The Liberal government’s contentious lawful access bill has passed in the House but likely won’t become law before Parliament rises for the traditional summer recess.

Bill C-22 was one of several pieces of legislation pushed across the finish line in the House courtesy of a motion passed unanimously on Thursday, which paved the way for MPs to return to their ridings a day earlier than scheduled.

The bill was moved quickly through the final stages after the Liberals passed a motion on Wednesday that wrapped up clause-by-clause review in committee that same day, drawing claims from the opposition that the government was trying to shut down debate over the bill.

That earlier motion also offered a few hours for debate at third reading before a final vote, but that was negated by Thursday’s motion that brings an early start of the summer recess for MPs.

Despite the bill’s rapid pace through the House, it’s unlikely it will advance far in the Senate before the chamber rises for the summer, which is expected early next week.

Although C-22 won’t become law until the fall, Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon defended the need for the motion to advance the bill in the Commons, saying “every day matters in this place.”

“The Senate can now take this up as soon as they return, and we send a very, very clear signal that Canada’s elected representatives are behind giving… the police and other authorities these abilities to stop sexual predators, child pornographers, extortionists,” he said.

The Conservatives have accused the Liberals of trying to ram C-22 through the House without a proper debate, and proposed severing the bill into two to ensure more fulsome study of the contentious data retention section.

The first part of the bill gives the police and Canada’s spy agency new powers to access subscriber information from digital service providers. Warrants are required for more identifying information.

The Liberals have framed it as a needed refresh of Canada’s dated lawful access rules, and the opposition has been largely supportive of the changes.

BACKGROUND: Liberals table revised lawful access bill, eliminating powers to obtain subscriber information without a warrant

Most of the criticism has focused on language in the second part of the bill, which creates new requirements for electronic service providers to keep user-specific information.

As originally drafted, C-22 would require providers to retain metadata for all their users for up to a year. But the timeline was trimmed to six months during clause-by-clause review at committee.

The section would also give the government the power to direct service providers to build capabilities to capture and retain data, known as ‘backdoors.’ These directives would be issued in secretive orders that would only require sign-off from the privacy commissioner.

Providers could be exempted if complying with an order would create “systemic risks,” but critics say that language is too vague to offer much protection.

The threat of state-mandated backdoors has already prompted encrypted messaging service Signal and search provider DuckDuckGo to publicly weigh leaving Canada if C-22 becomes law, while tech giants Apple and Google have also raised concerns.

During the lightning round of clause-by-clause review on Wednesday, the Liberals made several amendments aimed at addressing concerns over the retention section of the bill.

In addition to slashing the period providers need to keep metadata and clarifying language around the systemic risk exemption, the Liberals also limited the validity period of ministerial orders to two years, clarified that the orders cannot be used to access personal information without a warrant and added a new requirement that cabinet can only pass a retention to order if it’s “essential for the effective and timely investigation of offences or threats to the security of Canada.”

“These amendments and many more considerably strengthen Bill C-22 by improving clarity, narrowing uncertainty, and making the legislation more effective,” read a statement from the office of Public Safety Minister Anandasangaree.

“This demonstrates that feedback raised during consultations and consideration in committee have been heard and addressed in a concrete way. As amended, Bill C-22 provides a clear, robust framework for lawful access moving forward for the safety of all Canadians.”

Privacy law expert Michael Geist said the amendments don’t fix a fundamentally flawed bill that would grant the government sweeping powers to amass personal data of unsuspecting Canadians that are under suspicion for any crime in the hopes that it could prove useful to the police.

“This is the metadata, so that’s transmission data. That’s where you are. That’s who you communicate with when you communicate all that information, and that’s for everyone. So we’re still building a massive haystack for the proverbial needle [that] they might want every once in a while,” he said.

“If you compare it to the United States, which does not have any metadata retention requirements,  think it’s still lacks in proportionality and is vulnerable to a challenge.”

While the Conservatives opposed C-22, all parties in the House signed off on the unanimous consent motion to pass the bill at third reading.

When asked about this by iPolitics on Thursday, Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman said it was ultimately the government’s decision to move ahead with the bill.

“We offered the government part one of this bill. We would have passed it, no problem, and police would have gotten the powers that they needed, and instead the government chose to ram through provisions that are an incursion into Canadians’ privacy that effectively render the government a surveillance state,” she said.

“We are going to continue to keep that fight going over the summer… and continue to stand up every single time this government reaches into Canadians’ private search history, and their metadata, and make sure that we stand up for Canadians.”