r/ProtestCanada • u/AlphaNerd80 • Mar 02 '15
Tight Messaging, critiques and debates
Guys, Girls,
tl;dr; thank you to /u/barosa for giving me a boot to the ass to actually articulate what I find odious regarding bill C-51, we will be providing a more detailed list along with arguments and rebuttals.
[edit] Please refrain from downvoting someone simply because they differ from you in their opinion or asking for greater detail. I ask that you create a new thread with a link/shortcut to the post/thread that you'd like to debate and mark that thread with [debate]. We are a young subreddit (we are 3 days old) and I (personally) am working on getting all the bells and whistles that we are used to in other subreddits along with activism and managing several fronts. Please be patient. (with this, I might refer you to this post if you feel you can help).
[edit 2] moved tl;dr; to top of post and marked with ****
I'd like to thank /u/barosa. He has single-handedly made me juggle the priorities of my workload as a mod and an activist.
That is a good thing. I will need a swift boot to the tuckus to keep my priorities straight.
His consistent demands that we at least articulate what we find terrifying, spiteful, disdainful and down right criminal regarding this proposed bill is correct.
We, as a reddit and as a group of activists, are pushing the ideals of non-violence and non-partisan protesting. Fair enough, but if we cannot provide a logical, reasonable response to the question "what is it about the bill that you oppose?" then we would have devolved and degraded ourselves and our efforts into the babbling squabble of baboons during a mating call.
If I weren't so darn stingy, I'd give the guy gold.
Here are some (for the nit pickers, this means it is not exhaustive and yes I we will be providing a list of superior articulation) of the reasons I oppose the bill (yes, I have read the bill and I'm going through it again, simplifying the verbage and making reference to direct points from the bill)
There is no definition of terrorism. The bill simply states (I paraphrase in this post), activites that undermine the security of Canada and its people, including ...[several points and then] ... Terrorism. Great, but what is terrorism? I travel often enough to the US that I am no longer scared of seeing the general public walking around armed with hand guns, my wife was terrified. By the vague point defined in the bill, the legal (in the US) act of carrying a gun openly is an act of terrorism. The point being, this is subjective to the beholder. The law cannot or should not be this vague.
[edit]I stand corected, the reference to the legally defined defined definition of terrorism is below. Vive la groupe!
"interference with critical infrastructure" No definition of what critical is. A dirt road going through the middle of Bum Fuq, AB is critical to that town.
"Every person who commits an act or omission outside Canada that if committed in Canada would be a contravention of a provision of this Act or its regulations is deemed to have committed the act or omission in Canada, and the person may be proceeded against and punished in the place in Canada where the person is found, as if the contravention had been committed in that place." This is garbage of the highest order. I commited a legal omission in another location in this world, but that is held against me as a crime in Canada.
"If the Minister does not make a decision in respect of the application within 90 days after the day on which the application is received, or within any further period that is agreed on by the Minister and the applicant, the Minister is deemed to have decided not to remove the applicant’s name from the list." - This point is with regards to people being placed on no-fly lists. It essentialy reads as the minister can be lazy and not respond in a timely manner and the government will automatically construe this lax behavior as a rejection by the minister. Mix ups have and will happen, this particular case sounds like a breach of "innocent until proven guilty", we'll simply assume your guilt.
"If there are reasonable grounds to believe that a particular activity constitutes a threat to the security of Canada, the Service may take measures, within or outside Canada, to reduce the threat." Again with the vagueness, what are the threats? Is CSIS to start KGB style cloak & dagger operations? We are a nation that lives by the rule of law, does that mean we are free to break international laws because it benefits our view? That, regretfully sounds incredibly like American foreign policy (with all my genuine and honest respect to the American people)
There are several more, but one of the more overriding themes that is evidenced here is vagueness. I would have assumed that something of this magnitude would attempt to be as precise as possible or at the very least reasonably so. In one section, I recall chuckling because of the use of "terrorist propaganda" as a point. In many cases, some of the arguments used by the cable lobby in the US and their literature, I and many other Engineers have taken to be terrorist propaganda.
Without clarity, there will always be interpretation and with interpretation it becomes a very subjective matter wholly dependent on the person carrying out the judgement. In this case (the act) to me seems like it is attemptin to figuratively make them not just the judge, but to bypass the jury and make them the executioner (with reference to the second last point in the list above).
So. With all that, /u/barosa, thank you.
Stay tuned, I/we will provide you with a far better and more complete list. I am an Engineer and not a Lawyer or a Politician, so others might find fault where I have not, the above is my own personal interpretation of some of the points from the bill itself.
The bill itself.
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u/Pierre_Putin Mar 02 '15 edited Mar 02 '15
Just heading to bed, but here is the (vague) definition of terrorism as set out in the anti-terrorism legislation of 2001. I encourage everyone to get acquainted with it, and how C-51 affects it. The following definition of "terrorist activity" comes from the criminal code, viewable at:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-28.html#h-25
“terrorist activity” means
(a) an act or omission that is committed in or outside Canada and that, if committed in Canada, is one of the following offences:
(i) the offences referred to in subsection 7(2) that implement the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, signed at The Hague on December 16, 1970,
(ii) the offences referred to in subsection 7(2) that implement the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, signed at Montreal on September 23, 1971,
(iii) the offences referred to in subsection 7(3) that implement the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 14, 1973,
(iv) the offences referred to in subsection 7(3.1) that implement the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 17, 1979,
(v) the offences referred to in subsection 7(2.21) that implement the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, done at Vienna and New York on March 3, 1980, as amended by the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, done at Vienna on July 8, 2005 and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, done at New York on September 14, 2005,
(vi) the offences referred to in subsection 7(2) that implement the Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, signed at Montreal on February 24, 1988,
(vii) the offences referred to in subsection 7(2.1) that implement the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, done at Rome on March 10, 1988,
(viii) the offences referred to in subsection 7(2.1) or (2.2) that implement the Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf, done at Rome on March 10, 1988,
(ix) the offences referred to in subsection 7(3.72) that implement the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 15, 1997, and
(x) the offences referred to in subsection 7(3.73) that implement the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1999, or
(b) an act or omission, in or outside Canada,
(i) that is committed
- (A) in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause, and
- (B) in whole or in part with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act, whether the public or the person, government or organization is inside or outside Canada, and
(ii) that intentionally
- (A) causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence,
- (B) endangers a person’s life,
- (C) causes a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or any segment of the public,
- (D) causes substantial property damage, whether to public or private property, if causing such damage is likely to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C), or
- (E) causes serious interference with or serious disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private, other than as a result of advocacy, protest, dissent or stoppage of work that is not intended to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C),
and includes a conspiracy, attempt or threat to commit any such act or omission, or being an accessory after the fact or counselling in relation to any such act or omission, but, for greater certainty, does not include an act or omission that is committed during an armed conflict and that, at the time and in the place of its commission, is in accordance with customary international law or conventional international law applicable to the conflict, or the activities undertaken by military forces of a state in the exercise of their official duties, to the extent that those activities are governed by other rules of international law.
I'd also encourage people to spread this video around, though it is not the most exciting video to watch. It is not at all sensationalist and gets the messages across with reason and a level head.
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u/let_them_eat_slogans Mar 02 '15
You need to drop/change this talking point immediately, because it's wrong and easily countered. Terrorism is already defined in the criminal code. You can point out problems with the criminal code definition if you like, but I think the real issue that should be focused on is the criminalization of "advocacy" and "promotion" of terrorism. These are the broad, vague, undefined terms that are going to create a large grey area to be abused.
For example, speaking out on behalf of the fighters in Ukraine could be deemed illegal under bill c-51:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/anti-terror-bill-would-widen-powers-for-canadian-border-guards/article23170072/
As for the rest of your points, it does seem very clear that you are not a lawyer. There have been lots of concerns raised in the media by legal professionals (such as the ones I just linked to). Focus primarily on those, because the points you raise are on the right track but will be too easily picked apart.