I have particular concerns on the whole question of the criminalization of dissent. I have particular concerns that we have a government that says it's for indigenous rights and for new nation-to-nation relations, and yet that bill specifically targets areas where the defence of your land and the defence of things that are part of the sovereign rights of indigenous people can come under the definition of terrorism. I'm particularly concerned about the broad definition of “terrorism-speak”, where people simply giving their views can be considered terrorism. It's fine, as the bill says, that some of these things are “well, you know, we wouldn't do it”, but the fact of the matter is that only legal demonstrations are excepted from this. This is actual law.
I would encourage the committee to look at the broad amount of information that was submitted, probably not to yourselves but to the consultations on that bill, from all sectors of society, from constitutional experts, and from civil liberties experts and lawyers of all sorts. It's a huge wealth of information. I think it all speaks very strongly to the fact that this should be repealed. Any legislative sorts of measures that were needed were already there in the Anti-terrorism Act, 2001. That act already was problematic because it introduced this question of interference with critical infrastructure. One of the sets that's targeted by that, quite frankly, is workers. If you go on strike at an infrastructure site, or if you go on strike and your strike has been declared illegal, illegal simply on the basis that the government said you should go back to work, this is considered interference with the economy of Canada.