Editor:
I am afraid – not as afraid as a Gypsy or Jew in prewar Germany, but I keep thinking I should be.
Bill C-51 gives us a secret police force that has the ability to spy on us. Stormtroopers if you like.
The government would have free access to our private information, our financial and medical well-being, our opinion if expressed openly in any form, our affiliations with any religious or political group and more. The control and power over us that this information gives any controlling group is absolute.
The free press that we grew up with being eroded, and we will soon be posting secret hand-bills under cover of darkness in order to feel comfortable expressing an opinion like the one I am expressing here. All of this power to no good end.
Too much information is as ineffective against terrorism as none. The good stuff gets buried. And perhaps even more frightening is the ability to use it against you.
If we have no knowledge of what is being collected, we have no ability to argue. This may mean, for example, that the off-hand comment you made about not liking a certain foreign political leader may mean that, when this information is collected and shared, you are prevented from taking a flight or even detained on foreign soil.
Our own government has admitted that C-51 is fundamentally flawed.
Considering this government’s attitude towards environmental activism and their catastrophic inability to move away from carbon-based energy, I am deeply worried about those who have a stronger conscience regarding the stewardship of our planet.
Bill C-51 is frightening. Our prime minister is pushing it through against public opinion and I disagree. It doesn’t take much imagination to see where this bill could lead us.
Janice McKenzie, Surrey
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The Harper government is intent on pushing through Bill C-51 even though 71 per cent of Canadians are against this bill. How can the government ignore the opinions of a large majority of Canadians? Why is the government so intent on pushing Bill C-51 through?
It gives CSIS unparalleled powers to spy on innocent Canadians without their knowledge and to share their sensitive information with no less than 17 different government agencies and even foreign governments.
Does Canada need a secret police agency with little oversight or accountability? The government acknowledges this bill is flawed.
Canadians ask the government to go back to the table and start over.
Corinne Wilander, White Rock
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In January 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the following statement to the German Bundestag: “The possibility of total digital surveillance touches the essence of our life. It is thus an ethical task that goes far beyond the politics of security. Millions of people who live in undemocratic states are watching very closely how the world’s democracies react to threats to their security: whether they act circumspectly, in sovereign self-assurance, or undermine precisely what in the eyes of these millions of people makes them so attractive-freedom and the dignity of the individual.”
Bill-C51 does not meet this ethical test. In seeking to protect us, but in not providing necessary oversight or accountability, it undermines our freedoms. Governments, of whatever political stripe, tend to stretch and extend their powers unless there are clear limits on their actions. Bill C-51 must be stopped.
Peter Ferris, Surrey
