One of the arguments that is being made in this country against the wiretap chip is that it will harm overseas business. In Canada you can turn this around and show what a great economic boon you have available.
Another argument the U.S. government is making is that they surveyed encryption policy in various countries and "it's not beyond the pale to limit domestic encryption -- France does it, for example". If Canada takes a strong stance on domestic encryption, then it is a counter-example rather than an example of repression. The Australian example of deploying GSM in the face of law-enforcement objections has already been used in testimony to NIST (and I'm sure we'll use it to convince Congress as well). You could also argue for removing Canadian restrictions on export of cryptography. Currently the Canadian regulations are just rubber-stamps of the US regulations. This has the advantage that it's legal to export US crypto to Canada -- e.g. crypto code developed in the U.S. can be legally moved outside the range of U.S. law. This was useful for PGP; it is legal to use and possess PGP in Canada since US patent law doesn't apply. But it limits the development of an export crypto industry for Canadians, and it furthers the image of Canada as being under the U.S. government's thumb. John Gilmore