Canada Rejects Anti-Terror Laws

Coryoth writes "The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing anti-terror laws that had been introduced after September 11, 2001. The rejected laws included provisions to hold terror suspects indefinitely, and to compel witnesses to testify, and were in some sense Canada's version fo the Patriot Act. The laws were voted down in the face of claims from the minority Conservative government that the Liberal Party was soft on terror, and despite the fact that Canada has faced active terrorist cells in their own country. The anti-terror laws have never been used, and it was viewed that they are neither relevant, nor needed, in dealing with terrorist plots. Hopefully more countries will come to the same conclusion."

Comments

Makes me proud to be Canadian.

[jmagar.com]

The sunset clause kicked in and it has rightfully expired. But what amazes, and impresses, me most is that a number of MPs chose not to vote. Abstained. Their reasoning: The provisions have not been used, and thus can be argued to be not needed. But the conflicting position is that since they were not used, they were not abused. The environment that existed to warrant the creation of these provisions has not gone away, and since we have not abused the provisions, then we should keep them... just in case.

Both are sane positions, but I favor the one where civil rights are not taken away. A good day for all Canadians.

Coyne brings up an interesting point

[twilight30]

Generally, I don't agree with Coyne, but, he is pretty sensible for a Conservative, and I respect his opinions. Today's Post column brings up a good point:

It is a sign of the oddly disembodied nature of the debate that most of the points advanced could have been made by either side -- could and were. The sunsetted provisions, it was pointed out, one allowing police to arrest suspects without warrant and hold them for up to 72 hours, the other empowering judges to compel evidence at special investigative hearings, have never been used. Ha, says one side, so they're unnecessary! Ho, says the other, so they've hardly been abused, have they? In our knee-jerk anti-Tory attitude we often forget that the Liberals were the ones who proposed -- and passed -- this legislation in the first place.

ALL Laws should Auto-Sunset after a year.

[mikelieman]

If it's IMPORTANT it'll get renewed. If it's NOT IMPORTANT it'll just go away.

I don't see a downside. Anyone?

Re:Wow policies that dont work get revoked.

[Chris Burke]

Let's ignore the attacks on the USS Cole, and the bombing of the Embassy in Kenya and Tanzania, those don't count because they were under the Clinton Administration?

No, they don't count because they didn't happen on U.S. soil. You'd have to be insane to claim that there are fewer terrorist attacks on U.S. interests abroad today.

But the whole argument is that they'd be attacking us here if they weren't attacking us there. Clearly that isn't the case.

The simple answer is to claim the lions rock idea, which does make sense, but you probably don't live next door to a zoo, do you? Statistically you can predict that we should have been attacked in the last six years if we took no precaution, so that means in all likely hood the DHS works.

Statistically the last attack before 9/11 on U.S. soil was in 1993, so no you wouldn't necessarily expect there to have been an attack by now, and the lack of such an attack is completely inconclusive regarding the efficacy of DHS.

So one day after 10 years of peaceful living, I think to myself, well I've never been murdered or robbed, why don't I get rid of my gun and security system? Joe finds this out. Do you think I'm going to be safe the next day?

Well you were safe from Joe for the 10 years before you got the gun and security system, so yeah, I'd think it's safe to say that you overstated the threat of Joe, and really the gun and security system did nothing.

But that's not really the case. Before, you weren't without a security system, it was just a modest and practical one. Then one day Joe broke in, actually walked in by posing as a repair man which is actually his job, and you got all paranoid and decided you needed a gun and a super invasive security system that checked the bodily orfices of everyone that came into your house. Even though none of the security systems you implemented would have prevented Joe's attack, you still maintain that it is necessary. All it does is piss of your family and guests, though.

We fought terrorism before 9/11. We don't need USAPATRIOT or DHS to do it now.