Michael Geist: The government has a serious case of finger-in-ear syndrome

Top we've-lost-count-of-how-many reasons secret police Bill C-51 needs to be scrapped. Article by Michael Geist The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security will hold its clause-by-clause review of Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism bill, this morning. The government is expected to introduce several modest amendments thatexperts note do little to address some of the core concerns with the bill. While there is some tinkering with the information sharing provisions, the law will still allow for widespread sharing without effective oversight from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Moreover, key concerns with respect to the CSIS Act (warrants that can violate Charter rights) and broader oversight and accountability remains untouched.

None of this comes as a surprise. Earlier in the committee hearings, Green Party leader Elizabeth May lamentedthat “the hearing process is a sham. They’re not listening to witnesses.” Now that the hearings have concluded, the data bears this out. Witnesses from across the political spectrum called for changes to the information sharing rules, to oversight, to the CSIS powers, and to the advocating or promoting terrorism provision, yet Conservative MPs never bothered to listen.

Few legislative issues are as important as the security and privacy of Canadians, but the entire hearings were structured to avoid hearing from experts, to asking irrelevant questions, or to bringing in witnesses with scant knowledge of the proposed bill.  Just how bad was it? The Bill C-51 hearings by the numbers:

Conservative MPs (Roxanne James, Rick Norlock, Diane Ablonzcy, LeVar Payne, Ted Falk)

49: Number of external witnesses...

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