Toronto demo against Bill C-51. Demotix/ R.Jeanette Martin. All rights reserved.This month will go down as the most illiberal month in Canadian history. It didn’t all happen in May, but May is definitely the month where the covers were pulled off the whole operation.
First, Bill C-51 was passed into law on May 6, making possible the prosecution of anybody who interfered with “the economic or financial stability of Canada” (along with a host of other troubling expansions of the power of Canada’s security forces). Want to protest the oil sands or a new pipeline? Oil is important to Canada’s economic or financial stability, so you had better think twice before you “interfere”, get labeled a terrorist, and are prosecuted under the so-called “Anti-Terrorism Act”. Do you support Québec separatism or Indigenous land claims? If you want to do something about anything the government might not like, you better be ready to lawyer-up now that Bill C-51 is on the books.
OK, so you can’t in any meaningful way protest the Government of Canada’s actions without facing the possibility of prosecution, but that leaves something like 205 other states whose actions you can protest without facing the possibility of prosecution, right?
