Canada can do it because Canada is not the US. In the US, we have too much emphasis on the individual. In other societies, there is more emphasis on the collective. This opinion may not be entirely accurate, but it's worth stating this basic difference.
"So, what about consciousness? As defined above, it is in fact the most certain knowledge there is. Pure awareness is not even possible to deny, since the very act of denial takes place in and as an activity of awareness. You can not escape or avoid it. Thoughts can of course imagine a brain that existed in the past without awareness, but that itself is a thought in awareness. One can doubt whether the thought refers to something true or real, but the awareness is unavoidable. This suggests that consciousness, not matter, is fundamentally real." -- Tom McFarlane, B.S. Physics, Stanford University
You have an agency like the NSA with scores of genius mathematicians and hackers and a black budget. There's nothing beyond their means, spying wise.
I suspect that one day our internal thoughts and feelings will be under constant mass surveillance, Minority Report style, but it won't look like sci-fi when it happens.