ANTI-TERRORISM BILLS NEAR VOTES
Two anti-terrorism bills that would give more powers to Canada’s police and spies are being pushed toward fruition, but critics say the bills might be tossed by the courts, writes Dylan Robertson.
Q What’s being proposed?
A Bill C-13 is expected to pass a final Senate vote next week, the last step before it is signed into law. The so-called cyberbullying bill will allow police to obtain surveillance warrants on “reasonable grounds for suspicion” — a lower threshold of evidence than now exists. The bill also shields Internet providers from lawsuits for voluntarily giving police private data without a warrant.
Bill C-44, on the other hand, is a series of amendments to the act governing the spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
If passed, the bill would grant CSIS informants near-total anonymity, and confirm that Canadian courts can issue spy warrants that have effect outside Canada.
The bill has had four hours of committee study and faces another two hours Monday before it returns to the House for a third reading. Then the Bill will be voted and move on to the Senate.
Q Why the rush on Bill C-44?
A Both bills were drafted before the deadly attack on Parliament Hill in October. Since then, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stressed his belief that security agencies need more power of “surveillance, detention, and arrest,” and has said legislation would be “expedited.”
Liberal critic Wayne Easter says C-44 requires more scrutiny. “CSIS is already doing these things; there’s no rush,” he argues.
Q Are the bills constitutional?
A Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney called C-44 “the most constitutional piece of legislation that we have ever brought in.”
Official Opposition critic Randall Garrison says he’s worried a court could later toss out the law. “If you’re going to do this, you can’t make mistakes that will inadvertently make it harder to use CSIS information in prosecutions of people actually guilty of terrorist acts,” he says.
As for Bill C-13, critics say a Supreme Court ruling in June suggests courts will discard information police collect from Inter- net providers without sufficient cause.
Q Has everyone been heard?
A In an unusual move, the government denied Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien’s request to appear at the committee discussing Bill C-44 last week.
A Conservative MP even quashed an NDP proposal that would have Therrien appear if some other witnesses was absent.
Therrien thus wrote a letter detailing his concerns. He says C-44 doesn’t include enough safeguards to ensure Canadians being spied on abroad by other governments aren’t, as a result, abused or tortured by them.
“Clear statutory rules should be enacted to prevent informationsharing by CSIS from resulting in a violation of Canada’s international obligations,” he wrote.
A similar letter he co-wrote last month with the information commissioner said the government hasn’t clearly established why authorities need any new counter-terrorism powers at all.