirements. If the petitioners do not want to abandon the issue, a petition will often have to be recreated. Improper language can be one reason. As another reason, 500 signatures are required before a chosen deadline. As another example, Parliament may get dissolved before a petition gets read and will need to be recreated in the following Parliamentary session. Some example petitions have been recreated 8 times, such as for repeatedly failing to meet the 500 signatures mark.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Home/AboutContent?guide=PIElectronicGuide “Once the deadline for signing a petition has closed (i.e., after 30, 60, 90 or 120 days), the Clerk of Petitions will proceed with a final validation of signatures. If there are at least 500 valid signatures, the Clerk of Petitions will issue a certificate to the member of Parliament who authorized the online publication of the petition. It can then be presented to the House by any member. A record of this presentation will appear in the Journals for that day and the petitioner, supporters and signatories of the petition will be advised by email after its presentation.”

“The Standing Orders of the House of Commons require the government to respond to every petition presented to the House within 45 calendar days. If the House is not sitting on that day, the response must be presented at the next sitting of the House. The petitioner, supporters, signatories, and the member of Parliament who authorized the online publication of the e-petition will be notified by email when the response is tabled in the House. A copy will also be found on the petitions website along with the original petition.”

https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/standing-orders/Chap4-e.html “If such a petition remains without a response at the expiration of the said period of 45 days, the matter of the failure of the ministry to respond shall be deemed referred to the appropriate standing committee. Within five sitting days of such a referral the Chair of the committee shall convene a meeting of the committee to consider the matter of the failure of the ministry to respond.”

3] Do these petitions actually do anything?

Petitions bring formal awareness of an issue to the Parliament of Canada and to interested members of the public. If this awareness leads to many people signing a petition or if the issue is of great importance, the media may report on the issue.

When the House of Commons responds, while it may not take the requested action, it will attempt to provide helpful guidance on the issue. Related laws or regulations may be quoted. Advice for contacting more relevant people may be given. For example, if a petition was made to the House of Commons for educational reform, the House of Commons may suggest contacting provincial and territorial governments since it is those governments who look after education matters in Canada.

When it is in the power for the House of Commons to directly act on an issue, it is possible for a related action to take place.

4] What happens to my information?

The person who initiates (creates) a petition has their name, city, and province or territory published on the House of Commons website. This person should truly believe in the worthiness of the cause and should be willing to stand up for the issue being raised. If it is a truly noble, worthy, and appropriate cause, this person deserves our respect.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Home/AboutContent?guide=PIElectronicGuide “The petitioner’s other personal information will be safeguarded on the House of Commons’ servers.”

The personal information of an initiator, a supporter, or a signatory may be used to contact that person by the “House of Commons’ authorized personnel” during the petition process. For example, email addresses will be used for validation and phone numbers may optionally additionally be used for validation. “Data may be used for statistical purposes.”

“None of the personal information provided to the House of Commons by a supporter or a signatory will be published on this website.”

“a general breakdown of signatures by province and territory will appear and remain on the website along with each e-petition.”

“Supporters’ and signatories’ personal information collected through the petitions website will be safeguarded for a duration of six months after the e-petition becomes inactive, or until the dissolution of a Parliament, whichever is earlier, after which it will be destroyed by the House of Commons’ authorized personnel.”

5] Guidance on inappropriate petitions

A petition should not include signatures from fake people and should not contain information known to be false. A petition should be cautious not to include potentially libelous or defamatory statements.

A petition should not be about “impertinent or improper matters” and it would likely be better to vent about these things on social media than to waste valuable time in Parliament, since a relevant action will not be able to take place.

1] As you say, it is helpful to have an account for initiating (creating) a petition.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Home/AboutContent?guide=PIElectronicGuide “Note: A petitioner may only have one e-petition open for signature in their name at any one time.”

If Fediverse users are willing to collaborate together on creating petitions, we will need at least one registered user per petition.

2] It can also be helpful to have an account to support a petition.

“When you draft your petition, you will be prompted to identify at least five potential supporters (Canadian residents or citizens), but no more than ten, and provide their emails.”

3] Regarding your point about logging in not helping with signing a petition, I agree with you it would be expected and helpful to be able to more easily sign a petition after logging in.

Maybe you found a bug. Maybe it is a cookies issue. Maybe it was not designed the way we might expect. Let me contact them to see what they have to say and at a minimum raise a feature request with them to make it work the way we might expect.

4] Regardless, “The House of Commons’ authorized personnel will have access to the personal information of a petitioner, supporter and signatory, and may use it to contact them or to validate their identity to ensure the integrity of the e-petition process.”

Because of uncertainty in how the validation process is conducted, it may be helpful for people to sign up for accounts over time, leaving sufficient time for validation.

Because of the issue for 3], the most compelling reasons at this time are to be prepared to help with 1] and 2].

You probably needed a lot of finesse to use this tool well. If you rotate it too quickly, you risk pages flipping in the generated wind.

You might want a way to mark your place on a page, similar to the idea of a scrollbar in a browser.

You also have the contemporary issue of opening too many books (tabs) to have enough time to read them.

Standing could become tiring and sitting might require careful positioning to avoid hitting yourself.

It looks as though it was a controlled descent. The arms are tucked in to reduce its upper body width. The leg hangs on long enough to ensure going through head first. The second picture might even be a kick to really force the orientation of travel.

If you are a creature who is falling through a hole, maybe going head first is a pretty good tactic. Once you get to the bottom, you can crawl forward, possibly burrowing along the ground under the fabric as you crawl.

The alternative of your rear end facing down and your body folded in on itself could have meant getting stuck. Ingenious creature.