A Canadian government order to stop the Chinese video-sharing app’s commercial activities in the nation due to national security concerns has been contested by TikTok.
In an attempt to overturn the judgment directing TikTok to wind up and shut down its operations in Canada, the company announced on Tuesday that it has submitted a judicial review appeal to the Federal Court in Vancouver on December 5.
Laptops 1000Following a national security assessment of its Chinese parent business, ByteDance Ltd., the Canadian federal government declared last month that it was directing the dissolution of TikTok Technology Canada Inc.
The TikTok app will remain accessible to Canadians and is not being blocked by the government.
According to TikTok, 14 million Canadians use the app, or almost one-third of the country’s total population. It maintains offices in Vancouver and Toronto.
ByteDance is the owner of the immensely popular platform. The Chinese company relocated its headquarters to Singapore in 2020, but it is facing mounting pressure in the West.
It may be banned in the United States, and it is coming under further scrutiny in Europe for alleged Moscow-coordinated election influence efforts.
In its online court filing, TikTok contends that François-Philippe Champagne, the minister of industry, made a decision that was “unreasonable” and “driven by improper purposes.”
It claims that the national security evaluation was “procedurally unfair” and that the order is “grossly disproportionate.”
The Investment Canada Act, which gives the government the authority to look into foreign investments that might jeopardize national security, was used to conduct the study.
Champagne did not provide further details in the statement at the time, but it stated that the government was acting to address “specific national security risks.”
In reaction to the filling, his office stated that a “thorough national security review and advice from Canada’s security and intelligence community” drove the government’s decision.
Champagne “failed to engage with TikTok Canada on the purported substance of the concerns,” according to TikTok, which is what caused the order.
It contends that the government’s justifications for the order “are unintelligible, fail to reveal a rational chain of analysis, and are rife with logical fallacies,” and that the steps it ordered “bear no rational connection to the national security risks it identifies.”
The platform claims there were “less onerous” alternatives to closing its Canadian operations, which it claimed would “cause the destruction of significant economic opportunities,” imperil commercial contracts, and remove hundreds of jobs.
