The controversial Bill C-51 passed and became law as of June 9, 2015. This much disputed act is the result of two terrorist attacks that occurred in October 2014- one of which took place in Parliament House, that lead to the death of two Canadian soldiers- Warrant officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo. The anti-terrorist bill, or Bill C-51, was promptly proposed by the Conservative party to try and prevent similar events from happening in the future. But its crackdown on terrorist propaganda leads to increased online surveillance, giving Canada’s intelligence agency (CSE) access tocitizen’s confidential information, including “health, passport applications and personal taxes” etc. Concerns over the insurmountable increase in power this gives to the CSE, and the limitations it imposes on free speech have drawn a national outcry amongst educators and producers of creativity.
Canadian journalist, photographer and blogger Ahmad Saeid is one out of many creative artists who has voiced his worries about the bill and its potential infringement on free speech. The bill amends the Criminal Code to expand its definition of propagation crimes that include “advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general.” Individuals who are found guilty for advocating terrorist actions can be sentenced up to five years in jail. “As a Muslim blogger”, Ahmad finds the last two words of the amendment “in general” to be “particularly disturbing”, and he raises a series of apprehensive questions that complicate the realities of the bill.
“Let’s say I write a blog post expressing my views as a Muslim on any current world event, and someone in CSIS finds that my opinion is “in general” supporting or encouraging terrorism, what then? How can I be absolutely sure no one at CSIS will have an interpretation that my text is “in general” supportive of terrorism?”
The policy doesn’t require the individual to necessarily perform the terrorist action; it only requires the potentiality for action to find guilt. It allows for government authorities to freely condemn, “without oversight or accountability”- expressive content that might merely draw on terrorist issues, or act as an instigator for conversations about this topic. In an article written by the Canadian Journalist for Free Expression, “Bill C-51 would jeopardize the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom” it is noted that the amendment “would unduly and unnecessarily limit Canadians’ freedom of expression and ability to engage in proper democratic debate”. Writers like Ahmad who discuss radical topics, like terrorism, are now forced to write cautiously under this looming censorship, in “constant fear of being arrested”. He says in particular that “Muslim youths [will be] less likely to share their views, out of fear of prosecution”.
The bill also requires Internet service providers (ISP) to remove any material that a judge with “reasonable grounds to believe” as terrorist propaganda or information “that makes terrorist propaganda available”, without the say of the content provider. “It ties the hands of writers, bloggers, and activists in speaking about controversial issues,” Ahmad writes in a commentary piece, “and limits the abilities of religious communities to detect and interfere to prevent endangered youth from being radicalized, by forcing them to keep their views away from public eyes.” By criminalizing the discussion of the general topic of terrorism, the Canadian government is shutting down a public space for constructive and progressive conversations.
In an article published on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Clayton Ruby and Nadar Hasan raise concerns over the increase in circumstantial online surveillance, which will regulate the flow of new ideas. “Student will think twice before posting an article on Facebook questioning military action against insurgents overseas,” they write, “journalists will be wary of questioning government decisions to add groups to Canada’s list of terrorist entities”. By embedding fear into an environment of free speech, citizens will grow more hesitant to hold the government accountable for their actions.
In an open letter published on September 29, author Margaret Atwood and several other creative Canadian forces highlighted the totalitarian nature of Bill C-51 against the “creative arts and free expression in this country”. Like Ahmad, they ask a set of particular questions such as “Is it promoting terrorism if we: write a spy novel about an assassination plot? Record a song questioning our government’s agenda? Paint a mural about the conflict in Syria?” that would have been rhetorical before the bill, but now may be scrutinized under the obscurity of the newfound laws. “Creativity, expression, opinion, and art are not the same as terrorist propaganda,” the letter points out, and “through its “chill” effect, C1 undermines one of the chief freedoms of a democratic society: the right of every Canadian to free speech and free expression, including free artistic expression.”
Issues over privacy have dominated critic discussions, where the bill orders ISPs to “provide the information that is necessary to identify and locate the person who posted the material” if it is found to be affiliated with terrorism. This has caused controversy with the ruling of the Supreme Court in June, where Canadians maintain the right to stay anonymous online. Christopher Parsons, the managing director of the Citizen Lab’s Telecom Transparency Project at the Munk Centre for Global Affairs, says that “he’s concerned about ISPs handing over subscriber information” to law enforcements without a “judicial process” to obtain a warrant first. This puts Canadian citizens in a dangerous position, as their fundamental rights for privacy may collide with the policies of the bill, an issue that lacks proper acknowledgment from Parliament.
Concern has also been raised over the subjectivity of the term “terrorist propaganda”. Rozita Dara, a computer science professor at the University of Guelph mentions the difficulties involved in “distinguishing between someone expressing an opinion and someone who’s recruiting or publishing propaganda”. As human errors are inevitable, a case of miscommunication or a misunderstanding could result in serious consequences for unintentional offenders. Atwood’s open letter mentions this issue saying, “because of this vague wording,” the term “could be interpreted in some very stupid ways”.
Under the new law, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is authorized “to take, within and outside Canada, measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada”. Again, the ambiguity of this statement brings with it an undefined number of possibilities of what could be defined as “threats to security.” Samara Zaifman, the author of the article “Cutting Through the Rhetoric of Bill C-51: A Legal Perspective” writes, “the federal government is using terrorism as an umbrella term to cover a variety of actions related to activism.”
Advocate groups such as the Indigenous Bar Association (IBA), wrote an open letter criticizing the bill for choosing a politics of fear over a politics of freedom”. The IBA, along with other critics point out that the bill is using political language as a subterfuge to make it easier to target First Nations people as well as environmental groups. In the article “Bill C-51 is about Control, not Terrorism” Gord Peters voices the troubling perspective of the indigenous population under the bill. He explains that his people have “resort[ed] to civil disobedience to be heard”, such as “block[ing] railroads, highways, march[ing] to parliament, fast[ing]”. He fears that “Bill C-51 will take away the one weapon [they] have and label [them] as terrorists for fighting for [their] inherent rights.” Lorena Sheply, a coordinator for the movement Idle No More expanded on this fear, saying “anybody who is interfering with the economic infrastructure of Canada — meaning tar sands pipelines and fracking…if you’re involved protesting or demonstrating those things you can be labelled as a terrorist.”
The regulations on free expression through art, public demonstrations or even in speech affects Canadian youths today. In a study mentioned on Youth Vote, “youth participation in democracy is not through formal politics, but through public demonstrations, petitions, community engagement and discussion on social media”. These forms of political participation can now be arbitrarily labeled as “threats to the security of Canada” and therefore “stigmatizing the democratic coming of age of an entire generation”. Suppressing a whole era of new ideas on the general topic of terrorism will actually produce a digression in the handling of this issue, and will “suppress our rights by creating a culture of fear”.
The Student Coalition for Privacy is a “broad coalition” of students from university campuses across Canada who is calling for a repeal of Bill C-51. Founded by Aaron Gluck Thaler in October 2015, the high levels of participators show that contemporary youths are self-aware of the politics surrounding their rights and constraints. In an opinion piece written by Thaler, he states
“As students, we understand that privacy is what enables social progress and creativity to flourish. When subjected to surveillance, we are not intellectually free to discuss controversial topics, test new ways of thinking, and organize politically without fear of our actions being used against us”.
Ahmad echoes Thaler’s statements, further adding that the law “risks making Canadian citizens in general, and Canada’s Muslims in particular, live as second-class citizens, and puts them under the mercy of security agencies’ agents…[that] decide which citizens deserve to have rights, and which ones don’t.” Minority groups who, as Youth Vote mentions “are already subjected to questionable and overreaching powers by security officials” will suffer most under a law that favours oppression over a free-thinking society.
The past federal election has initiated discussion about Bill C-51, and the newly elected Liberal party leader, Justin Trudeau has promised to “repeal problematic elements” of the law, despite voting in favour for it before. Further amendments to the Bill have not yet been confirmed.
