On component parts

It seems there's plenty of room for interpretation as to where the Cons' terror legislation falls on the spectrum from purely political red meat to help their poll position, to a political liability being pushed through for other reasons.

But most of the Cons' major bills tend to include both. And I'd think it's worth analyzing how the smaller pieces of C-51 can be broken down between the two in assessing exactly what the Cons are trying to accomplish.

In so doing, let's keep in mind that if the Cons' only goal was to be seen introducing legislation of some sort dealing with security issues, any or all of the pieces of C-51 could have been omitted. And let's also note that the Cons' choice of points to emphasize or downplay may also offer some important clues.

Part 1 of C-51 authorizes effectively unlimited sharing of information with any federal government agency involved in national security. From a political standpoint, it's likely neutral at best: while it's possible to build talking points around the value of sharing information, this is the part of the bill which most obviously intrudes on the privacy of every single Canadian, while offering no direct benefit to security.

Which means we should be taking a close look at the substantive effect. On that front, Part 1 enshrines in law the principle that security (as defined by the executive at any particular moment) trumps privacy for all purposes, while providing no apparent public recourse against the newly-created surveillance state. And as we'll see, that genuine preference for an all-knowing, unaccountable security apparatus seems to be the main connecting theme in C-51.

Part 2 sets up a new set of rules surrounding a no-fly list. It hasn't been subject to as much criticism as other parts from a policy perspective, likely due to the fact that it represents a relatively small change from the status quo: while the new bill may theoretically result in more people being facing restrictions, the absence of advance warning and accountability is nothing new, and there's no indication that the existing standards have been noticed by the public either way. So this part may be seen more as policy housekeeping than as a political wedge.

Part 3 includes C-51's amendments to the Criminal Code. But it may be subject to somewhat different analysis than most of the Cons' moves on that front.

We're familiar with what are likely seen as purely political changes to criminal law. And indeed, the Cons are now pushing another in a line of efforts to be seen as "tough" regardless of whether it can be justified from a policy perspective. 

So it might be tempting to examine the new offences under C-51 and figure that they too represent a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. And from the standpoint of actual prosecutions, that theory would hold water: particularly given the constitutional frailty of an offence expressly aimed at communication, I'd be surprised to see many people actually charged with the new offence.

But that doesn't mean the part wouldn't have some massive real-world effects. There's already been plenty of talk about the chill which could result from people fearing that protest or even neutral political commentary could result in charges, as well as the potential for material to be removed from the Internet.

Moreover, in creating an offence based on communication with a relatively low intent threshold, the Cons will make it easy for police and security forces to secure authorization to investigate people based on nothing more than their political activity. And even if that doesn't lead to charges under the new law, it could promote the principle that an individual's association with opposition to the government is grounds for constant investigation.

So I'd see Part 3 as being both a seemingly easy political win, and a sleeper policy change. On its face it fits into the Cons' general narrative of locking people up - but more significantly, it may introduce a decidedly authoritarian slant on both sides of the relationship between the state and dissenters.

Part 4 provides for the broad new powers handed to CSIS. And I can't imagine that the Cons thought the concept of creating a new security service and erasing lines which were quite deliberately drawn to protect Canadians' civil rights would pass without controversy, representing a massive political risk if any opposition materialized.

As a result, I'd consider this to be the part of C-51 which they're most determined to push through for policy reasons.

In the short term, it would provide the ability for CSIS to interfere in politics under the guise of national security. And even in the longer term (when governments of other stripes would enjoy the same potential advantage if they shared the Cons' level of paranoia and self-entitlement), it would represent a basic change in the allocation of Canada's public resources toward secretive security services - with compensating cuts presumably made to areas like regulation and social supports where the Cons are always looking for excuses to draw back.

Finally, Part 5 too fits into the theme of enhancing state control over security proceedings with a concurrent lack of recourse for individuals. In effect, the sole purpose of this part is to stack the deck in favour of the government in security certificate proceedings - both by allowing it to hide the source of information (including that obtained by torture), and by granting the Minister remarkable powers to ignore a trial judge's ruling against it pending appeal without having to satisfy an appeals court that there's even a serious question to be considered.

Based on the above analysis, there actually isn't much in C-51 which figures to be popular on its own: Part 3 is the only piece which fits the Cons' typical political strategy, and none of the bill's details figure to resonate anywhere near as much as the general theme of addressing terrorism.

With that in mind, then, it's well worth noting that instead of limiting themselves to drafting red meat for the base or legislation which fit their talking points, the Cons have chosen to include plenty of controversial provisions with massive real-world implications. And that fact is all the more reason for those of us who oppose the strict-father-state worldview to fight the bill, rather than backing down based on political calculations.

[Edit: fixed typo, wording.]

Worth an answer

Not that we expect much more from Jane Taber. But her fluff piece on Jenni Byrne manages to break what should be a serious story while managing to completely miss its significance:

But it was her stint at the PMO as director of issues management that cemented her reputation as tough but effective.

The job involved daily damage control; she started at 6:30 a.m. with a conference call to ministerial staffers, gauging the issues, troubleshooting and helping to frame the government’s response.

“She turned issues management into a tiger operation,” says a former colleague.

A senior staffer recalls a conference call during the H1N1 crisis when Ms. Byrne, unhappy with how it was being handled, ordered a plane that was heading from Mexico be turned around after discovering there was no health officer to screen for the virus at the airport.

The whole time the staffer said he was thinking, “Can she do that?”

Now, if I'm missing something that would give political staff in the PMO the authority to make decisions about air traffic control, I'm curious to hear what it is.

But absent some indication to the contrary, the answer to the staffer's question would seem to be a glaring "no". And if Byrne's appointment serves as yet another example of the Cons rewarding Harper loyalists who couldn't care less what the law says where it interferes with their desire to exercise total control, then surely that signals a need to dig much deeper into what Byrne and others have done to usurp the role of those who actually have legal authority and responsibility.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

- It's naturally a plus to see that the federal NDP has done more to stand up for Saskatchewan municipalities hit by this summer's extreme weather than the Sask Party and federal Cons combined. But in fairness, it only took a single unequivocal press release to meet that standard.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are proudly taking a stand against stable government. Which is the kind of bizarre message that may well result in the Cons' anti-coalition spin collapsing even with the Libs largely playing into Harper's hands.

- Two more items for the Con wrongness file: their offshore drilling review boards are grossly slanted toward the oil industry, and their fear-mongering on air travel doesn't reflect any real public concern.

- And finally, the Leader-Post's editorial on the harm to patient care and staff effectiveness when nurses work excessive hours is particularly on point in noting the Wall government's failed promises:

- Why hasn't the hiring of 600 additional nurses in recent years eased staffing shortages, as the Saskatchewan Party government said it would?

- Is the 35-per-cent pay hike given the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN) two years ago -- in a contract that guarantees double pay for overtime -- now proving too rich for the province to afford?

Whatever the answers to those questions, the current situation is unhealthy and unacceptable.

On safeguards

A spokesflack for Vic Toews tries to explain why we shouldn't be the least bit worried about the Harper government handing passenger information to the U.S. even for flights which don't land there:

The United States has agreed to erase after seven days, passenger information "that is confirmed to not be linked with terrorism."

Which should be highly reassuring on a couple of fronts. After all, who wouldn't be completely pleased with the U.S. seeking whatever additional information it wants about all Canadian passengers and everybody they're linked to in order to "confirm" a negative before erasing any information?

And more importantly, who would doubt for a second that anybody saddled with a false positive will get a fair shake in trying to clear their name, both from the U.S. and Canada?

Hidden from view

I won't go into too much detail about the CBC's report on secret security measures put in place by John Baird last summer. But it's hard to see how the end result reflects anything but incompetence on Baird's part.

After all, it seems that one of the following has to be true:
- The secret measures were and are important for airport security - in which case the fact that they've gone unfunded from the beginning and have since been abandoned in practice is making Canadian air travellers less safe.
- The secret measures weren't and aren't important for airport security - in which case the fact they were implemented in the first place (and left in place since) makes for a waste of resources.
- The secret measures were important for awhile, but have since ceased to be - in which case Baird's failure to follow up and formally repeal the order has needlessly left in place a legal obligation to keep implementing it.

One way or another, the story should serve as a prime example of how much more likely government is to go wrong when it presumes it'll never have to answer for its actions - particularly since it seems like a section which was intended to be used only for immediate security concerns has been used to support an order left in place since August. And that should serve as reason both to want to get Parliament back to work ASAP, and to revisit just how much secret authority Canada's cabinet ministers actually need.

On breaches

Late last year, word came out that the private airport security firm Garda had let thousands of airline passengers board Canadian flights with little or no security screening - and that the Cons renewed a federal contract with Garda shortly thereafter. This week, in a story that received far too little attention, the Globe and Mail reported that not only has Garda's track record failed to improve, but the company's employees who took the violation public have been removed from their jobs:

The private company in charge of checking passengers at Toronto's Pearson International Airport has quietly fired three screening officers who blew the whistle on alleged security breaches, The Globe and Mail has learned.

In February, the officers lodged a complaint with Canada's Industrial Relations Board against Garda World Security Corp., alleging their managers took over security checkpoints at Pearson to rush passengers through screening.

As a result, luggage and passengers boarded planes without being checked, the screening officers said. Garda has repeatedly denied the allegations.

The three officers were suspended last month. They received their dismissal notices last week.

A fourth screening officer, who made the same allegations against Garda, was fired in April.

A Garda spokesman refused to comment, but did not deny that three of the company's officers had been laid off...

The Globe obtained internal Garda documents that showed one air traveller completely circumvented security at Pearson in April by walking through an unstaffed screening gate.

Similar documents showed a screening officer checking passengers for U.S.-bound flights at Pearson worked without proper certification for more than a year.

And, in interviews with The Globe, several screening officers said Garda managers used termination threats to speed up the screening process.

The Montreal-based company manages screening at 28 airports across the country, including Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Calgary International. It was awarded those contracts by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, a federal agency that reports to Parliament.

What the Globe doesn't make clear is that the Cons decided to renew Garda's contract after the worst of the violations had already occurred. And all indications since then are that Garda has predictably taken the Cons' lack of concern then to mean that it can get away with almost anything - particularly since it was CATSA, the federal agency involved, that faced some consequences for Garda's initial failures.

While part of the problem is obviously the Cons' negligent administration, it's worth noting that much of the issue with Garda is related to the delegation of responsibility to a private firm. It's bad enough that there's a serious gap in the respective interests of Canadians who want their airports to be secure, and the company who presumably wants to use as few resources as possible to deliver as little service as it can get away with.

But the choice to contract out also removes the workers responsible for airport security from the scope of protections for government whistle-blowers. And that in turn makes it far more likely that employees who point out problems will be punished for their efforts than if a public-sector entity was responsible.

Fortunately, Garda's apparent mishaps have only led to inconvenience so far rather than any major safety issues. But given the obvious dangers when corners are cut when it comes to airport security, there's no reason for either the Cons as a government or Canadians in general to accept the kind of problems that have come up - or Garda's attempts to suppress them. And in the wider scheme of things, the Garda experience only shows all the more why such vital services are better kept in public hands.

Airheaded

It may be tough to believe that Canada could do worse than Deceivin' Stephen as the country's most powerful political figure. But Harper's second-in-command is apparently going out of his way to show that the nearest Cons successor might be up to the task, as Lawrence Cannon's Transportation Department is claiming that political control over Canada's no-fly list and an ID requirement for 12-year-old passengers are "safeguards" rather than clear indications of a terribly-designed scheme.

On power trips

It figures that the Cons can't even allow a dangerous idea like the no-fly list exist for so much as a day without looking for a way to make it worse:

The federal government has not ruled out eventually linking Canada's new no-fly list -- which takes effect today -- with technology that identifies travellers by biological features such as eye patterns or even DNA, says Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon...

In an interview with the Citizen, Mr. Cannon said the government "is not excluding" the possibility of linking the list to biometric travel documents.

Needless to say, Cannon wouldn't likely be hinting at the future expansion of the intrusiveness of the no-fly list without some significant intention to follow up. Which means that Canadians can all too likely look forward to even more reckless spending on measures which figure to cause massive problems for innocent travellers, while failing utterly to make anybody safer.

Up in the air

PoliticsWatch reports on Peter Julian's plan to question Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon about last fall's secureity screening failure at Pearson International Airport:

NDP MP Peter Julian wants Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon to appear before a Commons committee to explain how 250,000 passengers weren't properly screened at Toronto's Pearson International Airport last fall.

Julian will have his motion calling for Cannon to appear debated at the next meeting of the Commons transport committee...

A work-to-rule campaign by screeners, who worked for the security firm Garda, created long lines for passengers. Screeners said in letters to Transport Canada that Garda managers took control and allowed 250,000 passengers to rush through security with minimal screening.

The Transport Canada report said that as a result no bags were searched and screening x-rays were ignored at Pearson on October 11...

Julian said he wants Cannon to explain what happened and whether the issues associated with it have been rectified.

The NDP MP also said he has questions for Cannon about why the security company had its contract renewed just weeks after the incident.

Canada's Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) exercised its option to extend Garda's security contracts at Pearson and 27 airports across the country on November 6...

Julian also said the committee should also deal with the "broader issues" surrounding recent problems at CATSA.

Earlier this month, CATSA's chair of the board of directors, retired general Maurice Baril, resigned.

Cannon told reporters last week that Baril announced his intentions to leave "a few days after" the two men met to discuss the findings of a special examination report of CATSA by the auditor general.

The auditor general's report found that CATSA could not assure its airport screening procedures can be conducted "economically, efficiently, effectively, and in the public interest."

Needless to say, it looks there are plenty of open questions surrounding CATSA over the past few months. And there doesn't seem to be much reason why the other opposition parties would want anything but to get the answers as well, giving Julian's motion an excellent chance to pass.

Of course, Cannon seems likely to try to claim that pushing CATSA's directors out the door constitutes enough change for now. But there's little reason to think that any of the problems at Pearson or elsewhere have been solved to any meaningful extent, particularly given the renewal of Garda's contract. And with the Cons apparently asleep at the switch until CBC uncovered the breaches, it'll fall to the opposition to make sure that Canada's airports are kept safe.