Senator eyes bill to better protect journalists
A prominent Quebec senator and former journalist says he’s ready to table his own legislation to better protect journalists from spying incidents.
But André Pratte, a former La Presse editorial writer, said he still hopes to persuade the Trudeau government to take action on its own because the problem is far more widespread in Canada than is believed.
“We would be naive to think it’s only a Quebec problem,” Pratte said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette Monday.
“The temptation for police to uncover journalist sources does not just exist in Montreal, it exists all over. What’s happening shows the current laws are insufficient.”
Pratte, who sits as an independent, made the comments on the same day as further details emerged in the police spying case involving La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé.
Mayor Denis Coderre admitted Monday in an interview with 98.5 FM’s Paul Arcand that he complained to police after details of a traffic infraction he was involved in were leaked to a journalist.
Lagacé wrote Monday that he believes police surveillance of his phone was payback for him looking into a traffic ticket incurred by Coderre in 2012.
Over and above each new case, a “troubling,” reality is emerging, Pratte said.
Not only did police seek warrants to pry into journalists’ phone history, judges issued them, apparently with ease, he said.
“Despite the four reference points of the Supreme Court (setting guidelines), judges issued warrants in all these cases, which makes me think the current laws are probably not sufficient,” Pratte said.
In two 2010 rulings, the Supreme Court spelled out a four-point test that allows judges to weigh competing public interests on a caseby-case basis when asked by police to issue a warrant.
Pratte said the Lagacé case shows more safeguards are needed. He has asked the Trudeau government to look into the situation. Thus far the government has not acted.
“What I say is if the government does nothing over the coming days, announces nothing, I will table a bill that goes in this direction with the means at my disposal,” Pratte said.
A senator can present legislation that, once passed in the upper house, is sent to the House of Commons where it is treated much like a private member’s bill.
But Pratte said the “easier and simpler” solution is for the government to act on its own.
He suggested the Liberal government consider the creation of a joint Senate-Commons committee that would study the question and quickly come up with ways to protect journalists and sources.
“I’m waiting for answers from the government to see if it is interested,” Pratte said, estimating a new bill could be up and ready in two or three months.
Pratte noted the Bloc Québécois has said it wants to reintroduce legislation it tabled in 2007 to bolster protection for journalists’ sources, but the language of the bill has been overtaken by new realities.
Meanwhile, another prominent Quebec personality has rushed to the defence of journalistic freedom. In an interview on FM 93 radio Monday, former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard, today a prominent Montreal lawyer, said he, too, has questions about the ease with which police have been getting warrants on the media.
“What I know is that what is happening just makes no sense,” Bouchard said. “I imagine relations get easier and friendlier between people who have worked together a long time.
“Is this the case? The investigations should reveal all. It shouldn’t be as easy as that to obtain warrants.”