Bill C-51 - Conservative 'values'

Uncanny resemblance, isn't it?  Your 'values' not looking too good at the moment, Mr Blaney.

Having rushed the 62 page omnibus anti-terrorism bill C-51 through Parliament, the Cons are now demanding it be rushed through committee as well. They wanted to restrict expert testimony to three Public Safety Committee meetings - with one of them taken up entirely by Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney - but a successful NDP committee fillibuster has now ratcheted it up to eight .

Among the expert witnesses proposed by the NDP are former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci (Almalki, Abou-Elmaati, and Nuredinn inquiry) and former associate Chief Justice of Ontario Dennis O'Connor (Arar inquiry).

Now why wouldn't the Cons want to hear from them?

A report in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday details new documents on how in 2001 the RCMP talked up Ottawa's Abdullah Almalki to the CIA and Syria as a terrorist threat despite having been given CSIS intelligence to the contrary.

An RCMP memo, dated Sept. 5, 2001, generated after a meeting with Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, said that “CSIS have not uncovered information that would lead them to believe the subject (Almalki) is doing something illegal.”

On Oct. 2, 2001, the RCMP sent a fax to its liaison officers in Islamabad, Rome, Delhi, Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, reporting that CSIS had described Almalki as an “important member” of al-Qaida. Days later, the RCMP liaison officer in Rome sent letters to agencies in several countries, including Syria, labelling Almalki as an “imminent threat” to Canada’s national security.

After Almalki was arrested and was being tortured in Syria, the RCMP helpfully sent along three pages of questions for them to ask him.

One of the provisions of Bill C-51 allows government departments to share private information more widely. 

Maher Arar was likewise renditioned to Syia and tortured based on bad RCMP intel and then RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli and CSIS Asst Director Jack Hooper tried to cover it up.

Hill Times Oct 2, 2006 : CSIS didn't want Arar returned to Canada

"In May and June 2003, the Canadian government intended to send a letter to Syria indicating that it spoke with "one voice"–seeking the powerful support CSIS and the RCMP–to call for Mr. Arar's release. But according to Justice Dennis O'Connor's report, CSIS "was uncomfortable" with a statement in the letter that there was "no evidence" that Mr. Arar had links to al-Qaeda. The agency argued "very strongly" against a letter that it saw as sending the wrong message to U.S. authorities.

"CSIS wanted to make it clear to the Solicitor General that there was 'political jeopardy' in signing a joint letter and that bringing Mr. Arar back to Canada was going to be a political 'hot potato' with American authorities," Justice O'Connor wrote in the report, which cleared Mr. Arar.

Justice O'Connor also revealed in his report that CSIS, "for reasons of its own, preferred that Mr. Arar not return to Canada." While DFAIT drafted its letter to argue for Mr. Arar's release in June 2003, Jack Hooper, assistant director of operations for CSIS, called an assistant deputy minister at DFAIT to explain why it opposed the return of Mr. Arar. CSIS feared that if Mr. Arar returned with a public story of torture it could "impair" deportations from Canada to Syria, according to the report."

Sure, let's give these guys a freer hand to operate in secret without oversight.

Perhaps the committee should hear from Mr. Arar. 

As he points out, if C-51 were in place when he was in Syria, it could have been used legally to prevent his return to Canada. 

A week ago former Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Joe Clark, and John Turner plus five former Supreme Court Justices, three former Ministers of Justice, four former Solicitors General of Canada, and three former SIRC committee members expressed their dismay with the bill in a G&M editorial pointing out Justice O'Connor's recommendations following the Arar inquiry had not been implemented. They called for greater oversight at a minimum.

In the House on Tuesday, Harper termed Thomas Mulcair's calls for greater oversight and a full review of evidence "ridiculous" :

"I would urge the committee to study the bill as quickly as possible in order to ensure the adoption of these measures to ensure the security and safety of Canadians."

while Blaney "slammed Mulcair for 'attacking the credibility' of CSIS officers".

"These people respect the law, and I call on him to present arguments, and not lies to defend his position."

Greg Fingas provides excellent C-51 links and a column in the Leader-Post on "the risks of allowing CSIS to self-assess the scope of Canadians' Charter rights under C-51". 

From Stephen Lautens : For those of you keeping score at home (updated April 20, 2015) :

UPDATE : DAMMIT JANET! : FASCIST C-51 : FEET ON THE STREET TIME!

and Reddit hub on planning Canada-wide protests.

Friday update : Open letter to Parliament: Amend C-51 or kill it
  A letter from over 100 Canadian law professors. Clear concise objections.
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The Fair Elections Action Plan

What problems are the Conservatives really trying to solve with bizarre Fair Elections Act?wrote Andrew Coyne in an excellent column two days ago.
I'd like to pillage that model and expand on it a bit.

Problem : Investigation into election fraud in 2011 Election 33 months ago being rushed along at dangerous breakneck speeds.

Fair Elections Act Solutions : 
1) Deny Elections Commissioner authority to compel documents and witness testimony (with individual authorizations from the courts)  - a power nonetheless already enjoyed by elections chiefs in most provinces : Yukon, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. 
Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand on CBC's The House yesterday :

"Many people refused to talk to the commissioner even if they were not suspects. I'm afraid to say this is happening more and more in files investigated by the commissioner."

2) The Del Mastro clause. Require Elections Canada to inform subjects they are being investigated while preventing EC from telling the public about it.


Problem : Public trust in fair elections in Canada at all time high.

Fair Elections Act solutions : 
1) Governing party rewrites election law while being investigating by Elections Canada for election fraud.
2) Don't consult with Chief Electoral Officer before tabling major overhaul of Elections Act.
3) Deny Elections Canada commissioner access to parties' and riding associations' financial documentation to support claims made on their financial returns. 
4) Forbid Elections Canada from communicating with public. Mayrand :

"Most reports and research will no longer be public - not only not available but probably won't be done at all. 

I can no longer speak about democracy in this country except where and when to vote. I am not aware of any other electoral bodies around the world who cannot talk about democracy."   

then cut off debate about the bill in the HoC, sending it to PROC with its 6 out of 10 Con committee members.

Problem :  Serially violate election law successfully but then lose court battles to election watchdog.

Solution : Neutralize watchdog by moving entire elections enforcement apparatus from current independent office answerable to Parliament to inside Peter MacKay's ministry.

Problem : Too many people vote - 61% in the last federal election - especially aboriginals, young people, old people, and poor people.

Solutions : 
1) Forbid Elections Canada from encouraging voting, including terminating the mock elections model currently being taught to 300,000 Canadian students.
2) Voter suppression. Kill off vouching *** - the provision allowing an elector to prove their residence in a riding by having someone they know in the riding who is registered to vote sign a legal document.  Marc Mayrand on CBC's The House again :

"Every Canadian has the right to vote. That's a universal franchise. Vouching is meant to assist people facing challenges. We estimate that in the last election a little over 100,000 electors required vouching before they could cast a ballot. What will happen to those electors in the next election?"

Neufeld Compliance Review, commissioned by Elections Canada :

"The audit estimated that “irregularities” occurred for 1.3 percent of all cases of Election Day voting during the 2011 federal election."

and of those irregularities, "0.4 percent of ballots had irregularities due to vouching - of which the vast majority were cases of misfiled paperwork, not misidentified voters."

Problem : Parties not spending enough time and money on elections 

Solutions : 

1) Bump allowable individual contribution limit up by 25% with yearly increases to follow.

2) Bump party spending limits directed at new members up by 5% ($22-million).

3) Permit parties to exclude from declaring as a campaign expenditure any communication with electors as long as it's done with an elector that has contributed before in the previous five years and that it includes a call for additional money.

Mayrand : "20 to 25% of total expenditure goes to GOTV"

Problem : Incumbents don't have enough advantage over new candidates.

Solution :  See Solution #3 above.

Problem : Not enough Pierre Poutine robocalls are being made during elections.

Solution : Ditto

Problem : Not allowed to campaign on Election Day 

Solution : Ditto

***On a personal note, I have often relied on vouching in order to vote in my riding, despite having voted in every election I have been in the country for since I came of age to do so. I have a voter ID card, a Canadian passport, a Canadian citizenship card, a BC health care card, and a deed to the house in my riding which has been my only residence for decades. None of these have my address on them, including, according to Elections Canada, the deed to my house because it lists a rural RR# address they no longer recognize. I pay all my bills online or through my credit union. 

Just get a driver's licence says the harried DRO every time. 

Why? says I. Driving a car is not a requirement of citizenship.

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Council of Canadians Phone Your MP Against Unfair Elections Act campaign is today!

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h/t Beijing York for Mayrand interview - highly recommended. 

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Skynet - It's all about the children apparently

Net, cellphones; Police could probe without warrant

"Public Safety Minister Vic ["Torture Lite"] Toews said the law will give the tools to police to adequately deal with 21st-century technology, and said anyone opposing the laws favours "the rights of child pornographers and organized crime ahead of the rights of law abiding citizens."

Actually, Vic, we do favour the rights of child pornographers.  And organized crime. We have to if we favour the rights of everyone equally - which, if I recall correctly, is a bedrock conservative value.


Petition : STOP GOVERNMENT ONLINE SPYING
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Update : Write your MP

Dear [your MP here] : 

Vic Toews says our choice is between child pornographers and online surveillance. 

Fine. 

Your choice is between voting against the awful access bill and losing your seat in the next election. 

Sincerely, [You]

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Update 2 : U.S. seeks to mine social media

The U.S. government is seeking software that can mine social media to predict everything from future terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings, according to requests posted online by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. 

In a formal "request for information" from potential contractors, the FBI recently outlined its desire for a digital tool to scan the entire universe of social media - more data than humans could ever crunch.

The system sought by the research arm of the national intelligence director's office would fuse together everything from Web searches to Wikipedia edits to traffic webcams. 

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Alex Hundert and the criminalization of dissent

Community organizer Alex Hundert was arrested on June 26th and held for three weeks in advance of the G20 Summit for alleged involvement in organizing the protests. He was released on bail conditions which precluded participation in any public demonstrations and on Sept 13th the government lost a court challenge to his release.

Three days later he was re-arrested for a supposed breach of those bail conditions - participating in a panel discussion at Ryerson U. organized by Judy Rebick - and the Crown presented him with a new set of bail conditions which he refused to sign - no direct or indirect posting to the internet, no assisting, planning, or attending any public meeting or march, and no expressing of views on a political issue.

Toronto Media Co-op :

"On the night of Wednesday October 14th, Alex was told by the security manager at the Toronto East Detention Centre that he had to sign the bail conditions or face solitary confinement in “the hole”, without access to phone calls or writing paper. He was put in solitary confinement after an initial confrontation with correction staff where he resisted initial attempts to make him sign. He was denied the right to call his lawyer, and told that if he didn’t sign now, they would revoke the bail offer and he would be held in solitary confinement until his eventual release from prison."

Guelph Mercury :

"His lawyer, John Norris, noted Hundert couldn’t confirm details of that account himself because of the bail conditions.

Brendan Crawley, spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General, offered no comment, saying that the matter is before the courts."

Pogge :

"This is the state telling a citizen who hasn't yet been found guilty of a crime that his views are already regarded as illegitimate before he's even expressed them."

Pogge, again :

"...looks like an attempt to make an example out of Hundert — to use him to intimidate other activists. If he's truly guilty of conspiracy and incitement to commit illegal acts that should be determined at trial. But the police don't get to pass judgement and impose the sentence unilaterally which is what they appear to have done with the help of a compliant Justice of the Peace. And they certainly don't get to use the threat of solitary confinement to force someone to accept bail conditions that wouldn't survive a Charter challenge."

Dr. Dawg :

"Well, I am not an anarchist, but I'm prepared to stand with Alex Hundert against a corrupt justice system that has now torn up the Charter of Rights, and a complaisant media that is turning a blind eye to it."

The Star :

Justice of the Peace Inderpaul Chandhoke told the court the new conditions also restrict Hundert from speaking to the media.

Nathalie Des Rosiers, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, says they plan to write the Attorney General in Hundert’s defence.
“Speaking to the media does not threaten public safety,” she said. “These bail conditions are only aimed at silencing speech.”

Clayton Ruby, constitutional lawyer, speaking not in reference to Hundert but to the broader issue :

"The targeting of activists should be of concern to all of us. The erosion of Charter rights, the trampling of civil liberties, and the criminalization of dissent is an attempt to destroy the foundation of our society. Everyone has an equal stake in this."

Everyone.

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G20 Martial Law - a few questions

We have always known in Canada that laws lying in wait to trash the Charter of Rights hover just beyond the sight lines of the courts. The Public Works Protection Act is just such a law, allowing, albeit for a limited time, otherwise illegal searches and seizures and arrests.

Here, constitutional lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo, lead commission council at the Walkerton and Maher Arar inquiries, goes through the act with Paul Jay of The Real News. Transcript here.

I have some further questions.

If I live within an arbitrarily designated "public works area", can Blackwater or a mall rent-a-cop or any other appointed "guard" legally enter my home and arrest me for attempting to deny them entry? Will they be armed?

If I don't consent to being ID'd and searched on my way to work, can I legally be prevented from going to work? I cannot prove this, as it is only anecdotal, but during the Vancouver Olympics, a contractor told me he lost an employee due to said employee being denied passage through Vancouver by the police for the duration of the Olympics for having written an anti-Olympics letter to the local paper that was never published.

If any of the protesters/shoppers/citizens arrested and detained in handcuffs for 24 hours and jammed in a 10 by 12 by 20 foot cage along with 40 other men are not formally charged and given their day in court, will there be no other opportunity to challenge these arbitrary Charter-free zones until the next time they are dusted off for a globalization bunfest?

And finally, why is Chief Bill Blair on the hot seat for having been given these extraordinary powers he didn't ask for when it was presumably the PMO that told the Ontario cabinet to ask for them?

Any responses from legal experts gratefully accepted.
In the meantime, the Toronto's Police Services Board, the public body which holds Toronto Police to account, predictably sees no need for a public inquiry.

Please support the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's petition to "repeal or amendment of the Public Works Protection Act to meet basic constitutional standards"
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Child detainee on his way home after 7 years in Gitmo

A child detained in Guantanamo Bay for seven years for allegedly throwing a hand grenade at US soldiers in Afghanistan when he was 14 years old is on his way home after a Federal Court ruled the U.S. government was holding him illegally. His initial confession, obtained under duress, was thrown out by the judge.

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"We are so pleased that this nightmare of abuse and injustice has finally come to an end," said his attorney. "While he can never get back the nearly seven years he was illegally detained and tortured, now he can finally return home to his family, friends and country, and begin to build a normal life."

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The child detainee in question is Mohammed Jawad, now returned to his native Afghanistan thanks to a US Federal Court decision this month. [Yeah, mean trick, I know]

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Gosh, another kid accused of throwing a grenade. Is US military generally in the habit of accusing the survivors of their raids of throwing grenades, or only when there are US casualties and the possibility of friendly fire?

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Meanwhile back in Canada, our child soldier detained in Guantanamo for seven years for allegedly throwing a grenade at US soldiers in Afghanistan when he was 15 - that's Omar Khadr pictured above in the middle the year before his father dumped him in Afghanistan - has not been so lucky because Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the last leader on the planet Earth to support the detaining and abuse of children in Gitmo.

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On August 14, our Federal Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that Ottawa is required to press the US for Khadr's repatriation because CSIS and Department of Foreign Affairs officials had violated his Charter rights by being complicit in his mistreatment at Gitmo.

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Yesterday Harper's federal government disgraced itself by announcing it will go to the Supreme Court in a bid to overturn that ruling.

They do not want to risk asking the US for Khadr's return, perhaps because the Obama Administration urged a federal judge to order the release of Mohammed Jawad, and even George W. Bush granted requests by other countries for the repatriation of their citizens from Gitmo.

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Harper is going to the wall in hopes that a sufficient number of Canadians believe in tiered citizenship and a four-tiered passport system and will applaud his stand against so-called 'activist' judges. He's wrong about that.

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