High-priced security: Bill C-36, Canada's new anti-terrorist legislation, was crafted after the deadly attacks in the United States in September 2001. It gives law-enforcement authorities in Canada new powers of detention, investigation, and surveillance, but some think law-enforcers need to be restrained too. (Terrorism - Freedom).

Faced with a new terrorism threat, Canada's government has enacted a far-reaching law that gives authorities extraordinary powers to curtail the civil fights of Canadian citizens. Under the law, police are able to:

* Arrest people who have committed no crime but are suspected of planning to do so;

* Keep evidence secret, even from the accused;

* Deny the fight to remain silent and not give testimony that might lead to one's own conviction.

The bill also allows for the freezing and seizure of the assets of terrorists and their supporters, as well as the establishment of a list of terrorist organizations and individuals. Until a massive amount of criticism erupted, the federal government was unwilling to even consider putting a sunset clause on the Act. A sunset clause means that an automatic review of the need for keeping a law on the books takes place after a set period of time, usually five years. Without a sunset clause, Parliament would have to revoke the Act to get rid of it - a very unlikely occurrence.

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA), which represents 37,000 lawyers across the country, thought the bill should expire in three years unless it is specifically extended by a vote in Parliament.

"When governments seek to impose such restraints on fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly with limited time available for study and debate, those restraints must be limited in duration," said a CBA brief presented to a government justice committee. The CBA said there should also be safeguards to ensure that legitimate organizations don't fall under the legislation: "The sections which prohibit financing of terrorism could curtail fundraising on behalf of groups fighting for the victims of oppressive regimes." The association also raised concerns about possible discrimination against minority groups who, under the provision for preventive arrests, could be unjustly detained as suspected terrorists for up to 72 hours without a warrant. Others expressed concern about the criminalization of peaceful protests. This was an issue long before the anti-terrorism bill, looking back to the treatment of even peaceful protesters at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001, and the APEC summit in Vancouver in 1997. As Peter Tabuns, executive director of Greenpeace Canada, and Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby explained in an article in The Globe and Mail in October 2001: "The value a democracy places upon the right of its citizens to say it is wrong is the hallmark of freedom. Our sense of freedom is already fragile. Freedom need not be undermined in the name of protecting it ..."

Alan Gold, president of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association was also critical of the bill, saying it violates fundamental freedoms with no real increase in security. "It strikes me as bizarre to defend liberty by giving up liberty," he said, commenting that the new measures threaten to turn Canada into a police state.

Doesn't placing such curbs on our civil liberties mean that the terrorists have won? The government doesn't think so: it takes the view that Canada is not a free and democratic society if its citizens live in fear, and maintains that the bill respects the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Britain and the United States have enacted their own anti-terror legislation to, as The Economist has put it, "get things done unfettered by the pesky rules of the law."

Between September 11 and mid-December, the U.S. issued three "terrorism advisories" citing credible evidence that another attack of some sort was about to take place. With everyone so edgy all the terrorists have to do is leak some misinformation to create the chaos they seek. Of course, it's possible that the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attacks have more planned. And, that's reason enough to be edgy, but others are concerned about what they view as excessive anti-terrorist legislation: they say it's essential that any new police powers must be as limited as possible, balancing them with civil liberties. This group argues that police forces across the country have already shown a willingness to act outside the law. (They refer to cases such as the wrongful convictions of Steven Truscott, Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Thomas Sophonow, and others.) Many believe it's inevitable that extra police powers will be improperly used against a variety of targets.

Americans several years ago started to feel they were prepared to sacrifice cherished personal freedoms to combat a worldwide terrorist threat. In 1996, a Florida airline worker said, "We really thought we were invincible. We're not, so now we're going to have to give up some of our freedoms." His comment was made in the wake of two tragedies - the downing of TWA Flight 800, and the Centennial Park bombing in Atlanta in July 1996 during the Olympic Games.

But, how much freedom Americans were prepared to give up became a topic of heated debate. Some argued that a nation that was built on the notion of liberty was filled with people who distrust authority and naturally balked at the idea of having their personal freedom cut by public security.

After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which turned out to be an act carried out by American extremists, then-president Bill Clinton tried to push through a strong anti-terrorism act aimed at international terrorists. The legislation had to be watered down though, because of public concern over the accompanying loss of freedom. But, two terrorist attacks a year later led to a series of measures to crack down on domestic and international terrorists. These ranged from giving the FBI sweeping wiretapping authority to putting in place tighter airport security procedures. At the time, it was estimated that more than 3,000 bombs were going off in the United States every year. Still, a terrorism expert argued that the terrorism threat in the U.S. had been exaggerated and, besides, he said, the new legislation would do little to deter committed terrorists.

Two years later, in 1998, The Economist was critical of Britain and Ireland for new antiterrorism laws that included "a potentially dangerous restriction of civil liberties." The magazine questioned whether the new laws were either necessary or wise as they were aimed primarily at a small group, the "Real IRA," which split from the Irish Republic Army and was responsible for a nasty bombing in August 1998 at Omagh. "Emergency legislation has a miserable history in Britain," according to the report. "It has not only failed to halt terrorism, it has often helped to fuel it by creating miscarriages of justice that have undermined rather than supported the rule of law ..."

Similarly, a wave of terrorist attacks in France in 1986 led to a law that turned such cases over to a team of anti-terrorist judges. They were given extensive powers to crack down on terrorists even if it meant unjustifiably detaining suspects. Critics say the whole approach destroys one of the basic tenets of a just society, that of the presumption of innocence, leaving suspects in custody who have not been proven guilty in a court of law, sometimes for years.

As The Economist also pointed out in November 2001, "... one of the chief aims of most terrorists, including Osama bin Laden and his ilk, is to undermine the long-established, hard-won freedoms of liberal societies. In a democracy, one of the chief aims of those in office should be to preserve them."

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said after the September 11 attacks: "As we respond to this national crisis - and respond we must - we must not take for granted our basic freedoms, including steadfast commitment to civil liberties and tolerance of others ... nor look the other way when they are undermined. For if we do, the enemy will have won." Discuss what you think is the best balance of national security and personal freedom.

2. In an arable in The Globe and Mail in September 2001, Anthony Westell wrote that: "when President George W. Bush elevated crimes into war, he vastly overstated their significance. The loss of about 5,000 lives and the damage to property is shocking, but it doesn't compare with what is to be expected in a war." Discuss this comment and what you think might have happened if the U.S. reaction had been more restrained.

3. When Prime Minister Jean Chretien spoke to the House of Commons about Canada's commitment to the war on terrorism, he got his strongest audience response when he talked of using caution. He referred to the injustice of the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War as an example of how we failed the test of values and the rule of law in the past. Do a report on our mistreatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II.

Websites

Department of Justice - http: //canada.justice.gc.ca// en/terrorism/

Straight Goods Public Forum - http://www. straightgoods.com/C-36Teach-in/Index.asp

A NOTE OF CAUTION

In November 2001, public pressure resulted in changes to the Canadian government's proposed anti-terrorism bill. Amendments to Bill C-36 included a five-year sunset clause on new police powers of arrest and detention, and a reworded definition of terrorism to ensure legitimate protest is not suppressed. The changes cover two of the most controversial police powers in the bill - investigative hearings in which police can force someone to testify on terrorist activities, and preventive arrests, under which people suspected of planning a terrorist act can be detained for up to 72 hours without charge. The built-in safeguard means that the two provisions will lapse unless specifically renewed by Parliament every five years.

Justice Minister Anne McLellan also proposed to tighten the definition of a "terrorist act" in the bill to make sure that activities such as illegal strikes and Native blockades were not included. She also proposed an amendment clearly stating that non-violent expressions of political, religious, or ideological beliefs do not constitute terrorist acts, to address concerns that the bill might discriminate against ethnic groups. While many felt more amendments were needed, the Canadian Bar Association, a major critic of the bill, was happy with the proposed changes.

Bill C-36 isn't the only anti-terrorism legislation causing concern: companion Bill C-42, the Public Safety Act, also has its critics. This allows the minister of defence to designate areas as military zones if he or she feels there is a threat to national security and international relations. Critics say the bill gives far too much discretion to the minister: they're concerned about possible abuses such as the government using the military to seal off Kananaskis, Alberta from legitimate protesters during the 2002 G8 meeting. Then there's Bill C-35, which expands the definition of an "internationally protected person" to include foreign dignitaries, for example: the bill goes on to classify many actions taken against "protected persons" as terrorist activities. Again, critics worry that together these bills will destroy the right to protest outside of international meetings. Legal protests become not just criminal acts, but terrorist acts.

As one concerned Canadian columnist concluded in an article in The Toronto Star in December 2001: "... exceptional measures require exceptional safeguards to spare the law-abiding while hunting down the criminals. That's what is clearly missing in the Liberal bills and in official actions already well underway."

FACT FILE

Canada's Bill C-36 is not emergency legislation; it is meant as a permanent fixture enabling Canada's participation in an ongoing battle against international terrorism.

FACT FILE

Canadian journalist Patti Sonntag, who lives in Manhattan, was told by a number of lawyers that her writing, which often is about Muslim people, could endanger her life if someone at the U.S. immigration department decided she might have "terrorist associations," despite the fact that she is of Irish descent.

FACT FILE

According to The Economist, in November 2001, many of an estimated 5,000 detainees in the U.S. have reportedly been held in harsh conditions, and not allowed to contact a lawyer or to notify relatives of their arrest.