Category Archives: Media

By Alyssa Stryker and Carmen Cheung | The Tyee

At over 60 pages, Bill C-51 — the Anti-Terrorism Act — is a heavy read. The bill proposes a myriad of radical changes to Canadian law and to Canada’s national security apparatus, many of which seriously jeopardize the rights and freedoms of Canadians while promising little improvement to public safety.

Canada’s privacy commissioner, ex-CSIS officials, former prime ministers and international whistleblower Edward Snowden have all raised alarm about the bill’s impacts on Canadians’ freedom and privacy. Lawyers at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association have gone over the bill paragraph by paragraph, and we’ve outlined the parts of this document that concern us most.

1. Bill C-51 drastically expands the definition of ‘security.’
When you think of being secure, you likely think of being safe from physical danger. But Bill C-51 defines security as not only safeguarding public safety, but also preventing interference with various aspects of public life or “the economic or financial stability of Canada.” With this definition, a separatist demonstration in Quebec that fails to get a proper permit, a peaceful logging blockade by First Nations, or environmentalists obstructing a pipeline route could all be seen as threats to national security.

2. It gives the government too much discretion to pick and choose which individuals and groups to target for further scrutiny.
Bill C-51 gives the government the ability to designate an extraordinarily broad range of activities as potential security threats. The government claims it will use good judgment when deciding which individuals and groups constitute true threats. Whether or not a group is deemed a national security threat may hinge on whether their cause is politically popular or in line with the views of the government. Continue reading →

Voices/Voix Case study

What Happened
Since the fall of 2014, the Harper government has introduced two significant bills to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other national security related legislation, identified as Bill C-51 and Bill C-44. At the time of writing, Bill C-44 has been passed by the House of Commons and is awaiting approval by the Senate while Bill C-51 (introduced in Parliament in January 2015) is entering its second reading in the House. The amendments proposed, especially through Bill C-51, represent the most sweeping changes to the powers of CSIS since its inception in 1984 and create far-reaching, vague and controversial changes to anti-terrorism legislation that potentially criminalize now lawful activity, create new vaguely defined speech crimes, and increase the scope for CSIS to engage in secret judicially-approved counter-terrorism actions in Canada as well as in foreign countries.

Background
In 1984, CSIS was created as a response to the McDonald Commission, which recommended a separation between national security policing and intelligence functions. National security intelligence would be limited to information gathering, and CSIS’ performance of its duties and functions would be subject to the review of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC). Unlawful disruption tactics, including barn burnings, property destruction, break-ins, thefts, and abusive investigation techniques by the RCMP were strongly condemned. In the aftermath of the McDonald Commission Report, the government created CSIS as a legally more constrained, domestic, civilian intelligence collection service. Indeed, later in that decade, an important reform removed the controversial area of “subversion” from the RCMP’s mandate. Continue reading →

The futility of war

Leaders see the invasion of another country as an easy short-term policy. Canadians don’t seem to understand the political manipulation underway.

Gar Pardy, Embassy Magazine

It is to be regretted that historian Barbara Tuchman is no longer with us. If she was, there is some certainty she would add the “war on terror” and its offshoots to her catalogue of political follies she intelligently identified in her book The March of Folly.

The book has been described as “meditation on the historical recurrence of governments pursuing policies evidently contrary to their own interests.” As Western powers stumble around the battlefields of the Middle East and Central Asia, there is overwhelming evidence supporting the conclusion that today’s policies are contrary to their own interests.

Since the start of our third millennium, the back-to-back wars against so-called terrorism are really wars against ourselves. Bill C-51, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act, is but the latest misdirected attempt by the government to fight a war it wants it to be, not the one we read about each morning. Continue reading →

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Overly broad and unnecessary anti-terrorism reforms could criminalize free speech
By Clayton Ruby and Nader R. Hasan

Six Muslim young adults stand in front of a mosque late at night in heated discussion in some foreign language. They may be debating the merits of a new Drake album. They may be talking about video games, or sports, or girls, or advocating the overthrow of the Harper government. Who knows? There is no evidence one way or the other. Just stereotypes. But the new standard for arrest and detention—reason to suspect that they may commit an act—is so low that an officer may be inclined to arrest and detain them in order to investigate further. And now, officers will no longer need to ask themselves whether the arrest is necessary. They could act on mere suspicion that an arrest is likely to prevent any terrorist activity. Yesterday, the Muslim men were freely exercising constitutional rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Today they are arrestable.

Overview: The Anti-Terrorism Act

Bill C-51,the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015, would expand the powers of Canada’s spy agency, allow Canadians to be arrested on mere suspicion of future criminal activity, allow the Minister of Public Safety to add Canadians to a “no-fly list” with illusory rights of judicial review, and, perhaps most alarmingly, create a new speech-related criminal offence of “promoting” or “advocating” terrorism. These proposed laws are misguided, and many of them are likely also unconstitutional. The bill ought to be rejected as a whole. Repair is impossible. Continue reading →