The Conservative government’s Combating Terrorism Act, S-7, originated in the Senate nearly two years ago, and has been making stately progress toward adoption by the House of Commons.
Then suddenly last Friday, government House leader Peter Van Loan called for a debate on third and final reading on Monday and Tuesday. In doing so, he was quite within the rules. The government controls the order paper.
The Globe and Mail thought it “smacked of political opportunism.” Imagine, politics being mixed up in the political process. Timing being important in politics, it played a role in the government calling this audible.
First, the Boston Marathon bombings last Monday, and the subsequent chase and shootout with the Chechen suspects overnight on Thursday.
Then, the “root cause” comments of Justin Trudeau, recorded as part of a CBC feature interview last Monday, whose broadcast was delayed until the following evening because of the Boston bombing, less than two hours before Trudeau’s sit-down interview with Peter Mansbridge. Trudeau’s remarks can be read as either thoughtful comment, or soft on terrorism.
And then, in what may not have been a coincidence, the RCMP news conference on Monday afternoon, announcing the arrest of two non-Canadian residents in an alleged plot to blow up a Via Rail train in Toronto. The RCMP and CSIS evidently worked on the case with the FBI. Did Van Loan know this was in the wind when he made the call on Friday? Certainly Public Security Minister Vic Toews would have been informed, and possibly the prime minister.
A season of terror seems to be an appropriate moment for a debate on terrorism, and the delicate balance between security and civil liberties — whether and when the former should trump the latter. After all, we do have this thing called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, entrenched in the Constitution. At the Justice Department, they have a standing rule that all legislation must be “Charter proof.”
The bill would allow investigative hearings under which a witness could be imprisoned up to a month for refusing to testify before a judge.
A suspect could be held for three days without being charged, under a section on recognizance without conditions.
And it would be a criminal offence to leave or attempt “to leave Canada to commit a criminal offence.” This is a new wrinkle in the wake of young Canadians participating in terrorist acts in Algeria and Bulgaria.
And with the alleged Via Rail plot, it’s clear Canadians should not take their own safety for granted. Anyone who takes the train from Montreal or Ottawa to Toronto would have been thinking of that on Monday. For that matter, the “Toronto 18” conspired to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange and start an al-Qaeda cell.
Whether foreign or domestic, there are persons who are alienated from the mainstream of society, and the government has a constitutional duty to maintain “peace, order and good government,” along with maintaining Charter rights.
And when they got to third reading on Monday, MPs actually had a debate in the committee of the whole. The main speaker for the Liberals was Montreal MP Francis Scarpaleggia, the party’s public-security critic.
The Liberals are supporting the terrorism bill because it reinstates aspects of Liberal legislation after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which later lapsed. That was all the cover they needed for the Liberal brand being two mints in one — a security mint and a Charter mint. Though Scarpaleggia was reading a text, he spoke with evident conviction.
As did those on the other side. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May opposed the bill on the grounds it offended Charter rights. So did the NDP. Charlie Angus spoke to both sides of the issue. On the one hand, “we’re not going to let them win.” On the other, he maintained, the terrorism bill is “legislation that takes away basic fundamental rights.”
The participating MPs asked questions of one another. They gave answers. It was Parliament at its best — the central forum of Canadian democracy.
L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy magazine.
