Full Comment - How Canadians’ basic freedoms have been locked down during the pandemic

00:00:00.000 civil liberties during the age of covet it affects us all so you think it should be a unifying topic

00:00:09.220 but it's surprisingly controversial i noticed an argument that appeared on my twitter feed a few

00:00:13.900 weeks back where one person was just debating someone else and they claimed name a single

00:00:18.140 civil liberty that's actually been violated right now this is all for public health it's to beat

00:00:22.340 back a virus hold on though i say can't both those things be true simultaneously i mean even

00:00:27.460 if you support all of the restrictions on our lives aren't they still civil liberties violations

00:00:32.260 the government is telling you where you can go who you can see how far apart you can even stand from

00:00:37.480 other human beings and what if it's not all justified what redress do we have is there anyone asking those

00:00:44.020 questions is there anyone standing up for us well the canadian civil liberties association says that

00:00:49.580 their current focus is on quote monitoring the response to covet 19 to ensure it's based on science

00:00:55.500 and is not unnecessarily intrusive to our liberties let's get into how that experience has been

00:01:01.500 unfolding for them so far michael bryant is executive director and general counsel of the

00:01:06.300 canadian civil liberties association he joins us now hey michael how's it going good good to be here

00:01:11.900 yeah thanks so much for joining us so many so many things we can discuss right now so many so much

00:01:17.700 terrain we can cover so i guess i want to start by asking you as you've been watching all of this

00:01:21.980 unfold the past well we're getting into a year and a half now what have been some of the the worst

00:01:26.520 infringements that you have seen and the ones that have made you and your organization most go

00:01:30.620 hold on a second let's have a talk here you know that's uh that's a difficult uh question to answer

00:01:38.060 but i should be able to say that you know the top five worst civil liberties infringements over the past

00:01:44.320 year uh i'd say um that recently uh a an important moment happened on the subject when uh the premier of

00:01:56.860 ontario announced on a on a friday in um in april i believe it was that the uh government of ontario was

00:02:08.920 uh going to undertake a full lockdown again and that they'd added police powers and this was where

00:02:16.360 the civil liberties issue arose they were adding new police powers where the police could stop you on

00:02:21.340 the street without reasonable and probable cause without having witnessed you committing a crime

00:02:27.740 and could stop you detain you and undertake what in law we call search uh of the person in that you

00:02:37.500 ask them for their identification and you'd compel them to answer you your your right to remain silent

00:02:44.700 would not apply and you'd get a fine if you didn't answer them so this uh led to in the current

00:02:52.380 uh climate with respect to anti-black racism immediately led uh our organization and and you know

00:03:01.040 uh other organizations in particular uh chiefs of police across uh the province to react um negatively

00:03:11.260 we retained counsel we said we're going to bring a constitutional challenge it is blatantly unconstitutional

00:03:16.460 and uh the government reversed the what it was doing 24 hours later now why did it reduce

00:03:23.800 reverse what it was doing why did it get rid of those police powers no question uh a big impact was

00:03:30.800 uh the police force is speaking out against it and i'd like to think canadian civil liberties

00:03:36.480 association was part of that uh effort to speak against it but the police forces were in essence

00:03:44.480 saying this violation of rights is not one that we're willing to undertake and i think it was a a high

00:03:51.920 point in civil liberties arising out of a low point in civil liberties and so uh as such uh it's you know

00:04:00.400 from my perspective has a positive ending others uh do not have a positive ending and we can get into

00:04:08.540 that but to give you one example right now um in the province of nova scotia uh the attorney general

00:04:18.060 went to a court uh to through uh his agent to bring an ex parte injunction which means nobody else is

00:04:27.860 nobody else is invited uh to make submissions and got that injunction from uh the nova scotia superior

00:04:36.160 court and the injunction says no protests no protests during uh the uh pandemic number one and secondly you

00:04:48.720 cannot promote a protest on the social media uh number two or you will violate this uh injunction so uh this

00:04:57.800 is uh is uh and we're uh challenging it and have reached out to uh the prosecutor and alerted them

00:05:06.900 that we are going to seek to strike strike out the um uh the injunction because it uh makes absolutely

00:05:15.340 no effort to balance uh what it wants to do which is to reduce uh the chances of infection of the virus

00:05:24.300 uh on the one hand with the constitutional right to free speech and free assembly uh on the other hand

00:05:31.160 but let's just say even if for some reason we found that the virus works inversely with the

00:05:35.880 indoor outdoor proven facts which is that it does spread outdoors indoors you're okay outdoors oh it

00:05:39.920 spreads so we say well you know what no protest folks you can't gather and we go well okay even if we

00:05:44.760 know this and even if the participants in in those protests uh are aware of that i mean uh michael how do

00:05:51.300 we look at that issue of of how we should tackle this in a democracy people say okay well you know

00:05:55.960 i've got a chance of getting this virus out and about in a protest but i am so passionate about

00:06:00.060 black lives matter activism or pro-trump activism or anti-trump activism or or the palestinian or

00:06:06.420 israeli or what have you that i'm going to take to the streets because i live in a democracy i mean

00:06:10.520 how do we assess sort of those basic questions right well that is i mean we are uh mercifully we're a

00:06:18.300 of laws and we don't just have to ask the question um from first principles and since 1982 we have had

00:06:28.240 a charter of rights and freedoms so that um feeling that you just described uh listen i live i live in

00:06:35.060 a democracy and i want to have the ability to go out there and protest that is a an activity that is a

00:06:41.960 protected right under the charter and the constitution says in section one of the charter of

00:06:48.240 rights that uh all laws and government actions have to comply with this charter of rights and

00:06:55.260 freedoms which includes the freedom of expression freedom of assembly and in particular the right to

00:07:00.360 protest so if you're going to limit the right to protest in other words by law uh then it's uh from

00:07:08.100 my perspective i'd say it's like diamond cutting uh you you had you'd better not use an axe to cut the

00:07:15.060 diamond because if you do you're going to violate the human right and the way that uh governments have

00:07:25.880 successfully navigated through the charter while uh taking the public health precautions has been to

00:07:36.680 try and uh do its best to accommodate the right which means uh you know in the case of a protest uh we have

00:07:47.380 international examples uh of protests taking place consistent with public health advice so right near the

00:07:56.700 beginning of the of the pandemic over a year ago there was a socially distanced masked protest in a

00:08:03.160 uh huge open area uh in israel that took place uh that is videotaped and photographed and it was a

00:08:12.340 beautiful illustration of um uh the uh respect for civil liberties on the one hand and the need on the

00:08:22.360 other hand to uh put into place public health uh precautionary principle and that that's how that

00:08:29.140 ought to be worked out and instead it's not a binary black or white uh debate uh if it is then the

00:08:37.560 debate's clear the government does not have the ability to limit these rights except where it's

00:08:44.600 necessary and proportionate proportionate that's an interesting term and i wanted to get your thoughts

00:08:49.920 on how proportionality is playing out here one thing that's always frustrated me or that i thought is

00:08:55.040 a bit perplexing is there's these videos that do the rounds of someone at a grocery store or a

00:08:58.860 costco who's being dragged out by the police because they refuse to wear their mask they say

00:09:03.360 that well i don't know what their reason is maybe they'll say they have a medical exemption or they

00:09:07.100 consider themselves a conscientious objector maybe they're conspiracy theorists maybe they just didn't

00:09:10.700 feel like wearing the mask that day i don't know so you got one guy out of 200 who doesn't want to

00:09:14.880 wear the mask and i kind of look at this and i go okay well what's on it to you buddy you're just in

00:09:19.280 the store 50 minutes just put on the mask who cares but at the same time it's like okay one guy

00:09:23.040 out of 200 why do we even have to call the cops on them why can't the cops just say here's your

00:09:27.180 twenty dollar ticket or your forty dollar ticket i mean why does it have to get to the point

00:09:30.900 uh that it does in this situation i mean michael have we had a proportional response this past year

00:09:37.820 and a half to to everything i you know i think that the uh by and large let's just take masking

00:09:47.160 um that the instances where somebody has not worn a mask has been asked to wear it has refused

00:09:55.800 and then um either uh um security guard or a police officer is called in right and the person is

00:10:04.500 removed extremely marginal very rare uh i know that there are you know we know of some of these

00:10:12.640 because they're on youtube but they we at civil you know canadian civil liberties association monitor

00:10:19.260 uh this type of activity and you know in our view that's an area where the police officer ought to

00:10:26.480 be exercising discretion and um the the instances where somebody's not going to leave the store

00:10:34.200 uh under any circumstances um we are are so rare uh that i i i'm not sure it's worth going down the

00:10:44.880 rabbit hole of talking about right you know what the de-escalation would look like i mean i think that

00:10:50.900 the way you would manage that is you just have to give that person you'd have to say look either

00:10:56.260 you're going to leave or we're going to sequester you and uh and you know try and de-escalate this

00:11:03.120 and we're gonna you know inconvenience everybody for an hour and we're just going to wait until you

00:11:07.660 either put on this mask or walk out the door uh but i'm not going to seize you and throw you out

00:11:12.660 uh because it's just not necessary at this point so those are extremely rare circumstances uh i do

00:11:20.640 not believe the police need to be called nearly as often as they do get called you know that's a

00:11:25.540 a perfect example of one of the worst parts of our uh justice system which is that it's uh driven by

00:11:35.640 these 9-1-1 calls uh the you know uh the large proportion of which involve people not i mean not

00:11:43.380 not all but many people uh abuse the 9-1-1 system uh in the sense that they're calling 9-1-1 in

00:11:51.720 circumstances when they shouldn't and often we have some research that shows that there's um people

00:11:57.500 with a lot of anxiety uh may have a mental disorder maybe suffering from mental illness

00:12:04.060 and that's driving the complaint more than anything else and i think a lot of the police calls whether

00:12:11.000 it involves a mental health disorder or not they are driven by um fear and anger uh that is more to

00:12:20.160 do with a pandemic than it has to do with civil liberties and actual public health facts speaking about

00:12:25.340 people being fined uh how should how do you feel about this this maybe it's a growing sense that

00:12:32.660 some people have that just well just give me the ticket because they've seen a couple governors in

00:12:36.580 the u.s say okay i'm doing forgiveness for all of these fines that have been issued we see some legal

00:12:41.240 rulings that see that things are maybe not necessarily going to be upheld i also think you

00:12:45.100 know it's interesting you point out the police forces in ontario said uh-uh we're not doing this

00:12:48.820 you know stop and identify everyone we've got mayors who are speaking out against some of the

00:12:53.580 restrictions leading you to think well if i get ticketed for you know doing this outdoor soccer

00:12:57.920 game when a mayor speaking out against it if if i even get a court date you know a few months later

00:13:02.040 can't i just say hey look the the officials don't even support these laws i mean i guess what i'm

00:13:06.140 trying to say is isn't this whole thing legally a mess michael uh it's it's it's complicated that's

00:13:13.240 for sure and i think it was uh a mess a year ago uh but most of most uh police forces have

00:13:21.020 uh learned to exercise some discretion and most police forces don't want to enforce and don't

00:13:28.200 uh make it their business to uh crack down on what amounts to provincial offenses act offenses um

00:13:37.040 in part because they feel that they should be spending time on real more serious crimes under

00:13:43.980 the criminal code as opposed to in essence handing out what amounts to the equivalent of a speeding ticket

00:13:49.280 uh to people um you know a year ago for sitting on a park bench uh we had to work out a few things

00:13:57.140 firstly who's who has the authority to give these tickets and what kind of training do they have

00:14:01.580 well if they're bylaw officers which in toronto they were and in other cities they were well then

00:14:07.440 they might not have the training to understand what it would what it means to exercise discretion

00:14:11.980 but to to answer your question directly i think that um people can certainly make uh defend their

00:14:22.160 tickets and uh i think if they believe that the ticket was wrongly issued should do that um i believe

00:14:28.800 that there ought to be an amnesty put into place possibly uh at the appropriate time um and it would

00:14:36.860 have to be you know passed by law uh by executive councils or the and or the uh various legislatures

00:14:43.900 and uh territories to uh to reflect the fact that there was some overzealous uh ticketing that took

00:14:53.240 place and to reflect the fact that there's a disproportionately high number of people who were

00:14:58.780 ticketed who were racialized minorities who were mentally ill who were homeless folks so uh but uh the law

00:15:06.780 is still the law we have a rule of law so showing up and saying even the premiers for example or the

00:15:11.980 mayor isn't a big fan of this law it doesn't matter uh that's not a defense uh the defense is you know i

00:15:18.700 um uh either wasn't doing this or um you know you uh either make a constitutional argument yourself

00:15:26.940 or you retain counsel to do that or you get ccli's help to do that and make the case that the law itself

00:15:34.240 was disproportionate and therefore violates uh the charter of rights and freedoms and you know we

00:15:40.820 may in fact get some uh results from provincial offenses act courts from superior courts divisional

00:15:47.580 courts across the country that then become a precedent uh and used as a defense in other courts

00:15:53.100 we've addressed a lot of this by the way for your listeners uh to check out on our website the

00:15:59.020 canadian civil liberties association ccla.org we put out two reports on this business of uh ticketing

00:16:08.140 and uh the enforcement of covet rules and uh we put one out in the in june of 2020 and we put one out

00:16:19.420 two weeks ago and both show the patterns uh and the um uh i guess the uh variation that exists

00:16:30.240 regionally in canada when it comes to the enforcement of uh covet rules um there's a there's you know

00:16:37.660 basically a different approach in western canada than in quebec and in atlantic canada yeah that's

00:16:44.640 that's really interesting angle for sure michael bryan i really want to get your thoughts on on

00:16:48.880 the civil liberties conversation and issue sort of more generally now and also what what you predict

00:16:53.020 are going to be the big ones uh kind of moving forward or what are the big ones right now but i

00:16:57.400 guess as a bit of a segue question i mean right now during covid this has been sort of civil liberties

00:17:02.080 conversations on you know on high octane or whatever like this has been major conversations uh

00:17:07.580 that that are a greater volume than we usually have i mean how have you reflected on

00:17:12.220 uh on civil liberties in general this past year and how should the public sort of reflect on on the

00:17:17.880 issue i believe that overall more people are aware and have uh some thought into their civil liberties

00:17:28.080 during covid than ever uh in recent memory uh certainly not uh during the life of the chart of

00:17:36.720 rights and freedoms we've never had a moment where so many people were having their personal liberty

00:17:44.600 or free speech um or right to privacy uh or a presumption of innocence uh they they were i mean

00:17:54.860 literally millions of people were having their constitutionally protected rights limited by

00:18:01.880 governments across the country uh more often than not in a way that was consistent with the

00:18:09.320 constitution but caused them to ask the question you know i ran into somebody i was talking to somebody

00:18:15.380 the other day and he said to me uh not knowing what i did for a living he said i just didn't know

00:18:20.860 that governments could do this kind of thing i i didn't know that governments could tell us you know

00:18:25.780 for example you got to wear a mask you can't go here you can't go there uh you know he was

00:18:31.560 familiar with the criminal code but he didn't think that governments could shut down businesses and so

00:18:37.140 on so i think that people are more aware of it uh number one which is positive secondly um i'd say

00:18:46.880 most governments respected uh civil liberties most of the time during the pandemic but some governments

00:18:54.660 did not uh some governments uh some governments really did play politics with covid and you know

00:19:02.820 a good example of that i think is this injunction that was brought in nova scotia uh to to prohibit the um

00:19:10.900 the uh protest i'm not for a moment saying that the judge was doing something political the judge

00:19:17.940 was being judicious uh and you know we the way to disagree with that decision uh is to appeal it or

00:19:26.800 to try and set it aside so i'm not complaining about uh the judgment although we may complain in court

00:19:32.920 uh but it uh the the other area that jumps to mind is the restrictions on mobility rights and and

00:19:41.000 my one of my biggest concerns coming out of the pandemic in terms of the long-term impact on rights

00:19:47.760 is with respect to our mobility and citizenship rights namely uh in every other country that i know of

00:19:55.920 uh no government even tries to stop you from going from one part of the country to another if you're a

00:20:03.480 citizen of that country no u.s government even uh with all the variety of different approaches

00:20:10.440 uh state to state has tried to stop for example somebody from mississippi from crossing over into

00:20:17.020 arkansas it just hasn't happened uh in the states and it makes canada look more like the european union

00:20:25.200 or um you know a transnational uh organization of provinces than a country and it really violates

00:20:36.460 uh the the i think the underlying thesis of this country of uh 1867 when we were

00:20:45.160 uh a bunch of uh a bunch of separate um colonies and nations and decided no no we can do more

00:20:53.720 together than we can apart so let's let's unite uh be one country build a railroad across this country

00:21:01.640 and uh and do that together and whereas with covid uh the you know the um the come from away

00:21:13.000 province of newfoundland uh was one of the first to say uh not come from away but stay away wow uh

00:21:23.160 if you're not a resident of this province and so we brought a challenge in newfoundland uh and that

00:21:31.460 that challenge is now going to the court of appeal it's a test case other provinces have done the same

00:21:36.780 thing and uh you know i believe that the impact of that is going to be significant because uh this is a

00:21:46.460 constitutional right under section six of the charter and under the division of powers uh in the 1867

00:21:53.720 constitution we're supposed to be able to go where we you know into another province into another

00:22:00.360 territory uh without any restriction and the idea that uh provinces can have border guards at the

00:22:07.080 provincial borders i think is wrong uh i and i i haven't seen a single instance in which it's been

00:22:13.960 justified based on the test of necessity and proportionality with um reference to evidence uh and uh

00:22:24.360 uh uh and and that and i'd say probably the protest rights and the free speech rights are the areas

00:22:31.280 that got the roughest ride during the pandemic are you worried that maybe some of these restrictions

00:22:36.120 have somewhat become normalized in terms of the next crisis the next incident even if you don't a hundred

00:22:42.080 percent need these things many people today have now accepted the fact that yes government can tell

00:22:46.920 you what you can and can't do down to the micro details of you know who you can invite into your home

00:22:51.560 how far apart you have to stand uh for other people i mean have have we crossed a line right now that

00:22:56.320 that perhaps you know psychologically or or democratically well maybe it's going to make it

00:23:01.840 easier to cross that line again i think it depends on the area uh and uh like firstly i i want to say

00:23:11.360 i don't know exactly uh what has been happening in first nation reserves but i've received um feedback

00:23:19.040 from first nation reserves people who have said that a number of first nation governments have

00:23:25.340 uh been disproportionate and highly restrictive uh within the reserve so uh can you give me an

00:23:33.640 example compared to uh there may be a lasting impact uh an example of one first nation is that they

00:23:42.040 uh council invited the rcmp uh to engage in warrantless entry into people's homes and uh you know

00:23:52.340 that's an example uh you know if in other words if the police are walking by and they see a bunch of

00:23:56.800 shoes on the front step they're allowed to enter and you know we would take we would we would say no

00:24:02.980 you need to go get a warrant to do that because the um uh the the bar the bar is higher than that

00:24:09.420 for warrantless entry and uh and the special circumstances that would allow someone to enter

00:24:14.460 a home uh that's on the one hand on the other hand uh like i said i'm not going to repeat myself

00:24:20.800 with respect to mobility rights my concern is that that's going to stay and we're going to have 0.94

00:24:25.000 provincial borders uh in place in this country uh that will stay uh beyond um the the life of the

00:24:35.280 pandemic uh and uh thirdly i i i i'm concerned about something that never got fixed or hasn't been

00:24:43.620 fixed to date uh but has to get fixed uh going forward and that is firstly uh the executive orders

00:24:52.280 the cabinet orders the regulations to get passed by these governments that set out what the restrictions

00:24:58.620 are they have got to be released uh prior to uh going into legal effect and they ought to be released

00:25:08.400 in my view uh in draft form um even before they go to uh provincial or territorial or federal cabinets

00:25:17.800 uh when legislation passes uh it's not at all difficult to follow a bill uh through to a law

00:25:27.300 uh online uh using the various legislative assembly um hansard uh online but they would say we're in

00:25:36.040 an emergency and we don't have time for that so how would you sort of respond to that i mean i take

00:25:40.720 your point it's something to see this stuff brought in you know immediately you must follow this and

00:25:44.800 opposition can't even talk about it yeah but well if it's an executive order it's not something that

00:25:51.600 would come up for debate from the opposition until it was brought into law and then it could be

00:25:58.100 criticized but you know we we are uh as i said a nation of laws uh not people uh so this is not it

00:26:07.300 doesn't matter if the premier or a prime minister uh stands up at a podium and says here's what you have

00:26:12.760 to do it doesn't matter they have no legal authority uh themselves to tell people what to do it's the

00:26:21.120 legal orders that uh provide the authority to restrict people's freedoms and so we need to 0.61

00:26:27.740 know what they are when they become clear sorry when when they are passed and some provinces are great

00:26:33.820 at that and when the premier stands up and makes an announcement at a podium says here are the new

00:26:38.680 rules they attach the law the idea that they don't have time to write the law i mean if they don't have

00:26:45.720 time to write the law then then it's not a law uh they have to take the time to get it right because

00:26:52.520 that's how our country works we we're not we're not an anarchy which turns on the whims of a despot

00:26:58.520 we are a nation of laws under our constitution and if there's going to be a new law passed that tells

00:27:05.380 people what to do and it affects their constitutional rights we need to know what it is but the federal

00:27:11.140 government and a number of provincial governments will announce here are the new rules and then you

00:27:16.340 won't get the law for two or three days so if you're a business that needs to comply with the law

00:27:22.280 uh you can't go on what was said at the podium you need to know exactly what the law says so that needs

00:27:29.220 to be changed and secondly our justice system has got to grow up and and permit the capacity

00:27:38.180 of ccla or any other public interest litigant or individual to bring a matter before the courts

00:27:45.700 and have it go through the courts in timely fashion uh we you know we have shown our system

00:27:53.780 to be so slow and plagued with delays during covid that we now embarrassingly have a situation where

00:28:02.900 in the united states the u.s supreme court have issued a dozen decisions on government laws and

00:28:12.180 the bill of rights during covid a dozen decisions in canada we we don't have a single case that has even

00:28:20.580 gone to the supreme court of canada on this issue we have one case that i know of going to uh the

00:28:27.860 newfoundland court of appeal but you know we're waiting for the hearing on that and that's it uh

00:28:33.780 now you can say oh they're a lot more litigious than us in the united states well are they a lot

00:28:39.540 more litigious because they've got a better justice system or is it a is it a cultural moment i can tell

00:28:45.860 you that it's too difficult and too expensive and too slow to bring public interest litigation in canada

00:28:53.140 uh and that that has got to change that doesn't mean we're going to stop doing it we're we're going

00:28:58.500 to do it more than ever uh and we have and we've gone to court more than any other organization uh

00:29:04.340 during covid uh but we um often won't simply because we know that by the time a matter got heard uh the

00:29:15.620 issue would be moved and we and you know we don't want to waste any we don't want to waste everybody's

00:29:19.700 time with that one thing i find so interesting about this conversation michael bryant is we're

00:29:23.060 listening to you talk about uh challenging the government you got to shake up the system you

00:29:26.740 know public interest law and so forth we go wow you know he's really sticking it to the man

00:29:30.500 well hold on a second though you used to be the man you held a number of cabinet uh posts in the

00:29:35.620 ontario government uh under dalton mcginty's uh tenure as premier including as attorney general

00:29:40.900 for a few years where you know if the pandemic had hit then you would be one of the people uh

00:29:45.700 faced with making these decisions at cabinet and also putting together uh many of these laws that

00:29:50.740 that we currently would have in place how have you reflected on this in this context that you're

00:29:55.220 really someone who's who's seen things from both sides well i i mean i certainly uh do bring that

00:30:02.820 experience to my job and it allows me to uh um not just speculate on what an attorney general ought to

00:30:11.940 be doing at the cabinet table and what uh his or her agents ought to be doing uh throughout the

00:30:17.940 various governments that are out there um and uh you know i'm also um uh aware of the pressure that

00:30:28.020 comes about on governments and what uh dynamic at a cabinet table would likely be and what the dynamic

00:30:36.340 within a premier's office would be and i and and as such uh you know i'm i i think that um

00:30:45.460 we it's safe to say that as a result we don't bring speculative phishing expedition litigation

00:30:52.580 or challenges we uh we do so with the uh information and knowledge of how government works

00:30:58.740 uh but you know my uh my perspective and outcome changed dramatically 10 years ago um uh it really

00:31:10.740 after the accident uh and the death of uh darcy allen shepherd uh i just uh my life changed and uh it

00:31:21.300 wasn't just with that incident uh i soon found myself uh spending time with um indigent and indigenous 0.99

00:31:31.140 people and spending time in the in the courts defending people many of whom in mental illnesses and

00:31:38.420 uh and addictions and came to see uh what the system was like for them uh i'm not saying what it was

00:31:47.940 like for me you can't really build a justice system around how to treat a former attorney general so i'm

00:31:53.780 not talking about my for my circumstances i mean i was um obviously humbled by the experience and out

00:32:03.300 of that humility uh came to learn and see and open up to um all of the injustices uh that were taking

00:32:11.620 place so that was quite a flashpoint saga here in in in toronto in ontario all across canada it

00:32:17.700 was it was a cultural moment and people they they they argued about it amongst themselves i mean

00:32:22.740 everybody at the dinner table fought about it it was almost a culture war situation uh the

00:32:27.700 listeners who aren't familiar where you you had an incident on bloor street in toronto where there's

00:32:31.380 a bicycle courier who uh actually you described the event in great detail in your book uh 28 seconds

00:32:36.660 it's it's detailed in a lot of writing there and at the end of this 28 seconds uh the bicycle courier

00:32:41.780 he was he was deceased uh in this accident that you had with him when you were driving in your

00:32:45.940 vehicle and some people saw this as you know as this sort of connected uh politician rich lawyer

00:32:50.580 guy in his fancy car and a downtrodden uh individual uh first nations gentleman other

00:32:55.780 people said look i bicycle down the streets of toronto i walked on them i'm a driver these

00:32:59.940 bike couriers man they are just crazy i could see this incident happen to me well man i understand how

00:33:04.500 that happened oh i feel for michael bryant i mean it was such a flashpoint i mean looking back now

00:33:10.340 what do you think about that as a i i appreciate you have your points about uh how you went and

00:33:15.700 you know it's been transformational for you but as as that is a cultural moment how do you reflect

00:33:20.100 on that oh i'll let others reflect on it uh the extent that i reflected on it it's in the book it's in

00:33:26.900 28 seconds and i really don't have anything more to say about it it's uh uh to the extent that it's a cultural

00:33:33.540 moment um i was a uh um um someone who was a part of it but it's not for me to define what happened or

00:33:43.060 to suggest what happened because um i'm an unreliable narrator on that front but the um but the uh

00:33:52.980 but you know in terms of uh where i sit uh now um uh you know certainly uh the experience

00:34:03.780 changed me and it's not to say that i uh think that the glass is entirely empty uh nor did i ever

00:34:11.460 think it was entirely full when i was in government but uh you know i'm i'm just a lot more focused on

00:34:17.700 the injustices now than in where my job before was to defend and shore up the justice system right uh and

00:34:26.420 to and to a large degree to uh make changes where they were needed and i did some but i didn't uh do

00:34:36.980 uh i didn't undertake the changes that i ought to have and and i uh discussed that in the book let me

00:34:43.540 ask you not not here not here to suggest that i um uh would uh would have been the best pandemic

00:34:51.860 attorney uh i think uh my role the best place for me to be is where i'm at right now let me ask you

00:34:57.700 before we go what are those big challenges those big battles that we have ahead of us with civil

00:35:02.980 liberties we have a more and more free speech conversations uh i hear some people argue oh

00:35:08.100 free speech that's just a thing you know dubious people uh put forward so they can get away with

00:35:13.140 saying you know whatever hateful things we want we need to tighten down those rules those regulations

00:35:17.540 uh there's a lot of stuff happening in the online world digital ids that are emerging lots of

00:35:23.300 questions about bill c10 right now is a hot button issue in canada what is the future of civil liberties

00:35:29.860 because i feel like it's it's only going to ratchet up soon yeah i think you're right that data privacy

00:35:36.660 uh is uh unquestionably uh going to be a major issue in for the next 10 years uh and as long as canada

00:35:45.540 uh continues to uh have a really old dated law um federally um we're we're in a very tough spot and

00:35:58.420 uh canadians uh privacy rates are being compromised uh because there is no law really to deal with it

00:36:06.100 in canada appropriately uh when it comes to protecting consumers secondly um you're right i think we'll

00:36:14.580 continue to have uh debates about uh uh really it's equality versus free speech in a nutshell that's

00:36:24.100 what the debate boils down to and uh ccla uh we our job is to uh protect both and so you know we have to

00:36:33.940 make decisions from time to time where we uh agree that one needs to be uh limited uh in the name of the other um and lastly uh again i just to repeat the i think the challenge is to to build a justice system that allows for timely judicial review uh because right now too much of what the executive branch does goes unreviewed

00:37:01.940 goes unreviewed and too much of what the legislative branch does goes unreviewed because the judicial branch

00:37:09.780 is uh so limited in its capacity to provide uh timely answers to urgent legal questions

00:37:20.100 michael bryan thanks so much for joining us today really fascinating conversation

00:37:23.620 thank you all the best michael bryan is executive director and general counsel of the canadian civil

00:37:31.620 liberties association full comment is a post media podcast i'm anthony fury this episode was produced

00:37:37.140 by andre prue with theme music by bryce hall kevin liban is the executive producer you can subscribe

00:37:42.420 to full comment on apple podcasts google spotify or wherever you get your podcasts you can help us by

00:37:47.620 by giving us a rating or a review and by telling your friends about us thanks for listening

Full Comment - May 31, 2021

How Canadians’ basic freedoms have been locked down during the pandemic

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