Bonjour. Good evening.
First of all, thank you for having these hearings. I'd like to echo one of the previous speakers who noted that. I would encourage the committee and future committees of Parliament to publicize such things much more widely and much further in advance, but I'm grateful to be here, now that I am.
Unlike many of the previous speakers, I claim no special expertise in areas of law or government. I'm a run-of-the-mill citizen. That's why I think it's especially important that people like me are able to appear at places like this. My background is in the physical sciences. I'm a college teacher at the moment.
A number of speakers, including William Ray, Tim McSorley, and Holly Dressel, have already amply talked about the risk of criminalizing dissent and the fact that the provisions adopted when Bill C-51 was adopted are not only unnecessary in preventing acts that are already criminal but they also risk stifling dissent. There's never been a good time to stifle civil debate and dissent, but I think now would be an unprecedentedly bad time to do so. We're in a period when the issues have never been more important—issues of indigenous reconciliation and indigenous livelihood, issues of the need to decarbonize our energy supply and prevent dangerous climate change. There would be no worse way to respond to public engagement on these issues than to risk criminalizing the people who want to bring them to the fore.
I teach a course on energy and climate, among other things. When I teach this to 18- and 19-year-olds, and I'm implicitly encouraging them to engage on these issues, do I tell them that I myself am more afraid than I was 10 years ago to express myself on some of these issues because of the risk of dissent being criminalized? That's not a climate we want to create.
Last, on the implicit invitation of the committee, I'd like to explore this idea of security a bit more broadly. We have a bit of a paradox here. On the one hand, the provisions adopted define security very broadly and risk criminalizing people for impinging on economic interests that then may be construed as a threat to national security. At the same time, what about the security of livelihood for indigenous groups? What about the security of access to a water supply? What about the security of access to lands? Are some of these groups that risk being criminalized not also fighting for a different kind of security, which is also owed them? Do we take away some kinds of security in the name of national security? That's the question I leave you with.
Thank you.