Last month, some patriotic and concerned Canadians took to the street to protest against a bill that will authorize law enforcement and the intelligence agencies in the country to spy on the public in the name of national security.
National days of protest have been happening every month since the bill was proposed before the House of Commons. It has been dubbed “National Day of Action” by activists, to show their strong opposition to the bill which will deprive them their privacy if passed into law.
What makes the protests even more unique is that not only ordinary citizens are against it, it is said four former Canadian Prime Ministers are also against the bill. That should ring a bell in your ears by now.
The bill is known as C-51, and activists say it is comparable to the Patriot Act passed in the United States and signed into law by George W. Bush, after the 9/11 attack.
Many believe that the bill is in response to the Ottawa shooting, and acts of violence that the government likes to blame on “Islamic extremism” or “violent Jihad”.
The bill is said to have the support of the ruling Conservative government and the Liberal Party of Canada. The usual excuse by the Canadian government, as it is in the US Patriot Act, is the deliberate creation of public fear and panic that there is an imminent terror attack and that the bill will help to address and eliminate these potential threats of terrorism.
C-51 has already been passed in the House of Commons and it is now on the table of the Senate, who has the final authority on whether to accept it or reject it entirely. A deep source within the Senate has said that 15 Senators oppose the bill, five are in support and 52 are undecided as of yet.
The bill ranges from increased surveillance and spy oversight, which Edward Snowden described as “the weakest in the Western world”. Spy agencies, like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service acting as secret police forces, will have the preemptive power to detain anyone that law enforcement deems threatening based on suspicion alone.
An activist against the bill- Mike Roy, wrote on revolution-news.com:
“The Canadian government as well as CSIS, CSEC, RCMP and local police forces will have access to all of the information about us available, and yet we get access to very little of theirs. They can share our information between each other, including internationally with other spies who are part of the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance. They can watch everything we say and do online. They can track us in real life. They can and will infiltrate us, and they will legally target anyone that they deem hostile and any group they consider “threatening” to Canada’s interests. In the end, what C-51 comes down to is an information war”.
Roy also emphasized the need for all Canadians to have their privacy:
“The more information a government entity has on you, the more power they have…including the ability to threaten, intimidate, and manipulate you through fear and control. To be without privacy is to be without autonomy because surveillance forces us to police ourselves. Therefore the powerful win. And rather than question the motives of politicians or question power at all, many people still operate under the framework of “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,” evidence that the conditioning process is not imminent but already occurring. In the end, society ends up doing the National Security work for the spies and politicians under the illusion of protecting freedom they don’t have, while truly believing that they have it. In other words, there is a serious power imbalance perpetuated by C-51 that is nothing less than fascist”.
As it stands now, anti-C51 organizers all over Canada are now shifting the pressure from the elected representatives (MPs) in the House of Commons to the Senators. Many activists have said that despite their protest, if the bill is passed into the law, they will continue to educate people about the harmful nature of the law.
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