By Stephen Vance, Editor
When a government begins legislating based on fear, or a perceived fear, it should be cause for concern by everyone. Of even more concern is when that legislating is aimed at chipping away at the freedom and privacy that Canadians have long viewed as crucial components of our democratic society.
In response to the seemingly growing problem of radicals and terrorists, the government of Mr. Harper would like to claw back some of the freedoms and privacy that we currently enjoy, and as a result, Canadians have been somewhat uncharacteristically vocal about their objections to the proposed legislation.
It is one thing for a country like Canada to want to protect its citizens, it is quite another for Canadian citizens to be lumped in with the ‘bad guys’ in broad-brush, ambiguous alteration of our laws.
Before I go on, I think it is important to note that I don’t reference ‘rights’. I’ve heard a lot of talk in recent weeks about the attempt to take our rights away. I don’t believe much in rights. If a ‘right’ can be given or taken away, it isn’t a right at all, it is a privilege at best. In this situation we aren’t talking about losing rights, we’re talking about losing freedoms, and our privacy, in the name of smoking out the terrorists.
It has been argued that the very people attending the Bill C-51 protests across this nation would be in violation of the proposed legislation. I’m not so certain about that, but then slippery slopes often look navigable when the first steps are taken.
Would Bill C-51 criminalize dissent by law-abiding Canadian citizens as many have suggested? Probably not in the immediate future, but it would certainly lay the groundwork to make such a scenario possible. The problem with Bill C-51 as I see it, from the limited amount I’ve read of the Bill itself, to the wide range of analysis I’ve read and viewed is that while the intent, if you take the government at its word, is to clamp down on radicals, to suss out potential terrorists, and to keep Canada safe, which is fine and noble, but the reality is that today’s terrorism problem could very well become tomorrow’s clamp-down on religion, or social and environmental activism, or ideology, or unions, or whatever the government of the day might deem a threat to Canadian peace and prosperity. And that is scary.
We Canadians are currently free to speak out against our governments, we are free to oppose government initiatives, we are free to protest, we are free to organize, and we have as much protection of our privacy as the modern technological world allows.
Bill C-51 could put all of those freedoms in jeopardy. It seems a lot to give up as a result of the actions of a very tiny group of humans who seek to terrorize those they hate.
Clearly Canada can’t sit on its hands while criminals plot their next act of terror, but the solution to that problem should not come about by stripping law-abiding, peaceful Canadians of their privacy and freedom of expression, freedom to organize, and freedom to protest.
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Daniel Therrien – who incidentally has thus far been blocked from speaking before the Bill C-51 committee – has perhaps said it best in some of his recent comments:
“While the potential to know virtually everything about everyone may well identify some new threats, the loss of privacy is clearly excessive…For instance, all the tax information held by the Canada Revenue Agency, which historically has been highly protected information, would be broadly available if deemed relevant to the detection of new security threats…All Canadians would be caught in this web…”
Any law-abiding, freedom-loving fly could tell you how difficult it is to break free from a web…are we willing to take the chance?
