Randall Garrison (NDP) Questions for Blaney, MacKay at C-51 Hearings

Today I'm going to look at the questions for minister's Blaney and MacKay provided by the NDP's Randall Garrison.

Mr. Randall Garrison:

    Thanks to all the witnesses who are here today. I know for the Minister of Justice it's relatively rare to appear in this committee, so I give particular thanks to him for being here today. I want to start with a question for him.

    There has a been a lot of public concern expressed by legal experts, including former judges, about the broad nature of the new offence in the Criminal Code, about the lower threshold for detention and peace bonds, and about fundamental changes to information sharing that might affect privacy rights.

    My assumption is that the minister would not bring this legislation before Parliament if he did not believe it was constitutional and that he must have received advice from his officials on the constitutionality of this bill and its provisions. 

If I could interrupt here. It seems to me most likely that Mr. Garrison is being sarcastic. The harpercons have a long history of deliberately ramming-through unconstitutional legislation. They do this because they hate the Charter and because they imagine it makes the Supreme Court look bad in the eyes of the harpercons' deluded followers. Things have, if anything, gotten more extreme since 2012 when Justice Department senior lawyer Edgar Schmidt sued them for ordering him and his fellow lawyers to deliberately violate their obligations. [In December 2012, Edgar Schmidt sued the federal government for failing to take adequate steps to verify whether proposed bills violate the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to Schmidt, the Department of Justice “had its lawyers apply only a flawed and minimal screening test. It does not identify and report on legislation that the department itself considers almost certainly to be illegal and unconstitutional.” After the court case was launched, Schmidt was suspended without pay for “violating his duties as a lawyer and public servant.” ] I assume Garrison knows this.

    Would the minister be prepared to table the advice he received on the constitutionality of this bill? It would be very useful for this committee, to avoid further legal entanglements down the road, if we could have that advice tabled for us so that we could use it before we reach the amendment stage of this bill.

Can't wait to read MacKay's reply ...

Hon. Peter MacKay:

     Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Garrison.

    Colleagues, while it may be rare that I appear before this committee, this is my 52nd appearance before a committee as a minister.

    The member is absolutely right in suggesting that we would not have introduced a bill, and certainly from a justice perspective no bill is introduced in Parliament unless it has been drafted and presented to Parliament in a way that is consistent with the charter and the Constitution. Every bill receives that vetting, that lens, from the Department of Justice prior to its introduction. 

Koff! Bullshit! Koff!

Officials with the Department of Justice, of course, have expertise in that area. In fact, some members of our department go back to the drafting of the charter itself. We have tremendous legal advice, which is available to all departments. So, yes, the member is correct. I would have met with and worked with my department to ensure charter compliance. The Supreme Court of Canada, of course, has recognized that the prevention of terrorist acts is a valid state objective given the grave damage that can result, and that was the quote I presented to you at the close of my remarks.

This could have been a simple "Yes" or "No" reply.  Can you table the advice you got from your lawyers or not?

This is not to say that legislation—all legislation—presented to this committee or any committee is not subject to charter challenge. We anticipate and look at various aspects, including privacy, to come back to the member's question, and we do so to ensure that ultimately the courts will pronounce favourably on the charter compliance. With regard to presenting that advice to this committee or any committee, I'm not able to do so as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General as solicitor-client privilege exists between the Department of Justice and the Department of Public Safety in this case.

So, after all that bullshit, to run out the clock, MacKay answers that he just can't share his department's legal advice with the people's representatives. Supposedly he, as justice minister, and Blaney, as public safety minister, can never get together and agree to provide the Public Safety and National Security Committee with the legal reasoning that shows how this bill conforms with the Charter.

Typical slimy cowardice from MacKay. 

Mr. Randall Garrison:

    Of course, as the beneficiary of that solicitor-client privilege, you could waive that and table it before this committee.

Hon. Peter MacKay:

    We're not going to do that, and of course the privilege rests not solely with me but with the entire government.

Say no more. If there's anyone more cowardly and secretive than MacKay, it's stephen "captain closet" harper.

Mr. Randall Garrison:

    Thank you very much. I still believe we would benefit from having that information before us.

    I want to turn to Mr. Blaney, who said he would welcome the opportunity to clarify things today. I have two questions about the new powers given to CSIS in this bill. The minister has said many times in public and in the House that the new disruptive powers of CSIS would require a warrant from a judge. I would like him to clarify, because according to my reading of the bill, as well as that of many others, it does not say that. It says that disruptive activities may be conducted and will require a warrant only in certain circumstances. I'd like him to clarify that part.

    The second thing he said was that very often this amounts to judicial oversight. Since the warrant being sought is for activities conducted in secret and not for those leading to a criminal charge, how will the judge ever see what happened with that warrant again? How would that warrant ever end up back before the courts so they could exercise oversight? I don't see any provision there, once the warrant is granted, that would allow a judge to examine what had happened with that warrant.

    I have to say, just briefly, that when Mr. Blaney says that the NDP is attacking police and CSIS members, we're not. We're saying that occasionally agencies make errors and they end up before the courts. We have the Mosley case, which clearly said that CSIS had, in some cases, made errors that constituted a violation of the law.

    My question is very specific. Does disruptive activity always require a warrant, and how will that warrant ever get back in front of a judge?

I wouldn't have defended myself against Blaney's whining accusations. The more we coddle thugs, the more thuggish they become. Some members of CSIS and the RCMP are incompetent, racist, sexist, authoritarian, murderous goons. To even go through the motions of defending oneself against "anti-cop" bias only encourages them in their foulness. When they are racist, call them on it. When they murder someone, call them on it. When they ship people off to be tortured, call them on it. Pussy-footing around with your criticisms only puts off the day when reality will be squarely confronted.

Hon. Steven Blaney:

    Thank you for your question. You certainly heard me again this morning clearly say that a warrant is required every time there is a legal consideration. I'll just refer to what I said earlier this morning.

[Translation]

    My remarks were as follows: “With this new mandate, Bill C-51 sets rigorous limits and establishes a warrant mechanism...If the measures proposed might contravene a right guaranteed by the charter or another Canadian law, a Federal Court judge would have to authorize them in advance.”

    Simply put, a warrant is indeed required under Bill C-51 every time the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is concerned.

    I hope I provided a clear answer to your first question.

Mr. Randall Garrison:

     No, you haven't clarified that because you just proved my point. You said it's required only if there's going to be breaking of the law of the charter. Other disruptive activities then are clearly authorized without a warrant.

Hon. Steven Blaney:

    Yes, dear colleague, some activities will not require a warrant. However, threat reduction activities must follow a rigorous process depending on their impact. As the Minister of Public Safety, I will be able to—just like my successors—authorize warrants at some point. To do so, I will rely on the opinion of the Department of Public Safety.

    Let me give you an example of a case where a warrant would not be required. For instance, CSIS officers could engage in conversation with the parents of a child who is being radicalized. In that case, a warrant would not be required. 

The Chair:

    Thank you very much. The time is up.

    We will go to Mr. Norlock, please, sir.

Well, that was pretty much a waste of time. No answer to the question of subsequent judicial oversight, when the boys in Red Serge have a documented history of lying to judges about what they're going to do with the warrants they receive.

We shouldn't have tolerated the stolen 2011 federal election, or the Elections Canada cover-up. But we did. And this is the price we pay for our laziness, cowardice and delusion. 

 

 

Back to C-51 Committee Testimony

And, we're back, for (perhaps) a brief look at the testimony of Steve "the perv" Blaney, and Peter "Zorro" MacKay, as both these idiots lied to us about their fascist surveillance legislation, C-51.

I skimmed this a few days ago, and I'm pretty sure the stuff you're going to look at today is sycophantic drivel from their fellow sleaze-bag "Conservatives." But, still, it's important to see how debased our political culture is. So without further ado ...

The Chair:

    Thank you very much, Minister MacKay.

    Colleagues, we will now go to our rounds of questioning with a first round of seven minutes. We will start with the parliamentary secretary, Mrs. James.

Ms. Roxanne James (Scarborough Centre, CPC):

    Thank you, Ministers, for appearing, and thank you as well to the officials who are here.

    Canadians would expect, Minister Blaney, when one branch of government comes across information pertinent to national security and the protection of Canadians, that agency would be able to communicate that information freely to another agency, such as the RCMP or CSIS. However, that is clearly not the case today. 

Well, clearly, you haven't been listening today or paying attention for the past 15 years! The National Security Minister communicates with the Minister of Transport, and, clearly, Citizenship and Immigration must be communicating with SOMEONE in order to deny the passports to so many people. Furthermore, CSIS and the RCMP are obviously sharing information with the National Security Agency in the USA, because as Wikileaks and Edward Snowden showed us, we're being spied upon all dee fooking time! But go on ...

I have to tell you that I was probably one of those Canadians who thought this was already being done, so with regard to information sharing, I find this legislation to be absolutely critical.

I don't. Because I think the terrorist threat is really the GBWT. But even if it weren't, ... why should it be easier for Health Canada to share information with CSIS? This from a government that took the psychiatric counseling records for a veterans' ombudsman to try to use it to discredit him. (It's amazing how selective the memories of these right-wing monsters are, isn't it?)

    Minister Blaney and Minister MacKay, in your opening remarks, both of you talked about identifying gaps that were brought forward by our national security agencies.

     Minister Blaney, could you expand on some of these gaps, focusing on information sharing, and why this part of the legislation is so important?

Hon. Steven Blaney:

    Maybe I could begin with two examples of what is the current situation now.

    As we heard recently, in Montreal two young girls allegedly said that they left the country to commit terrorist attacks abroad. They showed up at the passport office and they asked for an accelerated process within 48 hours. They said that they had lost their passports. They said that they wanted to go to the Middle East, to a region, as you are well aware, where there are many conflicts. This information should raise some concerns in terms of national security. Canada is not and does not want to become an exporter of terrorism. As we speak, this information cannot be shared with relevant authorities such as the RCMP or the security agency, CSIS. This bill would enact the department to undertake this kind of action.

Well, I suppose that makes a little bit of sense. I suppose it's better that we fight the terrorists here, instead of over there. (Wait a minnit!) But, as long as it doesn't gum-up the anti-terrorist works, ... you know, every time somebody from the Middle East, or Venezuela, or wherever they decide our official enemies are, asks for a replacement passport, it goes to a CSIS or RCMP officer (already overworked with reports of the torture sessions of Canadians citizens at some black-site overseas, or cajoling some crackhead to blow-up a bomb somewhere) to sit in the files. I can, in all seriousness, see the value of communication between Citizenship and Immigration and Public Safety and National Security, ... except it should be pretty clear such cooperation already exists.

    The other example is on the other side. Take a wounded person who goes to a consulate in the Middle East, is willing to come back, and is seeking some information. Being obviously wounded or having spent some weeks out there in the desert, this may raise some reasonable doubts, but again, this information may not be shared with the police officers or the Canada Border Services Agency, nor with our intelligence. An individual, a potential high-terrorist traveller who has had combat experience, could come back into our country, and we could hardly prevent it.

Okay. That isn't stupid on the face of it.

    These two examples demonstrate clearly the need to make sure that the left hand of government knows what the right hand is doing, but in doing so, let me assure you that there are many mechanisms to protect privacy and also the Constitution.

Do, go on ...

     First, I think I've stated clearly that it has to be information that would undermine the security of Canada. Before the information is transferred, there has to be a risk, and it has to be transferred to an organization that is relevant. Again, this is not new information. This is information that is already being collected by the government but is not being shared.

Why does this idiot keep saying this? Is he saying that if a Canadian showed up at the Canadian embassy in Beirut with gunshot wounds, that the embassy wouldn't and couldn't (under C-51) alert CSIS? Leaving that aside, ... he keeps saying that only information about genuine security risks would be shared, but we've already got plenty of evidence of innocent Canadians being harassed, spied upon and even tortured by their own government's "security" services.

     Are we to let silos be used by terrorists to harm Canadians? Frankly, I think this is totally irresponsible. That's why when I speak to people in my riding or elsewhere, people are asking me why we have not done this before and why we are not sharing the information in a respectful and lawful process.

     Well, this is what we do. Also, it is important to specify—and it's in the bill—that the information has to be done in respect of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and also the protection of privacy. This is actually in the enactment of the act. We already have much legislation, but we felt it was important to specify this in the bill.

    I can comment further, but I think you want to ask more questions.

Just remember that all his weeping and wailing there is for a bullshit threat. We can't learn shit about oil spills, freight rail deregulation, allowing armed US Customs agents into Canada with extraterritoriality, but they can learn everything about us.

Ms. Roxanne James:

    There has been some concern from the opposition and from the Green Party with respect to a proposed section in the information sharing act that clearly states that the information sharing would not relate to lawful advocacy, protest, dissent, and artistic expression. The concern seems to be surrounding the word “lawful”.

    I just have to ask a very simple question. How bizarre would it be for a government to legislate this type of bill and include the ability for unlawful advocacy? I have to ask that question because obviously, between “lawful” and “unlawful” there is a big difference.

Hon. Steven Blaney:

    Thank you for the opportunity you are giving me to clarify what is in the bill and what is not.

    Once again, there is the security of Canada information sharing act, whereby information that could undermine the security of Canada could be transferred. This has nothing to do with the other parts of the act, such as the threat diminishment part, which relies on the current definition of terrorist activities. It has no impact at all on this aspect. The only thing the legislator is doing in crafting this bill is mandating that any information that could undermine the security of Canada has to be sent to the recipient institution.

    Of course, there is another safeguard here, because if the information is received, it has to be relevant to that specific department. That is another safeguard, if I can put it that way.

    Once again, to get back to your definition, there are lawful activities and there are unlawful activities. This morning I gave the example of a protest that did not have a municipal permit. That is not, I would argue, included in this bill, which deals with undermining the security of Canada. Once again, it could be an illegal activity, but the information would not necessarily be shared, because it does not undermine the security of Canada.

    I think we clearly see this morning that there are lawful activities, that there could be illegal activity that does not undermine the security of Canada, and that there are those activities that we feel are important to share or to specify in the bill. There are some examples in the bill, such as espionage, sabotage—

The Chair:

    Minister Blaney, we'll have to cut you off. You'll have an opportunity to go further a little later, but we're over the time.

    We'll go now to Mr. Garrison, for seven minutes, please.

And that wraps up what I'll deal with today.

And by "deal" I mean go to someone else besides the self-serving liar, Steve Blaney. So, by "unlawful" Blaney claims not to mean protests held without a municipal permit. (Smashing those things is being nicely handled by the provinces!) He also says that things can be illegal and not undermine the security of Canada. Any counter-arguments Mr. Forcese?

Violating regulatory or muncipal rules is bad.  People should be fined, and possibly prosecuted.  That is why we have police, and open, transparent courts, with due process and appeal rights.
But the question before Parliament now is whether peaceful democratic protest movements should be a security issue, handled covertly, when, e.g., they don't have the right muncipal permits for their protests.  And specifically, should such a movement fall within the ambit of the new "undermine" definition, or the expanded CSIS powers under the existing "threat" definition. 
Given the experience in 2001 and the legal views expressed by the government of the day, we have to conclude that if the government continues to include the qualifier "lawful" in its exceptions, it does so with eyes wide open.  It really does mean to include, e.g., "illegal strike[s] that takes as part of its form a demonstration in the streets—and this is an example that has been used by some in the trade union movement" within its "undermine the security of Canada" concept in the information sharing rules. 
And it is comfortable with the idea that, if other elements of the "threat" definition are met (e.g., as with the Keystone hypothetical above), democratic protest movements with tactics that do not square in every way with even municipal law may properly be the subject of CSIS investigation and possibly even disruption.
I take no view on whether CSIS would ever have the resources or the complete lack of internal governance checks and balances to actually proceed in this manner.  That is not my point.  My point is this: when we craft national security law, we craft it to deter bad judgment.  We do not craft it to be so sweeping and ambiguous that it must depend for its proper exercise in a democracy on perfect government judgment.  Very few governments are perfect.  And even if you think this one is, what about the next one?

I'll let Mr. Forcese have the last word because he's not an authoritarian liar who owes his Minister-status to election fraud.

Big Things Going On In My Life Right Now ...

Deadlines, stuff. Stuffy, stuff-stuff.

Gotta stay focused.

I will get back to reading that testimony on C-51 and blogging about it, because it helps me as a citizen.

But not today. Maybe a couple of days from now.

I've got too much on the go right now.

Two Competing Views

I think the USA is becoming hollowed out from the inside by its elites delusion and greed. I also think it is still incredibly powerful and highly resilient.

Both these essays make a lot of sense:

Pepe Escobar: "Eurasia as we know it is dead"

All bets are off on how the fateful U.S.-China-Russia triangle will evolve. Arguably, it may take the following pattern: The Americans talk loud and carry an array of sticks; the Russians are not shy to talk back while silently preparing strategically for a long, difficult haul; the Chinese follow a modified “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping doctrine – talk very diplomatically while no longer keeping a low profile.
Beijing’s already savvy to what Moscow has been whispering: Exceptionalist Washington – in decline or not – will never treat Beijing as an equal or respect Chinese national interests.
In the great Imponderables chapter, bets are still accepted on whether Moscow will use this serious, triple threat crisis – sanctions, oil price war, ruble devaluation – to radically apply structural game changers and launch a new strategy of economic development. Putin’s recent Q&A, although crammed with intriguing answers, still isn’t clear on this.
Other great imponderable is whether Xi, armed with soft power, charisma and lots of cash, will be able to steer, simultaneously, the tweaking of the economic model and a Go West avalanche that does not end up alienating China’s multiple potential partners in building the New Silk roads.

and

Tariq Ali: "The new world disorder"

And then there’s the rise of China. There’s no doubt that enormous gains have been made by capitalism in China; the Chinese and American economies are remarkably interdependent. When a veteran of the labour movement in the States recently asked me what had happened to the American working class the answer was plain: the American working class is in China now. But it’s also the case that China isn’t even remotely close to replacing the US. All the figures now produced by economists show that, where it counts, the Chinese are still way behind. If you look at national shares of world millionaire households in 2012: the United States, 42.5 per cent; Japan, 10.6 per cent; China, 9.4 per cent; Britain, 3.7 per cent; Switzerland, 2.9 per cent; Germany, 2.7 per cent; Taiwan, 2.3 per cent; Italy, 2 per cent; France, 1.9 per cent. So in terms of economic strength the United States is still doing well. In many crucial markets – pharmaceuticals, aerospace, computer software, medical equipment – the US is dominant; the Chinese are nowhere. The figures in 2010 showed that three-quarters of China’s top two hundred exporting companies – and these are Chinese statistics – are foreign-owned. There is a great deal of foreign investment in China, often from neighbouring countries like Taiwan. Foxconn, which produces computers for Apple in China, is a Taiwanese company.
The notion that the Chinese are suddenly going to rise to power and replace the United States is baloney. It’s implausible militarily; it’s implausible economically; and politically, ideologically, it’s obvious that it’s not the case.

GBWT = Great Bullshit War on Terror

I've been using the acronym GBWT recently, and I always feel obliged to remind people that it stands for "Great Bullshit War on Terror." So this entry is going to have the Labels "GBWT" and "Great Bullshit War on Terror" to serve as the explanation whenever I use the acronym in the future.

The War on Terror is bullshit because the problem is relatively minuscule. For instance, recall that stephen harper once embraced Michael Hudak and Rob Ford at a picnic of right-wing psychopaths as being fellow members of a "conservative" political movement. If one adds up the people killed freezing on the streets from homelessness, drinking tainted tap water, dying because of over-crowded emergency rooms, poisoned by tainted meat, killed from runaway trains of oil tankers, or killed as CF members in useless foreign wars, ... one can clearly see that these fucking asshole "conservatives" are a bigger danger to most Canadians than are the terrorists.

The main exporter of Islamic terrorism is Saudi Arabia. Pakistan might be second. The other Arab monarchies are also financiers and supporters of radical Sunni warriors. They're US allies too. The USA's foreign policies have given these Sunni fighters lots of combat experience, access to weapons and places to establish themselves as local powers. Doesn't it seem strange that so many US allies would be exporting terrorists and that the US would be subverting secular dictatorships when that was providing opportunities for Islamic radicals to grow in power?

The War on Terror supposedly makes our constitutional rights and freedoms, including privacy, freedom of speech and freedom from arbitrary search and seizure to be luxuries that we can't afford. Un-stupid people see that logic as the definition of Orwellian. This is a manufactured state of permanent war. And it is being used to chip away at our freedoms in order to stifle dissent and to harass and incapacitate opponents of capitalist inhumanity.

For these, and many other reasons, I refer to the War on Terror as the "Great Bullshit War on Terror."

Got Fuckin' Shit For Brains???

Then maybe the Conservative Party of Canada is for you!

(Back to mocking the Public Safety/National Security Committee hearings later.)

C-51 Hearings: MacKay's Opening Remarks

So, I'd never heard of Steven Blaney before he became Public Security minister. The harpercons have had a lot of defections and resignations lately, and Blaney appears (to me, who is not the most attentive watcher of the Ottawa gossip scene) to have been plucked from obscurity based on his ability to utter stupid platitudes in both English and French.

If the quality of thinking demonstrated in his opening remarks to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security are any indication, he's not that talented (or sane) an individual.

According to Craig Forcese, Peter MacKay did a better job in his testimony than Blaney:

Minister MacKay generally distinguished himself and his department with detailed and nuanced analysis of his portions of C-51. This is not to say that every position he argued was persuasive. Nor is it to say that he addressed all issues that demand answers. But his presentation stood in stark contrast to that of Minister Blaney.

However, from Forcese's own article, it's possible that MacKay did better because he didn't have as much drivel to defend. And even then, he evaded honestly confronting important issues:

For his part, Minister MacKay mounted a sterling defence of the new speech crime. That defence, though, was confined to rebutting concerns that the new crime is an ambiguous Frankenstein monster, cutting and pasting an array of legal concepts and deploying them in an uncertain new manner. It was also directed at defending the idea that there is some “gap” in the law that needs to be filled by this new offence.
We continue to think it wrong to assert that anyone can know with certainty what the outer reaches of this confusing offence will be. We also are not persuaded there is much of a gap left open by our existing law. And if there is a gap, the obvious solution is to fill only it, not craft an offence that (even when measured by what it clearly reaches) is overbroad. For instance, the new offence reaches the sort of mainstream speech we describe here, and also may harm counter-violent extremism programs in the manner we describe here.

Now, before I begin going through MacKay's remarks (which I haven't read yet) I want to clear-up a couple of things.

At one point in his ravings before the committee, Blaney states:

Further, the leader of the NDP made allegations that I feel as Minister of Public Safety are unacceptable, because he said that CSIS, the security intelligence, has broken the law. This is an insult to the men and women who are protecting Canadians on a daily basis, who are risking their lives in unsafe places, Mr. Chairman. For 30 years there has been the report of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which has always provided the certificate demonstrating that they complied with our Canadian law. I ask the member to bring coherent arguments, but not insult those who are protecting us. I ask him to apologize and to keep the debate among politicians focused on facts, truth, and reality. 

And I commented yesterday that that was quite rich of the minister to say that. Because as I pointed out here (to give only one example where I've belaboured this point), for the harpercons to routinely pull the "they hate us for our freedoms canard" when the evidence clearly shows that the terrorists are targeting us specifically for our interventions on the side of the USA in Afghanistan and other majority-Muslim countries, is deliberate denial of reality. 

If they want their lie about how the safety of Canadians is their highest priority, then they should obviously stop doing things that makes us the target of terrorists. And I'm prepared to debate whether we should stay out of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, the Ukraine, etc., etc., because my argument isn't that Canada should cower and keep its head down because the big, bad terrorists might get us. My argument is that Canada is governed by criminal scum, that our interventions are on the side of the criminal scum atop the US political structure, and that they do more harm than good. Given that, and given the fact that these cynical interventions also invite terrorist reprisals, it's incumbent upon people like Blaney, if they want the debate focused on facts, truth and reality, to include the fact, truth and reality that their adventures bring the wrath of terrorists upon us, and that this detracts from their stated desire to keep Canadians safe.

By the same token, Mr. Blaney should stop mewling about the fee-feez of Canadian security agents when Thomas Mulcair accuses them of having broken the law. Some of these assholes, besides murdering Polish immigrants at Vancouver Airport, bungling (at best) the Picton investigation, and spying on environmentalists and First Nations activists on behalf of big oil, are responsible for the torture of at least five Canadian citizens.

I said this here, about "what separates us" where I noted that both myself and that extreme right-wing scribbler leveled the same accusations at each other, but proved that I was right and he was wrong. It's the same thing with Blaney. He claims he wants to argue from facts, accuses Mulcair of not doing so, but it is easily demonstrated that he's coughing up lumps of shit every time he opens his mouth to speak.

So when we get to someone like Peter MacKay, it's my personal opinion that he's a dim-bulb. A beneficiary of his father's political career in the service of one of the two capitalist-friendly parties that contend for power in this country. A beneficiary of patronage and privilege. Take this fellow out of this cosseted little world and he'd be nothing. I've watched his career for years, but with little interest, and can't recall having ever been impressed with anything other than his mediocrity and his cowardice.

Here he goes ...

  Mr. Chair and colleagues, it's an honour to be here before you. I thank you for your important work. I am honoured to be here with my colleague, Minister of Public Safety Steven Blaney and officials from both of our departments, Public Safety and Justice.

    As you know, we're here to discuss Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act. This bill concentrates on the very real subject matter of terrorism, which is an increased global concern. The Government of Canada is taking steps, and you are taking steps, to examine the tools necessary and available to our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to respond effectively to this threat.,

Again, they make this threat seem inexplicable, inexorable and insidious. But it's just blow-back from various US foreign policy initiatives. (People like MacKay go ape-shit when you say that. Partly because they genuinely believe it's "anti-American" and mainly because it exposes them for the bungling turds that they are.)

    This bill represents the outcome that is crucially important in this assessment. I'm going to focus my remarks, as Minister Blaney has said, on the Criminal Code amendments found in part 3 of the bill. 

    Since 2001, the Criminal Code has helped us combat terrorism specifically, especially in terms of offences related to various forms of participation in and facilitation of a terrorist activity and in terms of charging a person for engaging in such an activity. Those measures were reinforced in 2013 with the addition of new offences related to the movements of terrorists and nuclear terrorism.

     Mr. Chair, the threat environment in Canada we know is global and volatile and consistently evolving. Accordingly, this investigative package of enforcement tools available to the criminal justice system should be commensurate to detect, stop, and prosecute those responsible. Of course, the Criminal Code reforms that are found in Bill C-51 do just that. It is an effort to modernize, to keep pace. As Minister Blaney has said, this is about giving law enforcement the ability to meet this evolving threat, and to put them in a position to detect, deter, and prevent the type of terrorism that we see and sadly expect in the 21st century.

It really is physically painful to have to read such cretinism.

    I'll speak now to those parts of the bill that fall directly under the purview of the Department of Justice.

    First, section 83.3 of the Criminal Code, which targets individuals who may be involved in a terrorism activity either directly or indirectly, currently requires two tests to be met for a court to impose a recognizance against an individual. 

Let's just pause and remember that this shit-head can't even coherently define what "terrorism" means. Neo-nazi white supremacists plotting to shoot-up a shopping mall isn't terrorism for some reason, whereas ... well, whereas nothing. This idiot is just clumsily trying to scare Canadian society into a certain form of docility and, sadly, our collective intelligence is low enough that he's been succeeding at it so far.

This bill proposes to lower the threshold of both these tests, from requiring police to have reasonable grounds to believe that a terrorist activity “will—with emphasis on “will”—be carried out”, to “may be carried out”—imminent, to possible—and from reasonable grounds to suspect that conditions are necessary to prevent the carrying out of terrorism activity, to “likely to prevent the carrying out of the terrorist activity”.

Right. This bimbo doesn't even know what makes terrorism "terrorism" but he wants to expand this hazy concept so that police can arrest people who, it is "likely" that they "may" be "directly or indirectly involved" in "terrorism."

It would have renewed my faith in Canadian democracy if, right at that point, everyone in the committee rose up and grabbed MacKay and tarred and feathered him. Alas!

     Lowering the threshold seeks to make it easier to obtain the recognizance, for police to do so and then appear before a judge. It's important to emphasize the judicial oversight component of this.

Spoken by a man who viscerally loathes judicial oversight.

    Bill C-51 would also increase the maximum period of time that a judge can remand an individual awaiting a recognizance hearing from a total of two days to six days, with the 24-hour police detention period remaining the same. In other words, it would expand that period of time in which investigations can occur and certain conditions can be in place to protect the public, so up to seven days.

So, give the authorities more time to try to cook up some terrorist allegations against people. Or at least just go through all their possessions with a fine-toothed comb. You'd think if they had a case against someone, that two-days of arbitrary arrest would be enough, right?

    This bill also proposes to strengthen the existing terrorism peace bond in the Criminal Code. The bill proposes to lower the threshold from the current requirement that a person must fear on reasonable grounds that someone “will” commit a terrorism offence, to fear that they “may” commit a terrorism offence. This change seeks to make it easier to obtain the peace bond. There is a scale here. We are lowering the threshold to allow the police, with judicial oversight, to put in place conditions to protect the public based on evidence. It would also extend the maximum duration of the peace bond from two to five years for those previously convicted of a terrorism offence.

What is the difference between "If you go outside today you WILL get killed" and "If you go outside today you MAY get killed"? That's a pretty big difference, wouldn't you say? (I'm assuming you're a sane person of reasonable intelligence.)

     Furthermore, for both recognizance with conditions and peace bonds, the court would be authorized to impose sureties and to require judges to consider geographical conditions and passport surrender, so behavioural controls, if you will. The penalties for breaches of these court orders would also be increased from the current two years maximum to four years. 

So, if it's found, for certain, after an investigation, that you "might" "support or facilitate" a "terrorist" act, somehow, somewhere, your freedom of movement can be restricted and your right to travel abroad (a constitutional right) denied altogether. Thanks to the brilliant legal brain of Peter Fucking MacKay, who doesn't even know what "terrorism" is.

     Bill C-51 would also propose to amend the Criminal Code to create a new indictable offence for knowingly advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general. The offence would require that the person either know that any of those offences will be committed or be reckless as to whether any of those offences may be committed as a result of that communication. This new offence would be punishable with up to five years' imprisonment. The new offence would fill what we believe to be a current gap in the law and would respond to a current threat that exists. 

Ah! This is the new offence that Forcese was talking about!

    Currently it's a crime to counsel someone to commit a specific crime like murder. It is not a crime, however, to counsel somebody to commit a broad category of criminal activity like terrorism, one lacking specific detail as to which offence is being encouraged to be committed. 

Right. It's illegal to counsel someone to murder. It's illegal to counsel someone to set fire to a building. I assume it's illegal to counsel someone to derail a train. Or detonate a bomb. Or storm Parliament Hill with a firearm. But when it comes to the politically useful (and usefully elastic) offence of "terrorism" Peter MacKay whines in frustration because some of the things that he regards as "terrorism" (impeding the building of bitumen pipelines, calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, etc.,) aren't illegal (or as "terroristically illegal" as he'd like them to be). Solution? This monstrous piece of legislation.

Therefore, the focus of the proposed new offence is to cover the situation where the active encouragement lacks the specific detail that would link the encouragement to the commission of a specific terrorism offence, although in the circumstances it is clear that someone is actively encouraging to commit any of the terrorism offences in the Criminal Code. In other words, it would not matter whether a specific terrorism offence is advocated or promoted for criminal liability to attach. To be clear, this is not a glorification of terrorism offence.

So, to actively encouraging the commission of "any of the terrorism offences in the Criminal Code" when they want to put into the Criminal Code that actions harming the integrity of the Canadian economy are "terrorism" is completely innocuous. But have no fear, civil liberties weenies! Muslim Canadians can still shout "Allahu Akbar!" upon hearing of a terrorist outrage, and not be arrested. Unless, of course, their traitorous outburst encourages other acts of "terrorism" and then they've gone from glorifying terrorism to encouraging terrorism and all bets are off.

What a fucking idiot this man is.

    Related to this new offence is the proposal to create two new warrants of seizure in relation to terrorist propaganda. One is for terrorist propaganda in a tangible form such as a poster or a flyer, and the other is for removing terrorist propaganda disseminated and stored in a website located in Canada.

I'm already terrified. Do you see where this is going? I mean, you know how paranoid and propagandistic stephen harper is, right? Goes through Facebook posts of people attending his rallies. If they "liked" an opponent, he has the RCMP bar those people from his events, in case they spoil the effect of widespread love and adulation. It's the same totalitarian mindset that's in this bill. Now, even the internet will be purged of competing political beliefs. Anti-Tar Sands? Terrorism. Off the net. BDS campaign? Terrorism. Off the net. First Nations calls to reject Canadian government laws? Terrorism. Off the net. And on and on it goes. Let's hope some opposition MP's ask MacKay some pointed questions.

    Obviously, we work within our own jurisdiction. This does not afford us the ability to capture this material from outside the country. 

Yeah. No shit Sherlock.

    Similar powers already exist for other materials that Parliament has determined to be harmful, including hate propaganda and child pornography. It mirrors Criminal Code sections already in existence

I believe your party legalized "hate speech" so I'm not sure about what you just said about hate propaganda. And, yes, child pornography is illegal. As is counseling someone to commit any other specific crime. As you already said. That's not the point. You're expanding things to include stated support of encouragement to a "broad category of criminal activity" that falls under the amorphous concept of "terrorism."

    Most parents, I think, would know we are doing this in the best interest of removing material that could be used to radicalize or recruit a young person. In fact, in talking to people about this particular section of the Criminal Code, some were alarmed to know that we don't already have the ability to remove this offensive material.

Yeah. Wanna know something Minister MacKay? A lot of Muslims become "radicalized" by watching videos about the murder of women and children by occupation forces in the countries under occupation. The gratuitous violence against civilians. The racist behaviour of appalling shit-heads like "American Sniper" Chris Kyle. The stuff you suppress so that you and Don Cherry can strut about like nincompoops who think they're war heroes. OUR CRIMES. OUR TERRORISM. That's the main contributor to their "radicalization."

And, notice how he said "some were alarmed to know we don't already have the ability to remove this offensive material"? Yes, well, "some people" think that property is theft. "Some people" think that premarital sex should be illegal. Why is that at all relevant? "Some people want the death penalty for kids who run on their lawns. Let's accommodate them!" (?)

    Finally, changes are proposed to better protect those involved in national security prosecutions and proceedings. Among other things, these changes would provide better discretion of the courts to make orders that reflect the security needs of witnesses. In particular, we're talking about participants in the justice system who might find themselves vulnerable as a result of the individuals we are dealing with. This is not unlike what we've seen in prosecutions of gangs or organized crime. It takes into account their role in relation to national security matters while at all times respecting the fair trial rights of the accused.

We already have this. I assume MacKay just wants blanket protections from any sort of accountability.

    These legislative proposals and those of my colleague Minister Blaney are reasonable and are a proportionate response to the threat of terrorism in Canada. 

Bullshit. You're completely full of shit MacKay. A total liar.

They contain a number of safeguards, including judicial oversight and discretion for the many tools we have discussed and presented here this morning, the requirement to obtain Attorney General consent before proceedings, 

Right. Someone as stupid and authoritarian as you, you mean. Notice he's said little about the safeguards in his opening remarks. Probably because the less said about the inadequate safeguards for his totalitarian police-state bill, the better.

and annual reporting requirements on the use of recognizance with conditions. These are tabled in Parliament, as I did recently in December. Also, these peace bond and recognizance conditions are subject to sunsetting; that is to say that the law, when it came into effect in 2007, will be reviewed with respect to those recognizance and peace bond conditions in 2017. 

And you'll get around to completely eviscerating Parliament's powers later. And, in the meantime, your standard SOP of "Contempt of Parliament" will have to suffice.

    In providing these new, enhanced and judicially approved measures which respond to terrorism at home and abroad, we believe we are doing so within the existing and overarching legal framework that respects the charter and includes important checks and balances.

Blah, blah, blah.

    To conclude, from a criminal justice perspective, this bill will address gaps in the law, only target extremely serious conduct, and clearly define offence elements in a high level of mens rea. 

You've already shown how that's not the case. Sorry.

    Mr. Chair, I would just end with a quote from the Queen and Khawaja, which is an Ontario Court of Appeal case where, writing for the majority, Mr. Justice Moldaver, as he then was, said:

To be sure, terrorism is a crime unto itself. It has no equal. It does not stop at, nor is it limited to, the senseless destruction of people and property. It is far more insidious in that it attacks our very way of life and seeks to destroy the fundamental values to which we ascribe – values that form the essence of our constitutional democracy. 

    Mr. Chair, I thank you for your important deliberations on this legislation. We look forward to the committee's questions. Again, we're very appreciative of the work that you're undertaking.

    Thank you.

You know, I no longer obtain the slightest bit of entertainment value when encountering the shamelessness of right-wing scum. What "fundamental values" do you suppose MacKay means when he says those words? He hates Parliament. He hates Canada's natural environment. He hates freedom of speech. He hates free and fair elections. He hates honest government. He hates transparency. He hates the rule of law.

All of these hatreds, he'd demonstrated time and time again. His only defence is that he's so stupid and shallow that it's impossible for him to reflect upon the significance of his actual thoughts and behaviour for the platitudes he utters when called up to perform in situations like this.