Privacy In Canada Essay

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.

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’

Bill C-36: Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act is a response to the December, 2013 Supreme Court decision in Attorney General of Canada vs. Bedford. The Act was introduced in the House of Commons on June 4th, 2013 and passed in the House of Commons on October 6, 2014 by a 156-124 vote. It will now be considered in the Senate. Bill C-36 attempts to take the Nordic model approach, penalizing paying for sex while decriminalizing the sale of sex. This paper will present a review of Bill C-36, the importance of decriminalizing prostitution and insight into the ways that I intend to influence it as a social worker.

Three decades ago, honorable Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was establishing the renowned Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since the three decades of being established, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has protected the individual rights and freedoms of thousands of Canadians. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has become a part of the national identity and has become a big patriotic symbol for the country. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the document the truly separates Canada from all the other powerful nations and is really something that Canadian take a pride in. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms brings up many questions, but the biggest and most common question is How effectively does Canada’s Charter of Rights and

The ombudsman is supposed to protect detainees who are part of the immigration system; to make sure that their rights have not been and are not being violated by those belonging to the immigration system. His position is supposed to change how detainees will be represented and treated while being held in detention centers. The position also entails that they have the right to give suggestions on how to improve the administrative practices, services, and responsiveness of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration. They also have other responsibilities in which their position is supposed to better the relationship of the Bureau, the detainees, and the people in the United States. The new House Bill was giving the ombudsman more responsibility than what the original bill had stated. There still was many issues within the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration. House Bill 4321 objective, for this section, was to increase the possibilities in how the ombudsman could help improve the department.

On June 9th 2015, Stephen Harper and the Canadian government passed Bill C-51. It’s an anti terrorism act, with only the best intentions at mind for Canada and its national security. However since it’s approval, there has been much controversy surrounding the bill. There are five key changes in Bill C-51 and many Canadians aren’t pleased with them, such as, the right to exchange information between national agencies, unwarranted arrests and also the increase in surveillance that will occur with both of these new conditions (Watters, 1). Bill C-51 also interferes with sections of the Charter and other key legal philosophies such as the Magna Carta and the Rule of Law.

What will happen if proposition 55 (prop. 55) fails and we won’t be able to tax the wealthiest Californians? David Kersten, in “Leading Taxpayer Advocate Makes Strong Case Against Prop.55 Tax Hike,” finds that “Accelerated Exodus” --a name for prop. 55-- is basically doubling the size of prop. 30, a passed proposition that increased income tax on the wealthiest Californians in 2012. Essentially, prop. 55 is a permanent increase in income taxes; this is causing quite a stir in the state’s business circle because it will accelerate the exodus, or removal, of capital and jobs leaving California. Prop. 55 shows taxes are never temporary; California Senator Jerry Brown promised in 2012 that the increases would be temporary, petering out after 2018.

Although CSIS never found any evidence of the writing, they extracted photos from the mans computer. Photos of child pornography. CSIS then handed the photos to the RCMP who were unable to use the evidence because they attained it by violating the Charters protections against unreasonable search and seizure. This could happen again in the future because defence lawyers may argue that if CSIS gains a warrant to execute something against the Charter then this could be considered misconduct and be grounds for a mistrial making prosecuting terrorists next to impossible. In order for this law to be changed so that Canadians benefit, taking away CSIS’ right to act as its own police force needs to be removed. This in turn causes CSIS not to be able to get warrants to break the Charter which also takes the pressure of judges who must go beyond the law when they grant these authorisations.

To understand the underlying political processes of Proposition 47, it is important to operationalize the merits of the proposed measure. Proposition 47 endeavors to reduce penalties for nonserious and nonviolent crimes, as well as, prioritizes prison spendings on violent offenses (Couzens and Bigelow 2016, 6). Proposition 47 consists of four primary statues: it reforms criminal sentences and misdemeanor penalties. Certain drug possessions offenses along with petty theft, receiving stolen property, and forging under the amount of $950 requires a misdemeanor sentence instead of a felony (Couzens and Bigelow 2016, 6). Inmates serving felony sentences are allowed to petition the court to resentence convictions to misdemeanors; likewise, Proposition

Surveillance and biopolitical governance are terms usually associated with the internal surveillance methods of the United States, especially in light of the Snowden NSA leaks. However, Canada has developed an elusive biopolitical national security policy that has both social and political consequences. In April 2004, the Canada’s federal government introduced its first national security legislation, Securing an Open Society: Canada’s National Security Policy (Bell 147). Discussions surrounding a national security agenda has expanded rapidly since the tragic events of 9/11. Canada has quoted $690 million in national security policy and strategy however, this only reflects a portion of the actual total amount of money put towards security and

In November of 2014, a bill called Proposition 105 was on the ballot in Colorado that, if passed, would require any foods with genetically modified ingredients, to be labeled. Although the bill did not pass, the debate on whether GMOs (genetically modified organisms) should be labeled or not rages on. As defined by dictionary.com, a GMO is defined as “An organism or microorganism whose genetic material has been altered by means of genetic engineering.” This genetic alteration that takes place, is not possible in nature, which has some people apprehensive about GMOs overall safety. Bills like Proposition 105 have already passed in the states of Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine, giving these three states the same rights that 64 countries around

Respect for an individual is established through granting privacy. By removing the ability to have personal autonomy, one’s dignity is lost and government control expands. Although citizens in both texts are stripped of their right to discretion, it is their respective response that determines the outcome of society. Bill C-51 authorizes complete control over the personal information of any citizen, even those who are not

Freedom of expression is one of the fundamental components of the Charter of Rights and Freedom (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, 1982). However, with the introduction of Bill C-51, these rights may be compromised. The expanded monitoring capabilities given to the CSIS now allows for the monitoring, censoring, and ultimately criminalizing any offence involving the “terrorist offences in general”(Forceses, 2015). This type of censorship can have detrimental effect to certain aspect of our society. An individual may have certain opinions about to terrorism, and sharing these opinions may be considered as criminal activity according to Bill C-51. To illustrate, academic freedom and free speech is an essential part of every university and

Canada federal officials are investigating a privacy breach involving the imprisoned terrorist who lost the rights to live in the country . Zakaria Amara’s receipt of a government letter informing him he no longer held Canadian citizenship was promptly reported in the media late last month and soon after confirmed by a Conservative cabinet minister in the middle of a closely fought election campaign.The issue quickly fired up the campaign trail debate about new provisions that allow the government to revoke a terrorist’s canadian citizenship as long as the person has nationality elsewhere. However the citizenship and immigration canada is refusing to release a copy of the letter to Amara due to privacy considerations. The department takes privacy matters very seriously and has procedures in place to protect their personal information. Citizenship and immigration would not be elaborate it would be inappropriate to comment any further. The federal act protects the privacy of individuals with respect to their personal information about themselves held by government institutions. One’s citizenship would be considered personal information.

Thesis Statement: “Citizens of this country should value the national security more than their privacy since it is concerned with a much larger group of people in order to protect our country from invaders, to maintain the survival of our country and to prevent airing of criticism of government.”