To date, 43 cities across Canada are planning actions against Bill C-51 on March 14. People are picketing their member of parliament’s offices, rallying, marching, talking and building awareness about this new assault on our civil liberties. Visit our three minute action to find out about petitions you can sign and rallies you can attend to oppose the bill.
rabble.ca bloggers, like Karl Nerenberg, have been raising alarms about this bill since it was first introduced. According to most expert accounts, this bill could weaken privacy protections and threaten civil liberties and give the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP powers like preventative arrest and the ability to disrupt potential terrorist activities (through illegal means if a court warrant were to allow it).
Former prime ministers have spoken out against Bill C-51, and, as Karl Nerenberg reported in a later article, our Privacy Commissioner, Commissioner Therrien, wrote to Conservative MP Daryl Kramp saying:
“The scale of information sharing being proposed is unprecedented, the scope of the new powers conferred by the Act is excessive, particularly as these powers affect ordinary Canadians, and the safeguards protecting against unreasonable loss of privacy are seriously deficient.”
After Bill C-51 was introduced, we saw the disheartening Angus Reid polling numbers, reported by the Globe and Mail, saying 82 per cent of Canadians backed the new legislation to expand the powers of intelligence agencies and police. As I see the fire in the bellies of the organizers fighting for civil liberties across this country on this National Day of Action against Bill C-51, I am convinced that this number will shift. Polling is a way to take the temperature, and things are heating up. Stay tuned to rabble.ca for live streaming, toolkits and other ways to keep the temperature high and keep standing up for your civil liberties.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
