Image for Globe and Mail: The Liberals voted for Bill C-51. And now they can fix it
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Globe and Mail: The Liberals voted for Bill C-51. And now they can fix it

The committee that will hold hearings for Bill C-51 should be open to the possibility of a full repeal. In the meantime, let's get our voices heard! Speak out and spread the word: KillC51.ca Article by the Globe and Mail The Liberal Party took a lot of heat for its support of Bill C-51 when it was adopted by Parliament. But as angry as some critics were, it has to be remembered that the bill, called the Anti-Terrorism Act, was not the doing of the Liberals. The blame fell on the majority Harper government for ramming through a poorly thought-out and likely unconstitutional bill that created vague, overbroad new crimes, and gave police dangerous new powers that were largely shielded from oversight.

The Liberals did vote for this problematic law, perhaps too strategically for their own good, but they also always promised to amend it, should they win power. That they did, convincingly, last week. And now they have made it clear that the Trudeau government will introduce much-needed amendments when Parliament resumes, and that it will submit them to proper committee hearings that, unlike the tragicomic kangaroo hearings held for Bill C-51 by the Tories, will include a wide range of actual expert witnesses.

All this is good. It is clear from the Liberals’ election platform that they have already been listening to the experts and know where the flaws in the bill lie. There are many, most of which stem from the vague language. What, for instance, does it mean to “promote terrorism,” and what exactly is “terrorism propaganda”?

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