Law Times

Page 6 February 23, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT Defence lawyers' outrage justified awyers are rightfully expressing outrage over the circumstances surrounding the arrest of defence counsel Laura Liscio at the courthouse in Brampton, Ont., this month. Since the Feb. 12 arrest, Peel Regional Police have only con- tinued to make matters worse. While they had subsequently issued a press release denying reports that officers had handcuffed Liscio in her court attire and later escorted her to a marked police cruiser, they had to backtrack on those comments last week. "It has subse- quently been determined that the information that was originally relied upon was in fact incorrect," police said in a new press release on Wednesday. "Peel Regional Police sincerely regrets publishing the misinformation and the impact that it has had on members of the community, members of the media, and Ms. Liscio." In the new press release, police admitted to handcuffing Liscio in her court attire and that both uniformed and plainclothes officers had escorted her to the marked cruiser. The problems, it seems, keep piling up in this case. While Liscio obviously remains innocent until proven guilty on the drug and other charges she's facing, lawyers have been right to question the manner of her arrest. "The police have broad powers to effect an ar- rest which includes offering a suspect to attend at a police station so the individual is provided with a degree of privacy and dignity," said Toronto Lawyers Association president Joseph Neuberger last week. What's more, we should obviously be able to rely on police to be Vague terror bill has far-reaching implications he Conservative government began debating a tough new crime bill in the House of Com- mons last week that would give police and the Canadian spy agency more powers than they've ever had un- der the guise of an anti-terrorism law. It goes far beyond that. Civil rights groups and bar asso- ciations across the country are already planning legal challenges. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who's defending everything in the legisla- tion, is aiming to use his majority to force it through Parliament as soon as possible, even before the October election. Bill C-51 is a vaguely worded, 62- page document that gives government spies at the Canadian Security Intelli- gence Service the right to break the law, sometimes even without a judge's per- mission, if they think someone may be thinking of committing a terrorist act or counselling someone else to do so. The legislation says spies will be able to take measures — whatever that means — to disrupt activities that police or CSIS be- lieve may be "threats to national security." It doesn't define the measures authori- ties may take except to insist that police and CSIS may not resort to inflicting "bodily harm" on suspects or violating their "sexual integri- ty." We can only imagine why they felt they needed to slip in the part about not violating their "sexual integrity." CSIS would be able to make use of "counter-mes- sages" to disrupt what they consider activities by possible terrorists inside or outside Canada as well as interfere with the travel plans of their suspects, seize their "financial transac- tions," and take their passports to prevent them from leaving the country. Police could lock up suspects for up to seven days, up from the current four days. While Britain jails suspects for up to 14 days, there's parliamentary review in that country, something that's not part of the bill C-51 process in Canada. The legislation is full of strange lan- guage. It makes "terrorism in general" a new crime. But in Canada, terrorism is already a crime. How does adding "in general" after it worsen the crime? Police could disrupt web sites they don't like on the grounds that they might be promoting terrorism, something for which there would be a five-year prison term and court-ordered sei- zure of the offending material. What's the difference be- tween the phrases "might be promoting" and "are pro- moting?" These are the sorts of things that make for im- portant court cases. If authorities bring a sus- pect before a judge on terror- ism charges, the government could ask the court to seal the proceedings from the prying eyes of the press and family members. The legislation allows the govern- ment to expand the no-fly list at the air- port to include anyone it believes might be travelling to engage in terrorism. The government would get to define an ap- peal process. That's if there is one. Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair has been leading the fight in Commons this past week. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau opposes the legislation, but his party won't vote against it. He prefers to wait until after the October election to scrap it unless the Conservatives accept major amendments in the meantime. Mulcair says that with such far-reach- ing and vaguely worded legislation, anything is possible, including defining even environmentalists and opposition to the oil industry as terrorists. That's precisely what Finance Minis- ter Joe Oliver has been doing for the past several weeks. He has been talking about "foreign-funded radicals" behind the "anti-petroleum" movement who are "a threat to the oil industry." The prime minister says we shouldn't worry about the government ever using the legislation against its critics. That might be reassuring except that this past week La Presse newspa- per reporters obtained a secret RCMP document that said th e anti-petroleum movement could be "a violent group" and touted extremists involved in it as "a realistic criminal threat." The revelations prompted pointed questions from Mulcair. "What is to stop this bill from being used to spy on the gov- ernment's political enemies?" he asked. Harper replied that the govern- ment would never do such a thing and mocked Mulcair by calling his remarks a "conspiracy theory." LT Richard Cleroux is a freelance reporter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is richardcleroux@rogers. com. ©2015 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written per- mission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. 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There are already enough issues when it comes to trust in the police, and situations like this one only make it worse. In Liscio's case, we prob- ably only know about the problems in part because of the public manner of her arrest but also because of the position she holds and her support from the legal community. There are lots of facts still to come out in this case, but it's already clear police have made signifi- cant mistakes. The case is a good example of why people are right to question officers' actions when it's so obvious they're serving their own interests. — Glenn Kauth The Hill Richard Cleroux T L

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