00:00:01.000When former Prime Minister Stephen Harper put C-51, the government of the day's sweeping overhaul of national security laws into effect,
00:00:10.000the left said that it was too broad, too sweeping, and didn't have enough of an emphasis on civil liberties.
00:00:17.000Well, the Liberals' answer to C-51 is working its way through the parliamentary process right now.
00:00:23.000Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters. Right now, it is in the Senate Defense and National Security Committee.
00:00:31.000It's been there since about December, and there's a lot of work to be done going through the details of this, of which there are many.
00:00:38.000The act will go over about a dozen different acts, including the Criminal Code and other national security-related laws, and make changes.
00:00:48.000Some of them are minor, and I think amenable to both sides, but there's one buried in this that has gotten virtually no media attention
00:00:54.000that could have some very devastating consequences in the fight against terrorism.
00:00:59.000If you look in Part 7, Section 143 of Bill C-59, it says the following.
00:01:06.000Section 83.221 of the act, that's referring to the Criminal Code, is replaced by the following.
00:01:13.000This section is going to be replacing an existing section of the Criminal Code, one that was put in there under C-51 during Stephen Harper's government reign.
00:01:39.000And what we see here doesn't sound unreasonable to be an offence.
00:01:43.000Yes, it should be a crime for someone to counsel another person to commit an act of terror.
00:01:48.000But to understand why this has so many problems associated with it, we need to look at what it is in the Criminal Code that this section is going to be replacing.
00:01:57.000And that section is as titled now, Advocating or Promoting Commission of Terrorism Offences.
00:02:03.000Everyone who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general, other than an offence under this section,
00:02:13.000while knowing that any of those offences will be committed or being reckless as to whether any of those offences may be committed,
00:02:20.000as a result of such communication is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years.
00:02:29.000Now, I know that's very government speak, but what it means is that under the current laws, it is a crime to advocate, even in general terms, the commission of terrorism offences.
00:02:39.000So you could have a radical hate preacher, like we've seen many reports of, that gets up in front of his mosque and starts giving people a call to arms.
00:02:47.000You could have someone who doesn't even have an organised mosque, who calls themselves a spiritual leader and goes on YouTube and advocates in general terms for the commission of terrorist offences.
00:02:57.000Under the current law, that's illegal. Under a plain text reading of the proposed law by the Liberals, that would no longer be a crime.
00:03:05.000Now, I'm not the first person to have raised these concerns.
00:03:09.000And what Shimon Koffler Fogel raised in his testimony and in his Globe and Mail op-ed, was that in response to a provision that the government thinks is too broad,
00:03:17.000their remedy is one that's too specific. A plain text reading of it requires that someone counsels another person.
00:03:25.000This implies, Mr. Koffler Fogel suggested, a knowledge of who that person is in a very specific counselling.
00:03:32.000Whereas advocating or promoting could take place in more general terms, in front of an audience or in front of a computer screen,
00:03:39.000where you know people are going to see it, but you don't specifically know who those people are.
00:03:44.000Now, I put these concerns to Public Safety Canada, which is the department that's tasked with driving this law through.
00:03:50.000And this is the statement that was provided.
00:03:53.000Bill C-59 does not propose to remove the advocating terrorism offence, but rather proposes to amend it.
00:03:59.000As originally enacted, the existing offence of advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism offences in general,
00:04:06.000seeks to prohibit the act of encouragement of the commission of terrorism offences generally,
00:04:12.000rather than the commission of specific terrorist offences.
00:04:15.000However, this formulation has been criticised as being too vague.
00:04:19.000As a result, Bill C-59 proposes to clarify the offence using a well-known concept in criminal law,
00:04:25.000so that it would apply where a person counsels, actively encourages another person to commit a terrorism offence,
00:04:32.000without identifying a specific terrorism offence.
00:04:35.000It would also apply whether or not a terrorism offence is committed by the person who is counseled.
00:04:41.000So, the concerns that they're trying to ameliorate are, in short, that this would take a law that, right now,
00:04:49.000exists for people that counsel or advocate or promote terrorism in general terms
00:04:55.000and restrict it to the one-on-one counselling or the small group counselling.
00:04:59.000And even in the explanation from Public Safety Canada's spokesperson, they talk about another person,
00:05:05.000that a specific person has to be on the receiving end of this.
00:05:09.000Not only does this law open the door for someone to essentially get away with openly and proudly advocating terrorism,
00:05:17.000but doing so is not even consistent with other provisions of the law.
00:05:21.000This is what Shimon Koffler Fogel said in his testimony before Parliament.
00:05:25.000When it comes to the offence of instructing a terrorist activity, which is a different offence,
00:06:43.000I believe that people should have the right to hold controversial opinions.
00:06:46.000The extent to free speech is always the promotion of violence.
00:06:51.000Advocating terrorism is a very clear-cut example of that.
00:06:55.000But we have a government now that is so hell-bent on striking this balance between civil liberties and national security,
00:07:02.000which is an important balance that they seem to be erring more heavily on the side of ignoring one of the most common ways that terrorist messages are now spread,
00:07:11.000which is through the internet, through radical preachers.
00:07:14.000And by doing this, we see a logically inconsistent position with a country that supposedly,
00:07:19.000we're being told by Trudeau and his government, is taking these concerns very seriously.
00:07:24.000True North is at the forefront of these battles, investigating in ways the mainstream media isn't.
00:07:29.000It's important work, and we can't do it alone. We do need your help.
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