Canada passes controversial spook-powers law

Makes you wonder eh?

First the US, then France, Germany, and now Canada...

royal ascent

Kat, are you sure about your word choice there?

One person decides to shoot a gun and all of us lose a little more freedom.

There is no evidence I have seen that this bill, if in effect at the time, would have stopped Oct 22 from happening. A few more armed guards in Parliament would have worked a lot better.

Surveillance didn't stop the Boston Marathon double bombing, it didn't stop Mumbai and won't stop any future attacks. Once government gets access to your info it is almost impossible to get them out again.

Stop this freaking madness.

The public do not want this bill, they've been campaigning against it for months, but Parliament hasn't listened. We've sat here and watched other countries descend into authoritarian holes after passing similar laws, not least the country to which we are directly attached. Just crossing the border has become an endurance event. We see this stuff happening everywhere, we're spied on daily by other governments, our data is being given nearly wholesale to our southern "neighbours" - we don't want it in what is supposed to be "the sensible country". Fucking Harper.

Not mentioned is what defines a "threat"

One of the massive problems with the bill is that in an attempt to crackdown on the "terror teaching" jihadist recruitment organizations, it makes illegal any thing that incites protest that can threaten availability of public or private infrastructure. So organizing a protest of a pipeline is a terrorist act and can be hit with the full power of the law. It may say it tackles terrorism, but this government has made a point of lumping environmental groups into that category from minute one that they were elected.

The ruling regime is toast

The ruling Conservative Party in the federal government will be facing election this year. I predict they will suffer the same fate as the previously-ruling Conservative Party in the province of Alberta, where people were so disgusted with the arrogant out-of-touch power-drunk ruling regime that this week they decisively turfed them from office.

I'm not suggesting the replacement politicians are any better, and they may even be worse, but in Canada we do not vote for anyone, we only ever vote against, and the mood regarding the ruling regime is becoming ugly. This spying bill is obscene, and it seems to have persuaded even die-hard conservatives that this party has got to go.

We live in interesting times.

Additionnal info

The "attack on Parlement" :

The attacker, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was a 32-year-old Canadian habitual offender and drug addict from Montreal. Considered by several acquaintances to have mental issues, he had been observed by acquaintances and mosque staff exhibiting erratic behaviour. Zehaf-Bibeau, who had a Libyan-Canadian father, had converted to Islam in 2004 and visited Libya. At the time of the shooting, Zehaf-Bibeau planned to leave Canada for the Middle East, living in a homeless shelter in Ottawa while waiting for the processing of his Canadian passport application. According to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson the "passport issue was central to what was driving" Zehaf-Bibeau.[10] Zehaf-Bibeau made a video prior to the attack in which he expressed his motives as being related "to Canada's foreign policy and in respect of his religious beliefs."[11] To acquaintances and co-workers, he had previously expressed support for jihadists and others in the Middle East resisting the West's intervention, but was not known to the police to be a terrorism risk. In his mother's opinion, the attack was the "last desperate act" of someone with a mental disorder who felt trapped.[12]

So tell me: How those "new mesures" would have detected this guy, if everything he planned was already on the open, including the security processing for his passport by the Mounties ?

( and sorry, I is whether, not weather )

I am from the Kebeckistan region of Kanuckistan, we speek a different tongue !

This is so badly worded and the definitions so broad that pretty much anything can fall under this umbrella..

Last year, during the pipeline protests, the government remarked that the "environmentalist" were threatening the economy of Canada. Officially, they are now "terrorists". The new Alberta government threatens to tax the oil companies who are threatening to take their business elsewhere. The government could now be considered a "terrorist".

First nations, who's treaties with the government designate their land as "sovereign" meaning that the government can't run a pipeline through their lands threaten to stop the pipeline. They are terrorists now. If the Bloc Quebecois still want separation, they are "terrorists" now.

There is no oversight whatsoever and they don't have to report to anyone.

People are still fighting against this, and Harper is pretty much out of Ottawa come next year.

This is sad...

I'm sorry that our neighbors to the north are getting sucked into the surveillance maelstrom. The West has become no different than the East. The Cold War meant nothing as everyone is ending up in the same place.

While surveillance might be needed, it's the application and unbridled power that's been given along with interpretation of "terrorist" that is scariest part. I suspect at some point, those of us who protest anything... even Daylight Saving Time, will be classified as terrorists and need some time in the re-education centers.

Almost nobody here in Canada wants this new law. The attack on Parliament wasn't even a terror attack in the political sense of the word that most people understand it.

A pox on all of the politicians that agreed to this travesty of a law. It *will* be an issue at the next election.

following the first terror attack on Canadian soil last October

I recall terror activity in the 60/70s in support of an independent Quebec. Check out FLQ.

Reality check

It usually takes the murder of innocent people for the politicians and populace to get a grip on reality that the world has evolved and that the bad guys have the upper hand. The only ones who need to fear anti-terrorism legislation are the terrorists.

This bill is an outrage and does nothing to protect Canadians. The episode on Parliament Hill was a deranged individual and could not have been stopped by this bill if it had been earlier enacted. All we have now is the beginning of a police state. I knew the Conservatives were fascist leaning but now the Liberals have shown their true colours also. I won't be voting for either of those two parties come the next election.