#c51

IC 1613, C51 // Kevin Morefield

The Liberal Party of Canada came to power in October of 2015 with a very significant promise in their platform: to reform the notorious spying bill known as Bill C-51.

Presented as anti-terror legislation, Bill C-51 was introduced and rammed through by the previous Conservative government. It handed sweeping and dangerous new powers to Canada's spy and security agencies.

These powers, which included allowing spy agencies to install spyware on your computer, allowing government institutions to share sensitive health and financial information about you with numerous federal agencies, and permitting spy agencies to disrupt communication platforms and take down websites, were roundly criticized by privacy experts and wildly unpopular amongst people in Canada.

So when the Liberals promised reform, the community watching was large, outspoken and ready to hold them to account.

The process of reform started with a Canada-wide consultation, and this was where the first warning signs that this so-called reform wouldn't live up to what was promised appeared.

The in-person consultations were called "utterly demoralizing," while the online consultations were critiqued by experts for biased and leading questions. Despite receiving over 68,000 comments, the government was reluctant to release the actual responses they received. And when they did, it was clear why: the report showed that a vast majority of people in Canada have significant concerns regarding privacy and government accountability with sensitive data, and wanted C-51 to be completely repealed.

The long-awaited reform bill, Bill C-59, was announced in June 2019.

And sadly, the fears that many had about the bill appeared to be realized: instead of fully repealing C-51 or making much-needed key reforms, C-59 just tinkered at the margins while introducing a host of new problems.

While some much-needed improvements were included, it failed to adequately address the information disclosure provisions and terrorist speech offences brought in by Bill C-51. It also brought in new data collection, cybersecurity and mass surveillance powers which further threaten our privacy and security.

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Blasphemous libel is a specific form of criminal libel, consisting of the publication of material which exposes the Christian religion to “scurrility, vilification, ridicule, and contempt,” and which has the tendency to “shock and outrage” the feelings of Christians. It is not exactly compatible with countries whose governments claim to value freedom of speech.

Canadian Criminal Code § 296(1) provides: “Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.” There is a supposed “good faith” provision protecting any opinion on religion expressed in “decent language”:

“No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject.”

Despite that exception, this is the law under which, for example, an Anglican clergyman tried to prosecute the Canadian distributor for the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the owners of a movie theater showing it.

In June of 2017, a proposed bill was introduced in the Parliament of Canada that would:

“amend, remove or repeal passages and provisions that have been ruled unconstitutional or that raise risks with regard to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as passages and provisions that are obsolete, redundant or that no longer have a place in criminal law,”

IC 1613, C51 // Behyar Bakhshandeh

With its new national security legislation, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has pulled off quite a coup. It has kept some of the worst elements of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s widely discredited Bill C-51. But so far, it has managed to do so without creating much political flak.

When Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale unveiled the draft legislation Tuesday, most attention was focused on new oversight bodies.

The proposed National Security and Intelligence Review Agency would monitor Canada’s many spy agencies. As well, two key agencies — the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment — would be required to obtain the OK of a new Intelligence Commissioner before undertaking some actions.

Many welcomed these new bodies. As a judicial inquiry into the imprisonment and torture of Maher Arar noted 11 years ago, oversight of Canada’s spooks has been singularly inconsistent.

But what has been less remarked upon is the Liberal government’s decision to give CSIS agents extraordinary new policing powers.

This is a good overview of the Liberals’ new national security bill, C-59; what it does, and does not do.

The federal government is set to table a wide-ranging bill to beef up oversight of all national security agencies, restrict some of the existing powers of Canada’s spy agency, and impose independent review of the domestic activities of the country’s electronic surveillance organization, sources said.

The legislation will be unveiled on Tuesday by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, fulfilling the Liberal Party’s promise to modify key elements of the former Conservative government’s 2015 Anti-Terrorism Act.

In addition to tabling the legislation, the government will announce it is seeking further input on two controversial issues that affect the operations of law-enforcement authorities in Canada, a senior federal official said.

First off, the government will be consulting Canadians on the best way to legislate Ottawa’s objection to the acquisition of foreign intelligence obtained through torture. There are a number of ministerial directives and rulings that prevent the use of this type of information, but the government will be proposing draft language to further clarify its position.

“The goal will be to have a legislative framework that respects the Convention Against Torture and our fundamental values,” a senior federal official said.

Secondly, the government will be launching consultations on the best way to facilitate the introduction of top-secret evidence in national-security trials while protecting the identity of its source, whether it comes from domestic or foreign intelligence agencies.

“Oftentimes, we have evidence but we can’t use it [in court]. This is an issue on which we want to consult more widely because we know there is a problem, but the solutions aren’t always obvious,” the official said.

The federal government’s national-security package is long awaited and comes after extensive consultations with the public at large and national-security experts. The legislation is expected to impose new limits on the powers of Canada’s national-security agencies, which were beefed up by the Conservatives with their controversial legislation known as Bill C-51.