To the Editor,
It’s extremely important that Canadians know that their freedom of expression is being targeted. Bill C-51 is reckless and dangerous and has little oversight or accountability for it. Law-abiding Canadians will be scrutinized with their personal and private information ‘legally’ shared amongst government agencies. This means our elected government can spy on anyone, at any time and we wouldn’t even know we’ve been made a victim of it. This is not the Canada we grew up in and we don’t want this to be the Canada that our children and grandchildren continue to live in.
Do we really want a Canadian government that creates such a shadowy and unaccountable ‘secret police’ force as this which will trample on innocent citizens’ rights and freedoms? We believe not, and there are thousands of other Canadians who are speaking out against this blatant misuse of the government’s power.
Cec and Joyce AshleyGabriola Island
To the Editor,
Many thanks to the organizers of the C-51 rally at Maffeo Sutton Park on Saturday. The enthusiastic, multi-partisan crowd of about 300, joining over 100 similar rallies held across Canada, learned that the misleadingly titled Anti-Terrorism Act poses a severe threat to Canada’s very democracy and most of its fundamental principles such as free speech.
The bill’s stated intention is to target “activities that undermine the security of Canada,” including “terrorism” and gives unprecedented powers to law enforcement – especially CSIS – to widely define “terrorism” and deal with any such “threats.”
The lack of specificity in this bill should concern us all. Four past prime ministers, supreme court justices, justice ministers, solicitors general, privacy commissioners, and members of the security and intelligence review committees have written the government expressing their serious concerns. Legal opinion is that C-51 negates most of that which our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is intended to protect. Who would have ever thought George Orwell’s 1984 is so close to becoming our reality?
Jordan EllisNanaimo