TikTok files test against Canadian govt order to dissolve its business

TikTok has challenged a Canadian government order to shut down the Chinese video-sharing app’s business operations in the country that was imposed over national safety concerns.

The business said Tuesday that it filed an application for a judicial review with the Federal Court in Vancouver on Dec. 5, which seeks to set aside the order for TikTok to wind-up and cease its business in Canada.

The Canadian federal government last month announced it was ordering the dissolution of TikTok Technology Canada Inc. after a national safety review of its Chinese parent business ByteDance Ltd.

The government is not blocking access to the TikTok app, which will continue to be available to Canadians. TikTok said it has 14 million users in Canada, which is about a third of the population. It has offices in Toronto and Vancouver.

The wildly popular platform is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese business that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020, but is under increasing pressure in the West. It’s facing a feasible ban in the U.S. and intensifying scrutiny in Europe over issues including election influence campaigns allegedly coordinated by Moscow.

TikTok argues in its court application, which was posted online, that Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s selection was “unreasonable” and “driven by improper purposes.” It says the order is “grossly disproportionate” and the the national safety review was “procedurally unfair.”

The review was carried out through the resource Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate foreign resource with potential to damage national safety.

Champagne said in a statement at the period that the government was taking action to address “specific national safety risks,” but did not elaborate. His office said in response to the filling that the government’s selection was informed by a “thorough national safety review and advice from Canada’s safety and intelligence throng.”

TikTok said Champagne “failed to engage with TikTok Canada on the purported substance of the concerns” that led to the order.

It argues the government ordered “measures that bear no rational connection to the national safety risks it identifies” and that the reasons for the order “are unintelligible, fall short to reveal a rational chain of analysis and are rife with logical fallacies.”

The platform says there were “less onerous” options than shutting down its Canadian business, which it said would eliminate hundreds of jobs, threaten business contracts and “factor the destruction of significant economic opportunities.”