The Canadian government can't compel companies, who have no hardware in Canada, to comply with Canadian law. Proton Mail has already made a statement that they will not comply with any foreign anti-privacy laws.

At most, Canada could force Canadian ISPs to block connections to known 'offenders' like Proton or other non-compliant VPNs. Then it's a cat and mouse game of using different and new VPNs to access to safe, non-compliant, services.

You could also rent a VPS in Europe to act as your own private tunnel but there's no telling if or when that would be blocked.

> this is absurd!

Why? Сountries pass laws, companies that don't comply are fined, shut down, blocked, and their owners are prosecuted and imprisoned. That is how it works already, nothing new or absurd here.

Well that's the crux of it and why some VPN providers have pushed back. If the law passed, and if those VPNs got added as core providers, they would either need to log the metadata or stop operating in Canada, and several have said they would stop operating in Canada.

There are arguments for all sides, and I do think the narrative gets monopolized by the hysterical. On the one side I like torrenting without concern, but on the other it would be nice if services didn't provide cover for people to send death threats, bomb threats to schools because they fly a pride flag, VoIP swatting, and so on. Though ultimately limiting just VPNs directly operating in Canada just offshores the problem so the solution doesn't really achieve anything.