By Alison@Creekside
On Thursday, three days after the Boston Marathon bombings, the Cons still had an opposition day scheduled for Monday — a day on which the opposition parties set the day’s agenda. But then on Friday, an hour after learning that Justin Trudeau would spend it introducing his “Backbenchers’ Spring” motion, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan suddenly announced that opp day was cancelled due to the vital national importance of debating the Combating Terrorism Act instead . . . because of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Sure, whatever.
Notable that the S-7 Combating Terrorism Act would have passed already in its previous incarnations as Bill C-17 and C-19 if Steve hadn’t prorogued Parliament. On September 22, 2010 the entire Liberal Party but one voted along with the Cons to pass C-17. Then on October 23, 2012, the entire Liberal Party save five voted in favour of S-7.
Dear Libs: This is why you can’t be taken seriously as a credible opposition to Steve or a partner in any coalition against Steve. Prior to the last election, you expected to be given a pass for voting along with Steve hundreds of times owing to the fact you couldn’t afford to bring down the government because you weren’t ready to have an election. You don’t have that excuse any longer. Really looking forward to hearing your cautious mousy noises about innocent citizens being incarcerated without trial before you all vote along with Steve once again, just so no one can call you soft on terrorism. From CTV News:
“Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia said that the Liberals will be supporting Bill S-7 and noted that many of the original measures were first introduced by the Chretien government in 2001.”
S-7. Let’s suppose you know someone, perhaps your landlord or a colleague at work, that the government suspects may one day in the future commit an act of terrorism. You can be detained for up to three days without charge while being questioned. You don’t get to hear, let alone challenge, any evidence given against you or your colleague, even if it’s tortured out of someone you’ve never heard of in Syria, and you can be held without trial for a year if you don’t co-operate.
Sure, you’re a model citizen, but are you sure you don’t know any of these people for instance?
“. . . domestic extremism . . . is ‘based on grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism.'” (From Building Resilience Against Terrorism: Canada’s Counter-terrorism Strategy, Public Safety Canada 2012, introduced by Vic Toews)
Which is merely a rehash of the language in:
2010 G8 Summit — Integrated Security Unit Joint Intelligence Group
but minus the reference to “First nations’ resource-based grievances”:
“1a The Terrorist Threat
1b The Public Order Threat
‘The 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville . . . will likely be subject to actions taken by criminal extremists motivated by a variety of radical ideologies. These ideologies may include variants of anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, nihilism, socialism and/or communism. These ideologies may also include notions of racial supremacy and white power . . .
‘The important commonality is that these ideologies . . . place these individuals and/or organizations at odds with the status quo and the current distribution of power in society.
‘In addition to these generally held tenets, a variety of grievances exist: These grievances are based upon notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First nations’ [sic] resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and distribution of wealth etc.'”
The G8/G20 — in which thousands of people got locked up for days for no reason whatsoever.
So who wants to see the G8/G20 pilot project experiment in “terrorism” law enforcement expanded into law right across Canada?
The Cons have had this version of the terrorism bill lying around for months, just waiting for a day when they needed to change the channel, and that day has come — they decided to have the third reading on embedding preventative arrest and secret trials in law for no other reason than to change the channel on Justin Trudeau.
10:45 a.m. Monday update: After watching the proceedings for an hour and a half, I must apologize for writing re the Libs:
Really looking forward to hearing your cautious mousy noises about innocent citizens being incarcerated without trial before you all vote along with Steve once again, just so no one can call you soft on terrorism.
I take it back — they are not even bothering to do that much.
Aside from the two Lib MPs questioning the timing of bringing this bill forward now to offset Trudeau’s backbencher freedom motion, the only debate going on is among NDP MPs regarding provisions of the Act. After opening remarks from Con Public Safety parlsec Candice Bergen, the Cons have not responded once.
2 pm Monday update: So “Operation Smooth“, carried out by Homeland Security, FBI, and Canadian law enforcement, thwarted the Trainspotter Two without the benefit of the Combating Terrorism Act. Huh.
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