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So there's an interesting fight brewing over Canada's position on strong private encryption. The allegation is that Ottawa has gone back on its promise to defend citizens' ability to rely on strong encryption.
This fight goes back to around 2017, when Ottawa put out a white paper, under the guise of consultations, that seemed to stack the deck in favour of giving police the power to force companies to build back doors, allowing them to decrypt emails and devices.
The paper asked things like: "in what circumstances, if any, should investigators have the ability to compel individuals or companies to assist with decryption?” vice.com/en_ca/article/…
That sort of language seemed to be cribbed directly from what law enforcement was seeking in the legislative package — a bill that was ostensibly supposed to boost privacy rights, but the discussions became more like a wishlist for cops.
As the RCMP put it: "It will be important for the Public Safety Portfolio to reframe ‘lawful access’ as broader ‘going dark’ digital evidence challenges." vice.com/amp/en_ca/arti…
But, despite those signs, the Liberal Government didn't move forward on any kind of legislative or policy change on encryption. The "going dark" fears largely faded. Ottawa's cyber security strategy even recognized the public benefit of good private encryption.
Fast forward to earlier this month, at the end of the Five Eyes meeting in London — where countries come together to talk intelligence and policing — and the countries, including Canada, release a communique featuring this language. 
This raised alarm bells for privacy and security advocates Citizen Lab, who frame this as a total about-face for the government. citizenlab.ca/2019/08/canada…
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale's office has this to say: (which, admittedly, sidesteps the issue.)
Unfortunately, Goodale's office declined an interview to clarify. But this is worth watching. These communique's do not represent official policies, per se, but it could be a sign that Ottawa is ready to demand some kind of weakened encryption standards or mandated backdoors.
