The Conservatives have introduced Bill-C51 which would allow police to access and monitor people's online activities without a warrant.
The Conservatives, who are introducing similar legislation as the United States in a common effort to fight piracy and illegal internet activity are pulling out every string to get their legislation passed.
Liberal Public Safety critic Francis Scarpaleggia alleged during Monday’s question period that the government was “preparing to read Canadians’ emails and track their movements through cellphone signals, in both cases without a warrant.”
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews retaliated telling Scarpaleggia that “he can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”
NDP MP Charlie Angus fired back in a news conference saying, “We are against this bill and we will fight this bill all the way. Canadians are not criminals.”
Justice Minister Rob Nicolson said his government “will put in place safeguards to protect the privacy of Canadians,” but the privacy watchdog has already raised the red flag.
“Despite repeated calls, no systematic case has yet been made to justify the extent of the new investigative capabilities that would have been created by the bill,” Jennifer Stoddart, federal Privacy Commissioner wrote to the government on the matter.
“Canadian authorities have yet to provide the public with evidence to suggest that CSIS or Canadian police cannot perform their duties under the current regime.
If the concern of law enforcement agencies is that it is difficult to obtain warrants or judicial authorization in a timely way, these administrative challenges should be addressed by administrative solutions rather than by weakening long-standing legal principles that uphold Canadians’ fundamental freedoms.”
Jennifer Stoddart, federal Privacy Commissioner
As the east starts its painful and aggressive overthrow of aggressive and oppressive police-state governments, history repeats itself in an altered form in the west as the emergence of conservative restrictions and authoritarian policies take light. It all began in 2001…
