As of press time, the Tories’ “Anti-terrorism Act” is going through a clause-by-clause review in Parliamentary committee.
The feds have been blindsided by criticism of Bill C-51 from media commentators, academics and the Canadian Bar Association. Four former prime ministers and five former Supreme Court justices have expressed deep concern about various implications of the bill.
These are some shafts of light in an otherwise dark situation, in which the September attack by a homeless, mentally ill gunman on Parliament Hill has been leveraged into a Death Star statute.
Polls have shown support for the legislation has dropped from 82 to 45 per cent of Canadians. After the “lone wolf” scare wore off, what lingers for many are years of domestic deceit, international sabre-rattling, dishonour of veterans, robocall allegations, proroguing of Parliament, Senate scandals, environmental chicanery and gagged federal scientists. Harper and his inner circle have consistently proven tone-deaf to public outrage until an election looms.
On March 24, SFU’s VanCity Office of Community Engagement held a panel on Bill C-51 at the Wosk Centre. Political science professor Max Cameron, director for the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at UBC, said he believes “Bill C-51 threatens the very foundations of our legal system.”
“It weakens the rule of law and the separation of powers, which undergirds our democracy. It will make our political institutions not only less democratic and less robust in their capacity to guarantee our fundamental rights and freedoms, but it will also weaken our capacity to respond to the threats that we face,” Cameron said.
Whenever the rules are made by the same person or group of people that implements and enforces those rules, “we find ourselves in the very definition of tyranny,” he added.
The professor argued that “constitutional provisions cannot be overturned by statutory law,” that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms cannot be abrogated by the proposed bill. There may be judicial challenges forthcoming, he predicted.
Wosk Centre panelist Micheal Vonn, policy director at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, noted that even before the Anti-terror Act was being cobbled together, “the federal government operational centre has called on all federal departments to compile information on all protests in the country.”
Documents provided through Freedom of Information Act requests give some idea of the kind of security hazards monitored by federal agencies. Vonn quoted one relevant passage: “the healing dance in Kenora, Ontario, the prayer ceremony in Edmonton and an Idle No More taco fundraising raffle and jam session.”
Bear in mind, this sort of security/surveillance overshoot occurs even without legislation seemingly engineered to interpret free speech as Thoughtcrime.
But has the government blinked? Non-violent protestors, even those who break the law, “won’t be targeted under the government’s powerful security bill, a parliamentary committee agreed Tuesday,” according to the Ottawa Citizen. Three other amendments were approved, “but opposition party attempts to introduce more than 26 amendments of their own were rebuffed by the committee’s Conservative majority.” A proposed amendment by the NDP to the “Security of Canada Information Sharing Act,” one of the most contentious aspects of Bill C-51, went down in flames.
We need only look south of the border to witness the constitutional and budgetary black hole that results when alphabet agencies attain sweeping powers outside of public, judicial, and executive oversight. The Anti-terror Act is our nation’s Patriot Act. With only four amendments approved so far, the Harper cabal might as well stick a giant, flaming Eye of Sauron onto the Parliament tower and prorogue the Commons chamber into perpetual darkness.
Last week, University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese noted the government was “absolutely gobsmacked” by the level of public engagement on Bill C-51.
“It’s very clear that the public is galvanized on a very complex matter in a way that the government did not expect. For those of you working on this problem, keep working. Those internal polls will determine if the government climbs down or not...the role of the public is to keep their voices loud and firm,” he said to applause from the Wosk Centre audience.
“They didn’t listen to witnesses,” said Green Party leader Elizabeth May of the committee hearings in a Wednesday CBC report. “They’re watching the polls.”
geoffolson.com
