Civil Liberties Under Attack Again in Canada
Why is it that Conservative thinkers seem to be the only ones concerned about the state of civil liberties in Canada? An example of that is George Jonas' recent article in the National Post entitled: First the Punishment, then the Trial. He refers to a proposed e-mail interecept law and property seizure laws which come into effect before wrongdoing is proven. Other examples include Canadian state authorities arresting, detaining, and jailing several people indefinitely without trial or other recourse under new pro-fascist laws.
Crises such as continued international terrorism,and even continuing problems such as the illegal drug trade and child pornography provide the ready excuse for governments to enact draconian legislation, i.e., arrest and imprisonment and/or confiscation of property without recourse to open courts, supposedly targeted against terrorists and criminals, but readily useable against everyone. Canadians are collectively so docile and stupid that little serious opposition or criticism to these measures has become apparent.
Having come from a social democratic background I used to expect, when I was a naive youth, a storm of protest from social democrats and other "democrats" against such attacks on the rule of law, but no longer. My first awakening occurred in October of 1970 when the Ottawa Liberals invoked martial law across Canada in order to intimidate and defeat a civic coalition that was threatening to unseat corrupt Mayor Jean Drapeau in a Montreal election. Of course, the ostensible justification for such a draconian measure was the kidnapping of a British diplomat and the murder of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre LaPorte by a small gang of urban terrorists whom the Quebec police and the RCMP had under close surveillance. It has become well known since that the police could have moved in and arrested the terrorists before LaPorte's murder, but they were instructed to hold off and just watch them. The obvious reason for that political decision was to prolong the phony "crisis" and allow the imposition of martial law with the power to arrest and detain people without charge at the whim of the authorities in order to disrupt the election in Montreal.
The public's knee-jerk reaction to this event was revealing, as illustrated by the New Democratic Party's response. None of the leadership of these so-called "democrats", except Tommy Douglas, dared to speak out against the massive overkill of martial law. This he did at an NDP convention in Saskatchewan in November of 1970. He was roundly criticized by Saskatchewan NDP cabinet ministers, who mused out loud that his criticism came about because his mind must have become unhinged by the false arrest of his protester daughter in California as a possible political undesireable.
In all my years as a lawyer and an active civil libertarian neither the Liberals nor the NDP have evidenced serious concerns about repressive laws. The Liberals have merrily enacted such laws and the self-described "representatives of the people" - the NDP - followed along like puppy dogs.
The latest examples of such duplicity and disregard for civil liberties include the post 9-11 anti-terrorist law enacted by the federal Liberals, allowing the police to arrest and detain "suspected" terrorists indefinitely without the usual rights to due process, including habeus corpus, bail, and protections against self-incrimination, as well as to hold secret trials where the accused is not entitled to confront and question his accusers [like our "friends" and exemplars, the fascists and the communists]. The second is the bill introduced into Parliament in November, 2005, by the Minister of State Security and Secret Police, Anne McLellan, which invades every Canadian's privacy and communications. It is aimed at enabling police to intercept e-mail communications by forcing Internet providers to intercept messages and give them to the police.
Once again, normal protections forming part of due process and respect for civil liberties are sidestepped. Having reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a person's communications contain information about illegal activities or plans, is not required, nor are the victims of such surveillance required to be informed of the interceptions at any time, so that everyone's communications and privacy are at risk, without adequate oversight or checks against police and secret police excesses.
Of course, Commissar McLellan was at at pains to raise the bogey"person" of the child pornographer as a justification for such a anti-democratic law, hoping that the public disgust with pornographers would obscure the true face of government excess.
If the true enemy is the terrorist, then our laws should be specifically targeted against terrorists, and since today's terrorism comes primarily from a certain kind of fundamentalist and highly-intolerant Muslim or from Sikhs importing sectarian violence from the homeland to Canada, the laws should be targeted in their directions. Fear of being branded anti-Muslim, or anti-Sikh, should not be an excuse to enact laws that target every citizen indiscriminately, whether law abiding or not.
Likewise, the existence of the few child pornographers among us is no reason to invade everyone's privacy with laws that target every citizen indiscriminately.
It is not good enough to argue that excesses and mistakes will be guarded against and reduced to a minimum by leaving the decisions up to the discretion of designated police or CSIS officials. Power of that sort is always misused and it is too much to expect of the police that they will always be wise, kind and careful. All of the evidence in the world demonstrates that such power has been and will continue to be abused by authorities with unchecked power. Besides, this is not an honest debate. The Liberals truly don't believe what they say and clearly don't care. They only want to appear to be taking action against the night creatures of public fears.
Not only are many of those that purport to govern us corrupt, stupid and venal, as the Gomery Commission's and the Auditor Generals' investigations so eloquently revealed, they are also anti-democratic and power-mad. Wake up voters, there is an election in the offing. Punish the bastards.
Crises such as continued international terrorism,and even continuing problems such as the illegal drug trade and child pornography provide the ready excuse for governments to enact draconian legislation, i.e., arrest and imprisonment and/or confiscation of property without recourse to open courts, supposedly targeted against terrorists and criminals, but readily useable against everyone. Canadians are collectively so docile and stupid that little serious opposition or criticism to these measures has become apparent.
Having come from a social democratic background I used to expect, when I was a naive youth, a storm of protest from social democrats and other "democrats" against such attacks on the rule of law, but no longer. My first awakening occurred in October of 1970 when the Ottawa Liberals invoked martial law across Canada in order to intimidate and defeat a civic coalition that was threatening to unseat corrupt Mayor Jean Drapeau in a Montreal election. Of course, the ostensible justification for such a draconian measure was the kidnapping of a British diplomat and the murder of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre LaPorte by a small gang of urban terrorists whom the Quebec police and the RCMP had under close surveillance. It has become well known since that the police could have moved in and arrested the terrorists before LaPorte's murder, but they were instructed to hold off and just watch them. The obvious reason for that political decision was to prolong the phony "crisis" and allow the imposition of martial law with the power to arrest and detain people without charge at the whim of the authorities in order to disrupt the election in Montreal.
The public's knee-jerk reaction to this event was revealing, as illustrated by the New Democratic Party's response. None of the leadership of these so-called "democrats", except Tommy Douglas, dared to speak out against the massive overkill of martial law. This he did at an NDP convention in Saskatchewan in November of 1970. He was roundly criticized by Saskatchewan NDP cabinet ministers, who mused out loud that his criticism came about because his mind must have become unhinged by the false arrest of his protester daughter in California as a possible political undesireable.
In all my years as a lawyer and an active civil libertarian neither the Liberals nor the NDP have evidenced serious concerns about repressive laws. The Liberals have merrily enacted such laws and the self-described "representatives of the people" - the NDP - followed along like puppy dogs.
The latest examples of such duplicity and disregard for civil liberties include the post 9-11 anti-terrorist law enacted by the federal Liberals, allowing the police to arrest and detain "suspected" terrorists indefinitely without the usual rights to due process, including habeus corpus, bail, and protections against self-incrimination, as well as to hold secret trials where the accused is not entitled to confront and question his accusers [like our "friends" and exemplars, the fascists and the communists]. The second is the bill introduced into Parliament in November, 2005, by the Minister of State Security and Secret Police, Anne McLellan, which invades every Canadian's privacy and communications. It is aimed at enabling police to intercept e-mail communications by forcing Internet providers to intercept messages and give them to the police.
Once again, normal protections forming part of due process and respect for civil liberties are sidestepped. Having reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a person's communications contain information about illegal activities or plans, is not required, nor are the victims of such surveillance required to be informed of the interceptions at any time, so that everyone's communications and privacy are at risk, without adequate oversight or checks against police and secret police excesses.
Of course, Commissar McLellan was at at pains to raise the bogey"person" of the child pornographer as a justification for such a anti-democratic law, hoping that the public disgust with pornographers would obscure the true face of government excess.
If the true enemy is the terrorist, then our laws should be specifically targeted against terrorists, and since today's terrorism comes primarily from a certain kind of fundamentalist and highly-intolerant Muslim or from Sikhs importing sectarian violence from the homeland to Canada, the laws should be targeted in their directions. Fear of being branded anti-Muslim, or anti-Sikh, should not be an excuse to enact laws that target every citizen indiscriminately, whether law abiding or not.
Likewise, the existence of the few child pornographers among us is no reason to invade everyone's privacy with laws that target every citizen indiscriminately.
It is not good enough to argue that excesses and mistakes will be guarded against and reduced to a minimum by leaving the decisions up to the discretion of designated police or CSIS officials. Power of that sort is always misused and it is too much to expect of the police that they will always be wise, kind and careful. All of the evidence in the world demonstrates that such power has been and will continue to be abused by authorities with unchecked power. Besides, this is not an honest debate. The Liberals truly don't believe what they say and clearly don't care. They only want to appear to be taking action against the night creatures of public fears.
Not only are many of those that purport to govern us corrupt, stupid and venal, as the Gomery Commission's and the Auditor Generals' investigations so eloquently revealed, they are also anti-democratic and power-mad. Wake up voters, there is an election in the offing. Punish the bastards.
posted by politicalcommentariescanada | 10:33 PM
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