Signal Bill C-22 Standoff: App Still Ready to Leave Canada

The Signal Bill C-22 standoff just got real. The encrypted messaging app is not backing down, and it says the federal government's latest changes to its lawful access bill still are not enough to keep it in Canada, which means one of the most trusted privacy apps on your phone could become unavailable here if the bill becomes law as written. The warning lands as the bill sits in the Senate, and it turns a nerdy policy fight into something that could hit your group chats directly.

What Signal said this week

According to The Globe and Mail, Signal said on October 7 that the amendments Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree introduced in June are insufficient to persuade it not to withdraw from Canada. The company first told the paper in May that it would leave rather than compromise its users' privacy. The sticking point now is metadata. If Signal is ordered to start collecting more data about its users and to store it for up to six months so police and government can request it, the company says it would have no choice but to walk away.

That stance was repeated in person on Monday evening in Ottawa. According to BetaKit, Signal's vice-president of strategy and global affairs, Udbhav Tiwari, told a small gathering of senators and lawmakers organized by the Canadian Internet Society that the bill "would fundamentally break Signal." He added that the company "will not make changes to our products" to meet demands that put the privacy of Canadians and everyone else in the world at risk.

Tiwari laid out three main problems. The first is how the bill treats encryption, since an order could require a company to hand over keys. The second is metadata, because Signal deliberately collects almost none and would be forced to log and keep more. The third is technical access, meaning the government could demand targeted changes to how the platform works so it gathers more information.

What is Bill C-22, anyway?

Bill C-22, also called the Lawful Access Act, was introduced on March 12, 2026. According to TechRadar, it would require telecoms, internet companies and other electronic service providers to build surveillance capabilities for police and CSIS, Canada's spy agency. Supporters argue that Canada lags behind its Five Eyes allies without these powers and that investigators need faster access to information.

The problem for critics is scope. The definition of an electronic service provider is broad enough to sweep in messaging apps and VPNs, and the bill does not spell out exactly who faces which obligations until after it passes. Before the House of Commons approved it on June 18, the government added protections for end-to-end encryption and cut the metadata retention period from a year to six months. The minister has described the current version as striking the right balance, but Signal says the metadata rule alone is a dealbreaker.

Signal is not the only app eyeing the exit

The list of companies threatening to leave keeps growing. NordVPN and Windscribe have both warned they could pull out of Canada. This week, the Toronto-based anti-censorship tool Psiphon said it has started planning a move out of the country, as reported by The Globe and Mail and TechRadar. Psiphon began as a Citizen Lab project at the University of Toronto in 2006 and now has about 20 million monthly users, many of them people dodging state censorship in places like Iran, Russia and China.

The irony is hard to miss. Psiphon received roughly $600,000 in National Research Council funding from Ottawa this year, and the same government is now pushing a law that the company says would force it out. Last month, 23 tech companies, including Windscribe and Nord Security, signed an open letter urging the government to fix the bill before it becomes law. Civil liberties groups and European digital rights advocates have also raised alarms.

Would Signal actually disappear for Canadians?

Not overnight. Tiwari explained that Signal has never deliberately cut off any country. Instead, it has refused to comply with laws in places like Russia and China, and those governments then ordered internet providers to throttle or block the app. He said a similar chain of events would have to unfold in Canada for Signal to become unavailable here. A stalemate is possible, but he said the powers in Bill C-22 make that outcome very unlikely.

For Gen Z, this is not abstract. Encrypted apps are how a lot of us talk to friends, organize protests, report on sensitive stories or just keep our private lives private. Losing Signal, plus a handful of VPNs, would make Canada an outlier among democracies and put it in some uncomfortable company.

What happens next

The bill is now in the Senate, where committees will study it before any final vote. BetaKit reports that Monday's session was recorded and will be sent to the relevant Senate committees, so senators will hear Signal's warning directly. Senators can propose amendments, which would send the bill back to the House, or pass it as is.

If you care about how the Signal Bill C-22 fight ends, now is the moment to pay attention, and you can follow more stories like this in our Canadian News section. Senators are not elected, but they do read their mail, and the metadata provision is the specific piece Signal says it cannot live with. Whether Ottawa blinks on that one rule could decide if your most private chats stay available in Canada.