Pros And Cons Of Bill C-51

Bill C-51: A Critical Look Into the Proposed Bill as It Stands.

Since the incidents of september 11 2001, most western countries instituted and updated its anti terrorism laws in order to increase national security and have tools that could counter any terrorist activities that could potentially harm a country's citizens at home or abroad. Canada being one of these countries had established Anti terrorism laws that had been sufficient enough to prevent any terrorist plots against canada in the years leading up to 2014. However after the recent events of the shooting at parliament hill, the conservative government has put forth another bill in order to draconian the anti terrorism laws. This bill comes at a time when it seems that canada has

The new anti terrorism laws in Canada combing Bill C 51 and C 44 in order to increase the powers of CSIS(Canadian Security and Intelligence Services) in national security affairs in Canada and abroad. Since the events of the october crisis and the recommendations of the McDonalds commission, The powers held by CSIS in canada have been limited, the government had taken away these powers in response to the evident abuse of these powers by the Intelligence agencies across canada. The newer bill restores some of those powers and reduces some of the jurisdictional limits over CSIS. The Bill addresses some much needed issues in the Canadian Security, such as stricter no fly lists, peace bonds, Information sharing and other provisions that seem like a logical step towards counter the recent events, however it does so by increasing governmental powers that are there for any government agency to

One of the points in regards to his new legislation that both speakers focused on was that vague definition of what constitutes as “ Terrorist Activities” and how the communication cues use in targeting people will be used to determine if it was a case of terrorism. Due to the broad language, mearly discussing or debating issues regarding terrorism in private with another person can be seen as communication promoting or advocating terrorist activities and even protesting or fund raising for issues concerning “so called terrorist activities” can be used to justify surveillance on Canadian citizens. The example of Maher Arar, or anyone supporting marginalized minorities in another country who faced human rights abuse can be potentially be considered “terrorist” under this new law, offences one might not think are related to terrorism are all fair ground for CSIS if this bill is passed. Another question that was raised again and again during the discussion was that have the “current anti terrorism laws not sufficient to counter any threats to canada's national security?” The examples and and statistics provided by the speaker made it clear that current laws have not failed and have been used efficiently in the past to maintain security concerns in canada. Bills like this and similar bills across the world and