Stephen Smysnuik
TikTok’s staying in Canada for now: great for business, bad for security
Photo via BongkarnGraphic, Shutterstock
The Topline
- Ottawa has set aside its 2024 order forcing TikTok to wind down its Canadian corporate operations, allowing the company to maintain its Canadian offices
- The government filed a letter with the Federal Court saying it had reached an agreement with the social media platform to set aside the order and launch a new national security review
- The initial order called for the closure of the platform’s Canadian offices, but stopped short of banning the app itself
We’re back in business, baby
The federal government’s ban on TikTok never made any sense, anyway.
Ottawa didn’t ban the app, but instead forced the company’s Canadian corporate headquarters to leave, which University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist told the Canadian Press “never really addressed the fundamental concerns that Canadians might have had around privacy or security.”
Canadians meanwhile, kept scrolling, posting, and buying ads as usual.
And while the app remained available, Media in Canada reported that the order forced the loss of local staff, which made it harder for creators to secure brand deals and sponsorships, while also significantly limiting the reach of brands wanting to advertise to Canadians.
The federal government’s reversal should fix all that. Allowing TikTok to keep its offices in Canada means creators, agencies, and brands have the certainty they need to plan and operate their businesses, without the looming threat that Ottawa will boot one of the largest platforms on the planet.
The decision also gives TikTok a stronger incentive to expand sales and partnerships in Canada. This is potentially great news for creators. The platform’s Creativity Program, which can be a substantial source of income for creators based in the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany, has not yet been launched in Canada. With newfound stability in the Canadian market, there’s potential that it could.
There was also a cultural dimension to the ban that Ottawa seems to have underestimated. TikTok Canada responded to the order by pulling out as a sponsor of major Canadian arts institutions, including the Juno Awards and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Those weren’t vanity deals, either. TIFF and the JUNOs are an integral part of how Canadian culture is transmitted to Canadians (and the world, frankly) — and especially to younger audiences who no longer consume culture through legacy media products.
In other words, keeping TikTok HQ in the country aligns with the 2026 reality. The app is here, millions of Canadians use it, and there’s an economy that’s formed around it as a result. Forcing any kind of change helped no one.
The unresolved security questions
A government review of TikTok back in 2023 found risks of “cyber-enabled espionage and foreign interference.” There’s little public evidence those concerns are suddenly no longer a thing.
Meanwhile, research suggests that TikTok’s algorithm has the potential to influence what content its users see, shaping political narratives, social tensions, or election outcomes.
That’s a big yikes.
While TikTok’s U.S. operations are now structured as a majority-owned American entity, TikTok Canada is owned by ByteDance , which is headquartered in China, and that raises concerns about potential access by Chinese authorities to Canadian users’ data.
“Despite assurances to the contrary, personal data on TikTok users is accessible to China,” a 2022 top-secret CSIS report said .
We’re talking about things like location signals, device metadata, and engagement patterns, which is all the useful data a hostile superpower like China could use to target Canada’s national security.
“ByteDance recently failed to remove 90 per cent of disinformation ads in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, compared to Facebook and YouTube, which identified and blocked most of them,” the report also said.
Unlike telecommunications in this country, Canada still lacks strong regulations around social media apps, including TikTok. By allowing both the app and corporate presence to operate here, this only causes more problems by further embedding staff, infrastructure, and lobbying power inside the country.
In other words, Canada is gambling on the security of its citizens to — what, exactly? Maintain cozy economic relations with China? Sure, I guess this makes sense, given Canada’s economic vulnerability in the new world order of 2026.
But keep in mind, up until last week, China had been, for all intents and purposes, Canada’s foe.
