Canadian National Security

A great example of the changes done to ethnic minority human rights is the use of religious garbs in places where wearing something that covers your head, face, or eyesight is not allowed (e.g. school). It can also be the use of religious garbs while participating in an athletic event or police work (RCMP and city/provincial police).14 “In December 2007, the Alberta Soccer Association approved the wearing of sports-friendly hijabs, joining British Columbia and Ontario.”15 This shows that Canadian sports organizations are willing to let people wear their religious garbs during athletic activities, as long as they are athletic friendly.16 The federal government of Canada has also removed a law which forced people who work in the RCMP to wear RCMP Stetsons. This law was removed in Marsh 1990 because it would not allow people of the Silk faith to wear turbans, a religious garb of the Sikh people.17 These changes to laws affecting ethnic minority human rights show that the Canadian government and organizations are trying to be as fair as possible (i.e. the Canadian government will be reasonable, and will not, for example, allow people to wear their religious garbs as helmets),18 and that the religious beliefs of minorities are no longer ignored. Because of the changes to ethnic minority human rights, Canada is as a “just

The government is always watching to ensure safety of their country, including everything and everyone in it. Camera surveillance has become an accepted and almost expected addition to modern safety and crime prevention (“Where” para 1). Many people willingly give authorization to companies like Google and Facebook to make billions selling their personal preferences, interests, and data. Canada participates with the United States and other countries in monitoring national and even global communications (“Where” para 2). Many question the usefulness of this kind of surveillance (Hier, Let, and Walby 1).However, surveillance, used non-discriminatorily, is, arguably, the key technology to preventing terrorist plots (Eijkman 1). Government

Today, Canadian’s lives today are as translucent as ever. Most organizations especially the government constantly watches each and every one of our moves. By definition, surveillance is any systematic focus on any information in order to influence, manage, entitle, or control those whose information is collected. (Bennet et Al, 6). From driving to the shopping mall to withdrawing money from the ATM machine, Canadians are being watched constantly. With Canada’s commitment to advance technology and infrastructure in the 1960s, government surveillance is much easier and much more prevalent than it was hundreds of years ago. Even as early as 1940s, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics used punch cards and machines to determine who is available

In society today many citizens feel violated with the security methods taken by homeland security. “On September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States marked the beginning of the global war on terrorism. The methods used are justifiable as they provide protection against possible threats or attacks. This attack on U.S. soil increased surveillance of both American citizens and foreign nationals” (Andrew, C., & Walter,

In March of 2012, a white power rally in Edmonton drew out a dozen or two members of the Blood and Honour racist group. They were met and peaceably challenged by hundreds of participants in an anti-racism rally, which was "coincidental" (Dykstra). Therefore Canada still does have lurking racism, but in its overt forms it is socially unacceptable. This paper will address the overt forms of racism evident in Canada, which include hate groups like Blood and Honour. However, it is the covert forms of racism and bias that threaten to undermine the social fabric of Canada.

The purpose of this act is to encourage and monitor the sharing of information between Government of Canada institutions in order to protect Canada against activities that threaten the security of Canada, but this bill not only fails to fix those flaws, it recreates and causes more underlying problems without adding any meaningful safeguards to ensure the expansive powers it grants will not be similarly abused. The bill allows information sharing across 17 government institutions for a wide range of purposes, most of which have nothing to do with terrorism. After the bill was passed, it has raised serious concerns regarding the potential impact is has on the basic civil liberties of all Canadians. The new legislation significantly expands CSIS’

There are moments when civil liberties should be curtailed in democratic countries like the US and Canada, in order to maintain national security. While this is true, there are also moments that an individual’s civil liberty should be maintained whereas it is not. Consequently, governments should make clear boundaries as to which occasions civil liberties should be restricted. For instance, both the Patriotic Act and the Anti-terrorist Act allowed rover wiretapping which are needed to deal with terrorists who have a sophisticated knowledge of how technology works.

Discrimination towards ethnic minority continues to find its way in our country. Unfortunately, the subject of racial profiling remains a part of Canada, as officers ignore individual behavior and instead, rely on race in police investigations. According to Katheryn Russell (as cited by Amy Hackney & Jack Glaser, 2013) racial profiling is defined as “The use of race or ethnicity by law enforcement officials as a basis for judgement of criminal suspicion” (Russell, 1998). Racial profiling within our country can be exposed through Canadian history, surveys and interviews from those treated unjustly. All of which stakeholders attempt to remedy for the victimization of the innocent.

There has been a significant body of literature which has attested to the veracity of the argument that black Canadians are victimized via racial profiling. For example, the Commission of Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System found that the majority of black respondents surveyed had been treated unfairly by the Canadian criminal justice system (Wortley and Owusu-Bempah, 2011, p.133-134). Furthermore, Canadian research studies have consistently revealed that blacks are more likely to come into negative police contact compared to Caucasians (Wortley and Owusu-Bempah, 2011, p. 135). Alarmingly, suspected black offenders are also more likely to be shot and experience use of force by Canadian law enforcement personnel than their white counterparts (Wortley and Owusu-Bempah, 2011, p. 138).

As a Canadian in today’s society we believe we have a certain set of inalienable rights. One of those rights that seem to be at the forefront of the 2015 Canadian election is privacy. As Dr. Kent Roach and Dr. Craig Forcese state, “privacy is, in our society, the right to be left alone by the state.” The Conservative upbringing of Bill C-51 challenges the ideology around our right to be private, as well as our government’s role in the protection of Canada from threats of terrorism. The Harper government essentially, will increase their role in national security to keep a constant watchful eye on potentially harmful situations and end them before anyone is hurt or killed. If passed, the bill would allow the government to arrest anyone suspected of terrorism without that person even committing a crime. Furthermore, the language used in the bill is extremely vague and makes one question, where the line will be drawn? Will our basic rights to peaceful protest and free speech be affected? Unfortunately perhaps they will. One of the most concerning parts of the bill in regard to privacy is the fact that the government will now be able to access several sensitive documents about citizens from top agencies such as the Public Health Agency, Canadian Border Services Agency as well as the Canadian Border Services Agency. Privacy is changing in Canada. This is a landmark bill and as such it is creating quite a splash in the ongoing Canadian Election.

In the eyes of many Canadians our country is viewed as a historically racially-inclusive society. This idea is false, and there is very limited evidence to support the contrary. Many events in Canada’s history have shows that it is guilty of promoting racial hierarchies and cultural insensitivities. Throughout Canada’s development there has always remained an emphasis on promoting the supremacy of the white race, and Anglo-Canadian culture.

The Canadian criminal justice system collects statistics and data on a variety of topics in respect to both offenders and victims. Some of the data that is collected include information about an offender or victim's age, race, and marital status. Whether or not data should be collected and what kind of data that is being collected has been a topic of controversy. Canada has no official policy regarding the use of racial profiling, but that does not mean that it is not prevalent in our society. It is known that making information about the race of an offender public potentially leads to racial profiling by the public; however the collection of data is important for other areas of the criminal justice system. Collecting data for use in the criminal

It has been more than seventy years since the release of George Orwell’s 1984, a novel that imparts a lesson on the consequences of government overreach. However, today that novel reads like an exposé of government surveillance. Privacy and national security are two ideas competing for value on a balance; if one is more highly valued, the other carries less weight. Government desire to bolster national security by spying on its own citizens-- even the law abiding ones-- is what leads to the inverse relationship between civil liberties and security. In times of a perceived threat to the nation, national security becomes highly prized and people lose privacy. One case is terrorist attacks. 9/11 caused an understandable kneejerk reaction in Americans to bolster protection. Some of the the measures taken were observable, like greater security at airports, but others attempted to increase national security in a more intrusive way. Privacy should be more highly valued than national security, and America has reached a point where that is no longer true.

Specific Purpose: My purpose of this presentation is to inform listeners about the dangers of government surveillance and why it should be stopped.

September 11th, 2001, the day that the biggest terrorist attacks in history took place, the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York City. Even though this act of terrorism took place in the United States, it still had a major effect on Canada and changed a lot about the country and formatted what Canada is today. I will speak of four ways in which 9/11 affected Canada: The accusation that some of the hijackers entered the U.S. through Canada, how 9/11 affected immigration to Canada for Muslims, the way Muslims live in Canada today, and the story of Maher Arar and its relation 9/11.