Stop delaying on security fixes

In opposition, the Liberals took a strange stand on the Harper government’s draconian anti-terrorism legislation, formerly Bill C-51. They agreed to support the bill, with the proviso that, if they won the election, they would rein in its worst excesses. Well, they won — but nearly halfway through their first mandate, the reining-in has yet to begin.

Instead, the Trudeau government, as it is wont to do, undertook a number of public consultations, which have now finished, and convened a parliamentary committee to review our security policy. This week, the Liberalled committee delivered its welcome, partisanship-transcending conclusion: It’s time for the government finally to act.

C-51 ought to be repealed entirely. However, in the likely event that doesn’t happen, the committee’s recommendations provide a workable roadmap for accomplishing the next best thing: fixing the “most problematic” aspects of the law, as the Liberals promised.

Deeply problematic, for instance, is a provision that allows the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to “take measures” to disrupt activities it believes pose a security threat, without defining what those measures are or creating mechanisms to ensure the agency doesn’t trample Canadians’ rights along the way.

The committee reasonably recommends that the law be rewritten to ensure such disruptions are a last resort, that they are only ever pursued with both ministerial and judicial approval and that CSIS provide parliamentarians a quarterly report on the tool’s use. The power might better be revoked entirely, but the suggested amendments would do much to protect against its frequent use or abuse.

The committee also recognizes that, by outlawing the “promotion” of “terrorism offences in general” (whatever that means), the law casts a chill on free speech. It calls on the government to change this and other vague wording in the legislation that might jeopardize rights to freedom of expression and association.

The government should ensure, too, as the MPs rightly suggest, that the highly invasive and indiscriminate approach to the gathering and inter-departmental sharing of information that C-51 permits — an approach deemed “clearly excessive” by the privacy commissioner — does not abrogate the protections guaranteed under the Privacy Act.

While the Trudeau government has been troublingly phlegmatic on security reform, it did introduce a welcome bill last summer to create a parliamentary committee on security and intelligence, which would provide much-needed democratic oversight of our everexpanding security apparatus. But the new report recognizes that, while necessary, the effort is on its own insufficient to guard against abuses and hold our security establishment to account.

Canada’s sprawling security apparatus is currently monitored by three meagre watchdogs, each strictly tethered to its own jurisdiction. Critics have long maintained that these bodies have neither the mandate nor the resources to do their job. Moreover, certain organizations, such as the Canada Border Services Agency, fall within the jurisdiction of none of these watchdogs and escape scrutiny altogether.

The committee rightly calls on the government to create an oversight body for CBSA, to improve funding to all of the watchdogs and to form a so-called super watchdog to harmonize the efforts of Canada’s patchwork of oversight bodies, a longstanding recommendation of many security experts. On a few issues, however, the committee falls short. It fails to recommend, for instance, that the government ensure its proposed parliamentary committee on security has the mandate and powers to succeed in its important work. Under the current bill, ministers would have wide latitude to deny the committee sensitive information, and members would have no authority to compel testimony. The government should ensure that this promising new body is not doomed to fail.

It also stops short of calling on the minister of public safety to rescind a longstanding and profoundly misguided directive that allows Canada to use information obtained through torture.

On balance, however, the committee’s 41 recommendations, if followed, would begin to rein in security overreach, while creating crucial new oversight and protections against abuse.

The government’s reluctance to act on security reform is easy to understand. Toppling laws born of fear is always politically difficult and it is much easier to provide new powers to police or security agencies than it is to take them away. But the public has been thoroughly consulted and the Liberal-led committee has provided clear direction. The government is running out of excuses. It is time to do as it promised and the constitution demands.

Canada’s sprawling security apparatus is currently monitored by three meagre watchdogs, each strictly tethered to its own jurisdiction