CKNW Editorial
for October 19, 2001

Let me see if, in my clumsy way, I can get my final thoughts out so that I don’t get emails suggesting that I am soft on terrorism.

First off, we should, of course, tighten our borders. The question is how we do it. If we proceed on the basis that refugee claimants have the benefit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we have to put more money into the system and have the political will to enforce deportation orders. If we decide as a matter of national policy that we do not wish to give refugee claimants Charter rights, we must pass new legislation notwithstanding the Charter and exercise summary judgment. I personally don’t favour that approach but it is one of the two options open to us.

Frankly, I don’t think you can stop terrorists getting into the country and that in looking to immigration and refugee procedures as an answer to terrorism we’re just kidding ourselves and making a lot of new Canadians feel rotten in the bargain.

We must, of course, take much better steps to protect ourselves from terrorists activity. This means tighter airport security which I don’t think need mean undue hardship on passengers. It will, however, take some money to have properly trained and well paid security at our airports and will no doubt mean much tighter security on the planes themselves.

Where the matter becomes more problematic is in dealing with policing the problem. It is here that I am, to some extent anyway, swimming against the tide.

I frankly confess to you that I am a civil libertarian and a democrat. That’s not always easy in a country which puts peace, order and good government ahead of freedom of speech and other basic liberties and which simply does not qualify as a democracy – a sometimes benevolent dictatorship that has, hitherto always had regular elections yes … a democracy, no, not by the most charitable of definitions.

Civil libertarians don’t want terrorism any more than any other person wants it. They have children, families, homes and neighbours just like everyone else and they want protection by the authorities from those who would harm or destroy their loved ones and their way of life. The problem we have is that we simply do not trust government at the best of times and certainly don’t trust them when they tell us that it will be good for us if we surrender a few liberties for the good of the country.

Why don’t we trust our government? Because centuries of collective experience tell us that they simply are not to be trusted. We know from bitter experience that power does indeed corrupt and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We know from early in our lives that some people love to be authoritarian and as often as not they gravitate to positions of authority. Once that happens they convince themselves that they know best … that ordinary people simply don’t know and understand enough and that if necessary, the public must be dealt with very firmly. The very reason we have elections is that we don’t trust governments and reserve the right to give them their walking papers. We know that authority tends to become secretive and that, if necessary, it will blatantly lie rather than expose its right to be authoritative to recall by the rabble.

I have watched you, my fellow British Columbians, and listened to you for many years. A huge number of you, not all, but a majority, have consistently shown a great reluctance to trust the Prime Minister. Many think he has deceived us with election promises, for example to repeal the GST, get out of Nafta and bring in proportional representation as the first order of business after an election. Many believe that he was up to his eyeballs in what is known as Shawinigate. Some who think these things will, probably by the bankruptcy of other choices, vote for Mr Chretien’s party but they don’t trust him.

If we don’t trust him on the matters I have mentioned why on earth would we trust him or the lickspittles in his government when they tell us that in order to defend our freedoms we must have them taken away?

But even if I don’t trust Mr Chretien – in fact I think he is a pathological liar if you want the bare bones of it – I must concede that there are no doubt terrorists in Canada and I want them dealt with. So do you. So does everyone.

Mr Chretien, in making his decision to pass draconian legislation, must have consulted with Canada’s top policeman, who I remind you is no longer independent but a man who owes his job, from day to day, to Mr Chretien and is a deputy minister to one of Mr Chretien’s lackeys.

It seems pretty obvious that the RCMP Commissioner must have said one of two things – first possibility – we have a terrorism problem in Canada and we can’t deal with it using ordinary police methods and the Criminal Code of Canada. Second possibility, we don’t know if we have this problem but we can’t find out unless we have extraordinary powers.

Now I must tell you that as a civil libertarian I don’t trust police chiefs any more than I trust prime ministers and even less do I trust them when they’re dealing with civil rights. But there is a way to overcome the fears of us civil libertarians for we are not only reasonable people just as afraid of terrorism as anyone else, but we’re good Canadians. The answer I gave yesterday and will repeat today. This is my advice to the Prime Minister. Do as was done with CSIS which, by its nature, might sail pretty close to the wind when it comes to civil rights. Set up a committee of three Privy Councilors and present to them, within the confidence of their oath, the facts upon which you base your demand of parliament that the police be given extraordinary powers. If it is real problem or a perceived problem, people of quality such as the men I mentioned yesterday, John Fraser, Robert Stanfield and Ed Broadbent, can be trusted by you to honour their oath of secrecy and by us to let us have their honest opinion. I ask everyone listening, what could be fairer than that?

If this committee agreed with the government that extraordinary powers are needed we might still want to debate such things as sunset clauses and responsibility for errors but I have no hesitation in saying that Canadians would, for the most part, accept the committees recommendations.

I’m sorry I made this suggestion because for no better reason than I made it, it will be rejected.

But I say this to you as what I hope will be my final word on the matter – if the government is not prepared to let senior statesman, bound in oath to the Crown, assess the government’s evidence … we have every reason to say they must be afraid of their case … and every reason to assume that they simply are not to be trusted.