The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-terrorism Bill

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. He is the author of Who Killed Canadian History? and coauthor
of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Influ

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks against the United States on
September 11, 2001, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-36, a
measure aimed at combating terrorism in Canada. The bill proposed
changing a sweeping array of legislation in areas ranging from
immigration to charitable donations, and it did not take long for
critics of the legislation to take up arms against it. In November 2001,
a conference organized by the University of Toronto Law Faculty brought
together many of those opposed to the legislation. Incredibly, before
the year was out, the University of Toronto Press released the
conference papers in a handsome volume.

Much of the debate in The Security of Freedom hangs on the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. Very little is based on the necessity for any
nation-state to have effective intelligence about those who might work
to destroy it. One of the only papers in the volume that treats the
necessity of intelligence-gathering is that by Wesley Wark, an
intelligence specialist at the University of Toronto whose paper must
have been a bucket of cold water in the face of the audience.

The Warkian impact did not last, however, as the remainder of the
papers makes clear. The civil libertarian impulse remains strong among
Canadians—and so it must. If we are not jealous of our rights, who
will be? And yet, the suspicion appeared to exist in the minds of some
of those who presented the conference papers that the Canadian
government was acting (or overreacting, the critics claim) in response
to American pressures, rather than to deal with domestic threats. Canada
had seen terrorism before, one writer noted in the book, when an Air
India jet was blown from the sky by a terrorist bomb. Why was there no
anti-terrorism bill then? An interesting question, for likely there
ought to have been. As a minimum, some 17 years after the Air India
terrorism, those suspected of the crime ought to have been tried in
court. Canadians want to be secure against terror and they also want
their government to act with speed and fairness. If the government’s
anti-terror package of legislation can mete out justice more swiftly to
those charged with crimes, it will be accepted by the majority.