Why Do I Continue With These Snippets of C-51 Hearings?

I'm doing this for my own purposes really. I don't expect my blogging to impact anything. Maybe half-a-dozen fellow progressives in Canada might get something out of reading my blog. (I assume the rest of my daily "hits" are people seeing my blog in the side-roll of someone else's blog, or as one of the lower down the page hits from a google search for something.)

If anything though, it's edifying to see that the harpercons are as contemptible when you give them time to speak and defend their views. For the most part, Blaney and MacKay have had nothing of value to say to justify this atrocious bill. You can tell that they're bullshitters, plain and simple.

Speaking of bullshit; yesterday I finished with Blaney's pathetic fluffing of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) as the soul remaining oversight body for the newly empowered CSIS. In response to Blaney's mutterings, harpercon backbencher Lavar Payne replied:

Mr. LaVar Payne:

    That's a pretty good quote. Thank you.

Whatever.

    My next question is for Minister MacKay.

     Minister, in your opening remarks, you talked about lowering the thresholds for recognizance with conditions. I'm wondering if you could tell us why you believe that's important. Do you have any examples where law enforcement could have used this to benefit them in the past?

And what does the oily bimbo say in reply?

Hon. Peter MacKay:

     The reality is that the peace bonds and recognizance are a tool, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Blaney, that the police are able to use in a pre-emptive manner. The classic case where you see an example of an individual exhibiting behaviour that would be consistent with someone who's been radicalized, somebody who may pose a threat, someone who may be, for example, subject to this type of activity in the future, the police are able, based on evidence, to go before a judge and seek a recognizance, or a peace bond, depending on that evidentiary burden, depending on the behaviour, and put in place through the judge certain conditions that the individual has to comply with. Those could include such things as forfeiture of passport, conditions of reporting, staying within a certain geographic area, not associating with certain individuals, not possessing weapons or explosives. 

This is all self-evidently dangerous twaddle coming from MacKay here. What do any of these terms mean??? What does "MAY" mean? You "may be ... subject to this kind of activity in the future"??? What the fuck does that mean???? "You're a Muslim, and therefore, you may be subject to radicalization in the future, therefore ..."? "Depending on the evidentiary burden"? What is the "evidentiary burden" under C-51? 

    You can see that these are two mechanisms, through the law, through a judicial exercise, that allow us to put controls in place prior to the commission of an offence. By lowering the thresholds, we gain greater access to those conditions and controls.

Yes Peter. Yes, you certainly do!

    It has been said in the past, and the argument I believe has been successfully made, that in cases of terrorism where the potential for harm, grave personal harm, is so real and perhaps imminent, lowering the thresholds to gain greater access to these tools is what we hope to achieve. That is what is encompassed in these sections of the bill. 

What "potential for harm"? If it is "so real and imminent" presumably we already have measures in place to deal with situation. Peter MacKay won't come down to specifics because he's peddling a line of bullshit meant only to vastly increase the surveillance and suppression powers of the state.

    Along a continuum, lowering the thresholds to have recognizance and peace bonds in place we believe will empower the police to make the right decisions, with judicial authorization, to put in place conditions that we hope will absolutely prevent and deter terrorist acts in Canada.

Meaningless garbage. God! What a mediocrity!