Kent Roach Speaking in my Town on Wednesday

Hi all:

This is for anyone who follows this blog from the place I live. Kent Roach (of antiterrorlaw.ca) is speaking tomorrow at the UNB Faculty of Law:

https://www.facebook.com/events/681363045361358/

I'm going to go to as much of it as I can (I have to work until past the start time) and will write up my impressions afterwards. But if you're considering participating in the C-51 consultations, this would be a great opportunity to refresh your memory on some of the facts of this situation, and maybe learn some new ones.

C-51 Online Consultations Begin - In-person still to come

The consultations that the government promised in last October's elections have finally begun. They are starting with online consultations, with in-person consultations promised at some point before December.






Relevant information:

• The government news release, and Global News coverage of the press conference
• Online consultations page
• Backgrounder, discussion paper, and background to the discussion paper (no, I don't know the difference between the backgrounder and the background document... I'll read them both and tell you later)
• Most recent report on the terrorist threat level in Canada, by the Department of Public Safety

It is my intention to read all of those documents and summarize them on this blog, as well as to participate in the consultations to the greatest degree I can. But life is a little busy at the moment, so I don't think I'll get a chance to read and summarize all of those documents and provide suggestions/opinions related to this consultation process, until probably close to the end of the month. So I thought I'd put this short post out for now, to make sure any readers are aware of the consultations and have plenty of time to prepare their own thoughts if they wish to participate. I'm very much in favour of democratic participation, so whether you agree with the positions I've taken on this bill or not, if you're reading this, I encourage you to express whatever opinions you may have.

Response from Randall Garrison

I received a response from Randall Garrison on Thursday, confirming that he will be introducing a "Repeal C-51" bill "at the earliest opportunity once Parliament resumes in the fall". When I asked what more I could do to support that outcome, his answer was to write my local MP once the bill is introduced, expressing my support.

E-Petitions are now a Thing, and There's One Regarding C-51 (Signing is Easy, and You Should)

There is (at least) one thing you can do, while we wait for more news and the opportunity to be a part of consultations. E-petitions are now apparently a real and legitimate thing that the Canadian Parliament supports on their website (since December 4th of last year, it seems), and there's a petition called e-308, which calls on the Government to:

1. Engage in comprehensive review of the the Act in its entirety through detailed and diligent consultation with a broad cross section of experts and authorities on the Act and its effects.
2. Remove from the Act those provisions which, through expert testimony, are found to stand in conflict with or to be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
3. Create, empower, and fund the office of Ombudsperson for Privacy and empower and fund the office of the Privacy Commissioner and civilian review boards, such as SIRC, to oversee and evaluate the secret activities of Canada's security services; CSIS, CSE, and the RCMP.
4. Ensure and commit in law that any subsequent amendment to the Act or such new legislation, as may be in future brought forth by any government, not impinge upon the privacy of citizens and be structured within a framework that is consistent with the historic continuity of Canadian Charter rights and with international human rights law.

These all seem like good steps to me, and I found out about this petition through the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, one of the groups who have filed a Charter challenge against the bill.

I think signing this petition could be effective, but the deadline is early September, so please do so sooner rather than later.

I think it could be effective because I've seen the effect of a petition with a lot of signatures, at least in local (municipal) politics. It was an important element of the successful fight to stop a gambling facility from being put up near my home. But in order to be effective, petitions have to be properly managed. The people involved have to be within the relevant geographic area (in this case, Canada, but in the case of the example where I've seen a petition work, those collecting signatures had to turn away or remove names of people who weren't living within the city limits). Petitions work when politicians know that the people who might vote for them are the ones that signed. And the e-petition format on the Parliament of Canada website allows politicians to know that (you provide your postal code). So... worth it. In less time than it took you to read this paragraph, you could officially add your voice to those calling for C-51's Charter-breaching provisions to be removed.

For those interested in creating an e-petition of their own, go here. If you would like to learn about the process, go here.

Private Members Bill to be Introduced to Repeal C-51

Although I haven't been posting to this blog, it isn't because I haven't been watching for news to share with you. There just hasn't been that much. The Liberals' election promise to hold nationwide consultations about how to modify our anti-terror laws remains unfulfilled almost a year after the election, and despite a claim that this was at the top of their agenda after the election. Which is disturbing given that the new CSIS powers have been in operation this whole time, we know they have been used, but few details other than that are available. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression filed a Charter challenge over a year ago, but that remains mired in a court process awaiting a reply from the government.

The most promising news is that MP Randall Garrison is reported to be preparing to present a private member's bill to repeal C-51. CPAC has a page that is supposed to include video of a news conference where he discusses this, but the video doesn't seem to be working for me. I've sent him an email asking for more information, and will post when I learn more.

I made Another C-51 Presentation. This Time at a University!

Below I've linked the presentation I'm proudest of so far. Not because I delivered it in a stellar fashion (I mostly just read my speaking notes) but because I was given the opportunity to present to a university-level criminology course. I would like to thank Josephine Savarese for offering me that opportunity. I hope that maybe some of them (and some of you who are reading this) might participate in whatever public consultations the government engages in. They say they will hold full public consultations, and I will post here as soon as I hear anything more concrete than that about where and when.

On February 9th, I presented the material linked below to students of Criminology 3643: Terrorism: An Introduction. As always, feel free to share and reuse this material with appropriate attribution.

All files are located here.

I also like this presentation because over the past several months I've started reading Roach and Forcese's book about C-51, which gave me more of the historical context, and I was able to put that into the presentation. It's satisfying to place the current situation in a broader narrative, and readers of this blog may be interested in that broader narrative.

I made another presentation about C-51.

On January 19th, I had the privilege of presenting a lunch and learn session about the information sharing portions of C-51 (the first part, the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act) to the Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA) New Brunswick Chapter. It has taken me a little while to review the PowerPoint and clean up the speaking notes to more closely reflect what I actually said, as opposed to what I had written out beforehand. But that has been done now, and here are those presentations, with speaking notes. As always, anyone who wishes to is free to reuse this material, provided you attribute anything I've written to me, and don't attribute anything I've quoted from somewhere else to me, because I have relied heavily on the work of others and they deserve credit.

Here's a .pptx version, a .ppt version, and a .pdf version.

I have another presentation scheduled for mid February, this time on C-51 more broadly. I will post that up here as well. Given the new Liberal government has pledged to consult with Canadians and amend C-51, I hope that these materials can inform some of the debate around potential amendments to the bill. I would encourage all Canadian readers of this blog to go to an engagement session in their area if possible. I'll post more information about the process the government is following as I learn more about it. At the moment not a lot is known, although slide 14 does list what I knew as of January 19th.