I can understand why governments would push for something like this after 9/11, though it of course goes without saying that this is a totally unacceptable violation of someone’s basic rights. It also goes without saying that governments always want more control over their citizens, but what exactly are they so worried might happen, right now, in 2025 or the near future?
A lot of good points here, but I’d also like to bring forward another hypothesis which partially explain the incredible speed at which this is moving forward in the last few months (even though things have been brewing back and forth for years, decades).
The US has become a hostile state. For Five Eyes, Six Eyed, Nine Eyes, and Forty Yes that means much less domestic intel since all the Eyes were sharing domestic intelligence to circumvent stronger protections on their own citizens. Canada would spy for the US and the UK, and vice versa, which was a neat way of getting rid of pesky rights afforded to citizens.