Jelena Vermilion and Gpat Patterson do not have the same citizenships, and do not know each other, but they have an unexpected lot in common: being trans, caring about the wellbeing of their communities, outspoken dissidents, being surveilled and both potentially investigated. Both also now live in Canada, and don’t want to go back to the U.S. again, terrified for their life.

And both might not be so safe in Canada, either.

American citizen and trans professor Gpat Patterson fled the U.S. to claim asylum in Canada, fearing they were being surveilled in real time by Christian nationalists who began stalking their home once Trump took office. Patterson believes they were targeted because they are in a federal lawsuit to protect their students from discrimination, and that they could’ve been abducted or disappeared if they stayed. They could even be imprisoned for teaching ‘gender ideology’ if Project 2025 came to be realized.

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Vermilion is a trans woman, sex worker, activist, and Canadian citizen. Her NEXUS card was cancelled in August and she was served an ominous document by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security enumerating possible reasons that ranged from having “provided false information,” suspicion of “terrorism” and for possibly being under investigation by law enforcement. Vermilion was able to travel to the U.S. without serious problems for over a decade, until Trump’s return to the Oval Office. 

Vermilion and her lawyer, Naomi Sayers, believe she was targeted because of her gender identity and her activism, following the expansion of terrorism categories to include trans people and ‘Antifa’ in the U.S.

Vermilion is afraid she could be imprisoned, tortured or killed if she attempts to set foot in the U.S. again. 

Patterson’s online platform of choice to make their voice heard is Substack, while Vermilion’s is X. Both refuse to be intimidated into silence by the Trump regime, though both could still not be entirely safe despite the border separating them. Threats to their safety could be exacerbated if new border bills are adopted, even here in Canada, and its sovereignty too could be.

Two new laws being debated by Canada’s Parliament could open the door for American law enforcement agencies to expand their reach into Canada, allowing U.S. investigators to peer into our country to investigate conduct that is legal within our borders.

The legislation, in conjunction with existing U.S. laws, would potentially allow American authorities to demand personal data from companies in Canada without needing a warrant, effectively bypassing the protections of our constitution, without remedy.

The U.S. has a track record of illegally detaining and torturing Canadians, as a result of present information-sharing agreements with Canada, for which there is little accountability. Day after day, Americans are watching their rights be hacked away, and the repercussions are sometimes felt by people from Canada, too.

One of the proposed laws, Bill C-2, could “open the floodgates to a wide array of data-mining practices, including the collection of data from commercial data brokers, and other data-fueled algorithmic surveillance systems,” warns Kate Robertson, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which works at the intersection of technology, law, and human rights. 

Karen Cocq, the co-executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, told Ricochet that Canadians have reason to be worried.

“If C-2 becomes law, the RCMP could compel internet or cellular service providers to give them access to a person’s private data and, if they find immigration related information, share it with immigration enforcement — for example, if you make a Google search about what your immigration options are because your permit is expiring,” she said.

The legislation signals that the Canadian government is considering data sharing agreements with C-2 and C-12 under a potential U.S. CLOUD Act agreement and the 2AP treaty. 

These proposed legal frameworks would expand the speed and volume of data sharing between countries’ law enforcement agencies around the world, including countries that have faced criticism for their human rights records.

These are especially important considerations as Canada and the U.S. are now negotiating a bilateral agreement under a U.S. law, called the CLOUD Act, that could expedite law enforcement’s access to personal data. 

It could “extend the reach of U.S. law enforcement into Canada’s digital terrain to an unprecedented extent.”

Bill C-2, the so-called “Strong Borders Act,” was introduced by Canada as a response to pressures from the Trump administration amid tariff negotiations, sovereignty threats, and discredited claims of criminals and drugs flowing across the border, in the hopes of increasing cooperation between the two countries. Bill C-12, the government’s other new border legislation, uses similar language on immigration and asylum as C-2, minus the parts on information-sharing that could apply to everyone in Canada. 

Cocq said that the Canadian government is poised to fast track Bill C-12, which contains the same attack on the right to seek asylum as Bill C-2. Since the Bloc Québécois has expressed its support for the law, the Liberals are expected to move forward with it. 

As with Bill C-2, a large number of civil liberties and human rights associations have condemned C-12 and called for lawmakers to vote against it. 

“C-12 would give the immigration department the power to share an individual’s immigration information to other federal agencies, other levels of government, or social and health service providers, which can lead to denial of service and other forms of abuses without oversight, such as landlords calling Canada Border Services Agency on their tenants or employers forcing individuals to accept less than the minimum wage,” said Cocq, who led a coalition of around 300 groups against C-2 and C-12.

The government is expected to push the rest of Bill C-2 later. There is speculation that amendments will be made to C-2, but it’s not yet known what that will look like.

The CLOUD Act puts the Canadian constitution at risk of being subordinated to U.S. law, which is far less protective and a real threat to human rights, Robertson said. 

“While Canada and the U.S. are culturally similar, our legal frameworks are very different,” she said, alluding to the weaker judicial oversight on digital surveillance in the U.S. compared to Canada to protect its citizens. “C-2 and CLOUD would bring us closer to a U.S. legal framework.” 

Despite the Trump administration claiming it defends free speech, the U.S. is among the nations that saw the most decline in Internet freedom globally, largely for arresting noncitizens for nonviolent online expression, revoking their visas and deporting them, and conducting politicized investigations against media and tech companies over content moderation practices and editorial decisions, including speech protected by the First Amendment.

The U.S. government recently created new terrorism categories, labelling trans people as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” and designated ‘Antifa’ as a terrorist organization, a move described as a serious escalation towards authoritarianism, especially since Antifa is not a formal organization and anyone could be labelled that arbitrarily. 

The Trump government expanding its terrorist classifications are worrying, as there is increased risk and scope for the U.S. government to conduct politically motivated investigations against people on Canadian soil for non-criminal behavior per Canadian law and engage in transnational repression targeting individuals it deems a threat, if the treaties were to be ratified. 

Canada-U.S. info sharing: a grim track record

Kate Robertson told Ricochet that “Canada and the United States’ information sharing concerning security matters has been heightened since 9/11.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) notes that Canada already shares “significant volumes” of information with the U.S., which has a track record of being weaponized against Canadians, and that Canadians currently “have limited ability to challenge or seek redress for privacy violations.” 

Plus, Bill C-2 does not address this important lack of safeguards while bringing in increased risks and threats. The CCLA warns that the appropriate protections are not in place, as the safeguards have not been “significantly” updated since 1974, while information sharing has been expanded in recent years. 

The CCLA highlights dangerous precedents that have already occurred with the current cross-border information sharing agreements. It has led to Canadians being denied entry based on private medical data, or even “illegal detention and torture of Canadians based on inaccurate information.” It can also lead to individuals being put on a U.S. terrorist database, which can lead to travel restrictions, enhanced surveillance, and coercion to cooperate with American security agencies.

Targeted for being a trans and a sex worker advocate 

Jelena Vermilion, the Canadian trans woman and sex worker activist, who had her NEXUS card revoked, shared the U.S. Department of Homeland Security document with Ricochet. 

Vermilion, who is an independent researcher and director of Sex Workers’ Action Program in Hamilton, says that her NEXUS card was revoked earlier this year for allegedly having provided “false information” and on suspicion of “terrorism.” 

In the document, she was informed that she may also be under investigation by the U.S. or other countries’ law enforcement bodies, as grounds for cancellation. 

She says she has no reason to believe she has provided any false information or participated in criminal or terrorism-related conduct, adding that she has never had serious issues with crossing the border until this year. 

Being allowed in the NEXUS program requires an extensive background check to begin with, from both U.S. and Canadian agents. 

“I fear going back to the U.S. because of the political climate and that I could be banned from entering the U.S. simply for being trans and for standing up for justice,” she tells Ricochet. “I am afraid I will be imprisoned, disappeared, raped or killed.”

Vermilion and her lawyer, Naomi Sayers, believe she was targeted because of her gender identity and her activism. 

It is not uncommon for suspected cisgender sex workers from Canada to be denied entry to the U.S. They are typically turned away and given a five-year ban, according to a spokesperson for another sex work advocacy group based in Canada, who told Ricochet that it’s the first time she’s heard of someone with a NEXUS card receiving a cancellation. 

Vermilion filed an access to information request to learn more about the reasons behind her exclusion, but still hasn’t received a response over two months later when the typical delay is 20 to 30 business days, leaving her to seek legal action as her only option. 

Vermilion has no criminal history in Canada or the U.S. The escort website she used from Canada was taken down by the U.S. under CLOUD during Trump’s first term in 2018, because it was registered under a U.S. domain, but that did not stop her from travelling to the U.S. since. The stated intention behind CLOUD taking down this website was to counter human trafficking operations, but Vermilion argues that doing that endangers sex workers like herself.

She is planning to contest her exclusion from the NEXUS program with the help of a U.S. lawyer. The ramifications of the potential investigation on the trans woman activist and researcher are unknown territory, beyond the precedents detailed by CCLA. In the event that she is indeed the subject of an investigation, that could shift depending on changes to information-sharing agreements and the law, or how far the Trump government is willing to push their boundaries.

There were indications leading up to the Canadian federal election that the U.S. might already be gathering information on Canadian health care providers to transgender people.

Jelena Vermilion’s experience suggests the Trump administration may already be conducting investigations on Canadian citizens for their gender identity or political expression.

From C-2 to C-12

Karen Cocq says “the scapegoating of migrants has been so pervasive that the government is basically gambling that C-12 will be easier to pass.”

“There is a lot of blaming of immigrants for unemployment, housing crisis, affordability crisis, strain on social services, so that governments do not have to take responsibility for their policies that are the real cause of these crises,” she said. 

“C-12 enables mass cancellation of permits with no appeal process. They intentionally did not define what is in the public interest to maximize the flexibility of how the government can use this power.”

The International Federation for Human Rights, representing 188 organizations, unanimously signed a resolution calling for Canada to withdraw Bills C-2 and C-12 in late October, as Canada now prepares to fast track C-12. 

Yameena Ansari, an immigration and refugee lawyer based in Toronto, told Ricochet she has serious concerns with the lack of consultation. 

“They are not inviting a lot of folks to participate. They are only inviting four witnesses. No non-profits were invited. It has me worried they might not be studying the Bill in the full depth that it deserves,” Ansari says, referring to the November 6 hearing. She says she’s deeply concerned about the potential human rights and 1951 Refugee Convention violation risks that the legislation carries.

Ansari said that most of her clients lately have been trans people experiencing attacks by the Trump government. “It would be possible to make an amendment to allow people to file an asylum claim up to one year after a persecutory event, for example, but in its current form it prevents a lot of people who need it the most from filing a claim, especially trans people. 

“The next step is for trans people, children and adults, to be institutionalized in mental health facilities, camps and incarcerated for who they are in the U.S.,” she told Ricochet.

The legislation is expected to be voted on before next year, and it could effectively be a form of death sentence for trans people who seek safety in Canada. 

Gpat Patterson, a trans and non-binary asylum claimant, fled the U.S. to Canada this past spring. Patterson is an expert on contemporary rhetoric and gender studies, who suspects their data was being surveilled in real time.

“I’m a trans professor in a federal lawsuit, which began in my attempt to protect trans students from educational discrimination. This put a target on my back. 

“Once Trump took over the federal government, I had Christian nationalists approach me and begin to surveil my home. I’m here [in Canada], essentially, because I knew there was no safe place to flee from being abducted, because people who teach ‘gender ideology’ will be subject to imprisonment as ‘sex offenders’ if Project 2025 is fully realized,” Patterson told Ricochet. 

There is no way of knowing if the Trump administration played a direct hand in this, but it sends a chilling signal on what could happen in Canada if its data protections and safeguards were downgraded, and what happened to Patterson raises some important questions. What would prevent U.S. vigilantes from crossing the border, or even Canadian citizens from doing the same thing, to terrorize their own neighbours?

If C-12 passes, Patterson will likely be sent back to the U.S., or could become the target of an investigation without protection under CLOUD even if they are allowed to stay in Canada. Would Canada hand Patterson or Vermilion over to U.S. authorities, if criminal liability is established for political speech, non-criminal conduct happening on Canadian soil?

A stormy CLOUD brewing

The Canadian government has been negotiating with the U.S. regarding the CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) since 2022. It would remove roadblocks under Canadian privacy legislation for the U.S. to request data from Canadian companies, which would otherwise be subjected to Canadian court oversight. 

It proposes that voluntary disclosure of data could be lawful without a warrant, shielding companies from liability for putting people’s privacy at the mercy of companies. This would bring Canadian regulation closer to the U.S. model and farther from the European one. 

In the U.S., when a company shares data with a third-party, it becomes “fair game,” whereas privacy is protected in Canada, requiring reasonable grounds for a judge to approve a warrant, explains Citizen Lab’s Kate Robertson and Cynthia Khoo.

While the CLOUD Act is meant to grant reciprocal powers in seeking data from technology companies across the border, it might not be reciprocal in terms of respecting constitutional and human rights, they said.

The U.S. already has CLOUD agreements with Australia and the U.K. However, unlike those countries, the U.S. has repeatedly threatened Canada’s sovereignty. 

Both U.S. CLOUD agreements with Australia and the U.K. do not offer mechanisms to protect seized data.

Moreover, Robertson and Khoo wrote in a peer-reviewed article that, if Canada were to enter into a potential CLOUD Act agreement with the United States, “nothing would prevent U.S. authorities from sharing and repurposing personal data collected from Canada for matters that have nothing to do with the CLOUD Act or criminal investigations.” 

The CLOUD Act would also make Canada vulnerable to future broadening of powers to U.S. law enforcement agencies. In that sense, the potential consequences of expanded data-sharing obligations would be unpredictable and highly volatile as rights and privacy are rapidly being taken away. For instance, some U.S. states have even tried introducing laws to make being trans illegal, though they have not been successful so far.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is cracking down on political dissents, domestically and abroad. 

Tech evolving faster than regulation

AI is outpacing regulation, even in Europe, and experts say Canada has insufficient, outdated safeguards. Globally, AI is reshaping authoritarianism and surveillance technologies, and it is not accounting for harm and human rights abuses. 

Politics too are increasingly moving at breakneck speed, provincially, federally and beyond, testing the limits of established democratic processes. 

Canada’s Liberal government is trying to move fast to accelerate AI growth and innovation. At the same time, experts are warning that its plans are detached from reality, undemocratic, and ignoring real risks that could drive the country further toward a dystopia “resembling Squid Game.”

The Carney government is risking data sovereignty to prioritize AI adoption by granting contracts to Cohere, one of Canada’s leading AI companies, which heavily relies on American tech and has ties to Palantir. It notably received $240 million in federal funding to build data centres in Ontario, but it is not doing so with Canadian partners. Cohere’s policies were criticized for being insufficient in preventing misuse or abuse by the tech companies it partners with, like Palantir, infamously known for developing technology that were criticized for contributing to the violation of human rights, such as by developing surveillance tools for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its mass deportations.

A report presented at the House of Commons on November 3 suggests that Canada has little control over any data that is not entirely Canadian owned, even if it is stored domestically, potentially subjecting it to the laws of the countries that the entities operate in. At the same time, Canada has been investing substantially in U.S. cloud service providers.

South of the border, Trump, who removed tech regulations and is now pressuring other countries to follow suit in ongoing tariff negotiations, has drafted an order directing the Department of Justice to sue states that pass AI regulation.

American tech companies have been assisting Israel in establishing mass surveillance of Palestinians with the use of AI in its genocide, notably Palantir, and Microsoft, blurring war crime responsibility and accountability, and sparking fears that these new surveillance technologies could be deployed elsewhere in and out of war contexts, including on American or Canadian citizens, and pave the way for even more development of this technology.

Police are also increasingly using AI. They’re using it to automate report writing from the audio of body cameras, creating legal liability problems, or to sift through large amounts of camera footage to identify suspects and objects, and surveil online spaces. 

The RCMP has a history of using surveillance technology. In 2021 it used U.S.-based Clearview AI, a company with a less-than-impeccable track record. Canada’s privacy commissioner found that the RCMP violated privacy laws by using the facial recognition technology. The RCMP initially denied using Clearview, but later admitted it after the company’s client list was hacked.

Clearview AI was trained, among other things, to recognize the faces of trans people who medically transition on YouTube, who did not consent to be included in the dataset, foreshadowing that such technology could be deployed in Trump’s effort to surveil trans people. Moreover, facial scans are now mandatory for Canadians to enter the U.S. DHS went so far as proposing to collect the DNA samples of foreigners to determine their biological sex.

A number of times this past year, Trump revived U.S. expansionist ambitions, threatening to make Canada his 51st state and to unilaterally use military force against cartels in Mexico. He has also been ordering politically motivated investigations against his opponents, redefining leftists as terrorists, and redefining trans people as violent extremists. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi stated in mid-October as part of a White House press briefing they would “treat Antifa the way they treat cartels,” hinting at the possible use of military force and other means across the border as it is planning in Mexico. President Trump has already suggested using drone strikes against cartels, for instance. Pam Bondi thus signals Canadian citizens, like Jelena Vermilion who are leftist activists or transgender may be added to a terrorist database.

Data disaster around the corner

Because of the lack of transparency, the speed at which technology evolves as well as the secrecy of data collection by companies, it’s difficult to know what data could be exploited and how to their full extent. 

In the past, data brokers have contributed to the criminal targeting of groups whose civil rights are being stripped, for example by surveilling people accessing abortion. It could enable law enforcement to access wiretapping, location tracking in real time, accessing private messages, period tracking apps, hacking devices remotely and so on. For example, abortion services, gender-affirming care, performing drag shows, and sex work are criminalized in some states south of the border, meaning the U.S. could potentially expand its ability to investigate this conduct in Canada, even if it is legal here, if the legislative changes were to pass.  

The RCMP already has access to such surveillance tools, which it notably uses to automate searching publicly available activity on the Internet, including the Dark Web with the help of software companies such as Flare, an important Canadian cybersecurity company who stores data in the U.S. and, like Cohere, also works with U.S. partners.

Freedom of information laws largely shroud the practices in secrecy, making it difficult for the public to question the possible biases of these models or unethical conduct, but, under the current framework, people in Canada are still better protected by invasive practices because the law enforcement and security bodies need to request a warrant issued by a judge with reasonable grounds to access or share private data, and the judge’s order can limit the scope of data that can be collected.

These new cross-border information-sharing agreements alongside AI regulation being debated in haste by the Carney government could soon lower the bar for data security and privacy even more — just as authoritarianism is gaining ground globally.

In the meantime, the U.S. president is rewriting history, suppressing data collection, scientific studies, reports, openly uses the government’s social media accounts to manipulate public perception domestically — for example, by claiming his administration created hundreds of thousands of jobs and saying ‘welcome to the golden age’ when unemployment rose to its highest since 2021 — with tech giants in his pocket, and threatening Canada’s sovereignty. Americans can’t trust their own government, should Canada?

Multi-layered algorithmic vassalization

As younger generations increasingly turn to social media for news, Trump has said he wants to make TikTok’s algorithm “100 per cent MAGA,” pivoting away from his plan to ban the platform based on what some say are national security fears. 

Even before Trump’s re-election, multiple researchers found the algorithm was asymmetrically in favor of showing conservative, radical, inflammatory content to users, including to children. 

The lack of tech regulation is enabling American social media platforms operating in Canada to push polarizing political content on Canadian young people and keep them in harmful content loops for profit is concerning to experts. 

Data shows foreign accounts captured a disproportionate share of the attention economy on TikTok during the Canadian federal elections, even before it switched hands from a majority of Chinese owners to Americans. 

Authoritarian regimes and foreign influence actors are well aware of it. Chinese officials describe generative AI as a tool of cognitive warfare, capable of predictive modelling and hyper-targeted persuasion. Generative AI has the potential to supercharge operations on social media and beyond. Malicious actors have found a variety of ways to manipulate and hijack generative AI models to control narratives and facts, too. 

Elon Musk, a key Trump advisor, has openly tweaked Grok to espouse his own political beliefs, away from facts.

X started showing the location behind accounts, leading to the revelation that many prominent right-wing accounts adopting hyperpatriotic, Republican or Albertan secessionist façades and posting radical, polarizing content are likely often not even based in the countries they present themselves to be from.

Concerns that bad actors behind such accounts are intentionally propelling divisive rhetoric and disinformation to manipulate public opinion and policy decisions while pretending to reinforce a sense of patriotic unity and defence of national interests, which are then algorithmically prioritized and monetized. 

Meta earns $16 billion per year from scam ads, representing 10 per cent of its revenue, for which it knows nearly half are “high risk”. Some of them pose as real news, when real news are blocked on its platforms.

Canada’s unity is increasingly being fractured on many fronts, internally and from outside forces. 

As Quebec and Alberta look to separate from Canada, and are being criticized for their acceleration towards authoritarianism and rollback of trans rights, the right-wing provincial governments could turn to drafting their own laws through the use of the notwithstanding clause, away from the Canadian constitution. Or making their own constitution, in the case of Quebec, who invited other provinces to follow suit in decentralizing the federal constitution – and be willing to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement to investigate migrants, ‘Antifa’, and trans people to solidify their own grip to power. 

Ontario’s Doug Ford recently suggested auditing leftist organizations who receive taxpayer funding that he suspects could be funneling money to left-wing radical groups, a move that was criticized for being Trump-like. Quebec is admittedly making itself less attractive to migrants and refugees, at a critical time when people are fleeing the U.S. to Canada, saying it does not receive enough help from Ottawa. 

Will Carney be able to hold it all together? 

Clarification: Citizen Lab referred to U.S. law enforcement’s potential reach into Canada’s digital terrain as a result of the CLOUD Act, not C-2.