In the wee hours of Wednesday morning major news outlets like the CBC made the official call: the B.C. Liberals had won a minority government in the 2017 provincial election.

Except they haven’t … quite … yet.

Here’s how the numbers are currently being reported: B.C. Liberals 43 seats, NDP 41 seats, Greens 3 seats.

These numbers are far from final. As Elections B.C. states right up there on its website, these are primary voting results from an initial count. “Final voting results will not be available until after the conclusion of final count, which will commence on May 22, 2017,” the site states.

There are about 160,000 absentee ballots waiting to be counted and some too-close-to-call ridings like Courtenay-Comox are facing a recount.

But, as Simon Fraser University student Steve Tweedale put it, we don’t need a final count to know it’s false to report the election resulted in a B.C. Liberal minority government.

“Assuming the preliminary count holds up, the outcome of the election is a hung parliament (sometimes called a minority parliament), meaning that no single party has a majority of seats. Under B.C.’s parliamentary system of government, elections determine the composition of the Legislative Assembly; they do not determine the composition of the government,” Tweedale writes.

The B.C. Liberals won 43 seats, just one seat shy of a majority. It is true that Clark will remain premier for the timebeing but she must retain the confidence of the house to continue as premier. If she cannot, one of several things can happen.

In this hung parliament situation, “the norm is the current premier gets the first shot at it, gets the first opportunity to form government,” UBC political scientist Kathryn Harrison told DeSmog Canada.

Clark could try her hand at governing with a minority government but in each act of convening the house she would run the risk of losing its confidence.

“One option would be for the Liberals to take their chances, stake out their positions, the route they would propose to go in government in a throne speech and invite other parties to defeat them which is an interesting option — it’s a bit of a game of chicken,” Harrison said.

“They won’t expect the popular vote.”

Or Clark could choose to step down.

“Sometimes it’s in the interest of a government to control the terms of their defeat,” Harrison said.

If Clark did announce her resignation to the Lieutenant Governor the buck would pass to NDP leader John Horgan to become premier with a minority government. Horgan, like Clark, would need to maintain the confidence of the house to carry this out.

But the B.C. Liberals and the NDP might also jockey for the support of the Green party's three MLAs in the hopes of forming either formal or informal coalitions.

As Clark said last night, “I will work with the other parties to do what needs to be done to keep fighting to protect” B.C.

Here’s where things get very interesting. If you watched coverage of the election last night you may have heard that Andrew Weaver’s Green party “held the balance of power” meaning the Greens have the option to formally (by forming a coalition government) or informally (by maintaining confidence through the support of policy measures and budgets, for example) prop up either the Liberals or the NDP.

“In the days ahead there will be plenty of discussions taking place between all parties,” Weaver told a room of supporters last night.

A BC Liberal Minority Government? Not So Fast https://t.co/CHmRlPXpub #bcpoli #bcelxn2017 @BCGreens #electoralreform @bcndp

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 10, 2017

A Liberal/Green Coalition?

It’s likely Clark will invite the Greens to join her cabinet, which they can do as Greens without crossing the aisle. But it is also likely that there will be some irreconcilable political differences that keep the Liberal and Green MLAs at loggerheads.

Weaver has yet to signal what his intentions are (although he did seem to suggest a preference for working with Clark in a controversial Global News interview) but throughout his campaign he stated banning big money in B.C. politics and electoral reform were up top on his list of priorities.

For years Weaver has campaigned to strengthen B.C.’s political donation rules, which currently allow unlimited amounts of foreign, corporate and union donations. The Green party has taken a strong stance on this issue by refusing to accept any corporate or union funds.

"Without any question, that's a deal breaker,” he said last week. “We've got to get the money out of politics.”

This could make the formation of a coalition government with the Liberals — a party awash in corporate cash — difficult.

The Green party is also committed to electoral reform, pushing for proportional representation in B.C. rather than the current first-past-the-post system.

“We support proportional representation because it is a fairer voting system, which encourages democratic participation and accurately reflects voters’ choices in the make-up of government,” Weaver said.

“It’s not obvious what the deal there would be,” Harrison said. “These are not issues that will be easy for Liberals and Greens to come to agreement upon.”

“Maybe financial reform,” Harrison said, “but electoral reform does not serve the Liberals' interests.”

On election night Weaver also stated his position on LNG is non-negotiable. Two LNG projects are approved in British Columbia — Woodfibre LNG in Howe Sound and Pacific Northwest LNG near Prince Rupert, which is projected to be one of the single largest source points of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, making it impossible for B.C. to meet its climate targets.

The Green party also pledged to cancel the controversial Site C dam, a crowning achievement and non-negotiable project for the B.C. Liberals.

So the differences in the Liberal and Green platforms seem pretty vast.

A NDP/Green Coalition?

As certainly as the Liberals will go courting the Greens, so will the NDP.

At a rally last night, John Horgan said a new government is in order.

“British Columbians have waited 16 years for a government that works for them, and we are going to have to ask you to wait a little bit longer until all the votes are counted and the final results of this election are known,” he said.

“But this is what we do know: A majority of British Columbians voted for a new government and I believe that’s what they deserve.”

A coalition between the NDP and the Greens seems easier to accomplish at least on the surface as the two parties share more general alignment on policies.

Of greatest significance is the NDP-Green alignment on two policies that would change B.C. elections forever. 

The NDP commitment to ban corporate and union donations falls squarely in line with one of the Green’s top priorities.

On electoral form, the NDP have also spoken in favour, vowing to send the issue to a referendum and campaign in favour of reform if if elected — also in line with the Green platform.

The NDP have also explicitly spoken out against the Pacific Northwest LNG project, due to significant greenhouse gas emissions and threats to the Skeena River salmon runs. So the NDP and Greens will likely have an easier time finding common ground when it comes to the LNG industry.

On Site C, the NDP have promised to send the Site C dam for an expedited review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, so it's also not hard to imagine the Greens and NDP finding common ground on this issue.

It’s possible a coalition with the Greens will give the NDP the political cover necessary to make several bold moves including banning big money in politics, moving to some form of proportional representation and possibly even scrapping the Site C dam altogether. 

Coalition a ‘Risky Proposition’ for Greens

The Greens will want to proceed carefully in their discussions with either the Liberals or the NDP, Harrison said.

“Coalitions governments are risky for junior partners,” she said.  

“I think for the Greens to enter a formal or informal coalition with either the NDP or the Liberals is a risky proposition because the junior partners in those coalitions tends to not fare well in the next election.”

The Green party will need to decide what its hardline tradeoff will be for supporting another party.

“Green parties internationally have a tendency to insist on some policy like a carbon tax — we already have one — as a condition for participation in the coalition and then get wiped off the map in the next election.”  

Yet there may be one key condition the Greens could place on their support: the promise of electoral reform.

“In this case I think the big win, the Holy Grail for the Greens would be a commitment to electoral reform for the system,” Harrison said.

The Green vote is depressed by the first-past-the-post system, Harrison said.

“It’s not that they don’t win seats, it’s that a lot of voters aren’t voting Green because they know their vote won’t count.”

A change in B.C.'s electoral system would both transform electoral politics in B.C. and would also change prospects for the Green party in the future, Harrison added.

“But it’s hard for me to imagine the Greens getting that concession from the Liberals because the Liberals have been the biggest beneficiary of the current electoral system.”

Image: Premier Christy Clark and Lieutenant Governor of B.C., the Honourable Judith Guichon, dissolve parliament for the 2017 election period. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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Legal experts from across Canada are urging all parliamentarians to “ensure that C-51 not be enacted in anything resembling its present form.” They argue, in an open letter published on the National Post, that the federal government’s anti-terrorism bill is a “dangerous piece of legislation” that has not been given due debate. The Harper government decided to cut off a second reading debate of the bill on February 23, after less than three days of discussion.

The authors of the letter note the lack of debate is a “troubling undermining of our parliamentary democracy’s ability to hold majority governments accountable.”

“It is sadly ironic that democratic debate is being curtailed on a bill that vastly expands the scope of covert state activity when that activity will be subject to poor or non-existent democratic oversight or review.”

The full text of the open letter is reproduced below:

Dear Members of Parliament,

Please accept this collective open letter as an expression of the signatories’ deep concern that Bill C-51 (which the government is calling the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015) is a dangerous piece of legislation in terms of its potential impacts on the rule of law, on constitutionally and internationally protected rights, and on the health of Canada’s democracy.

Beyond that, we note with concern that knowledgeable analysts have made cogent arguments not only that Bill C-51 may turn out to be ineffective in countering terrorism by virtue of what is omitted from the bill, but also that Bill C-51 could actually be counter-productive in that it could easily get in the way of effective policing, intelligence-gathering and prosecutorial activity. In this respect, we wish it to be clear that we are neither “extremists” (as the Prime Minister has recently labelled the Official Opposition for its resistance to Bill C-51) nor dismissive of the real threats to Canadians’ security that government and Parliament have a duty to protect. Rather, we believe that terrorism must be countered in ways that are fully consistent with core values (that include liberty, non-discrimination, and the rule of law), that are evidence-based, and that are likely to be effective.

The scope and implications of Bill C-51 are so extensive that it cannot be, and is not, the purpose of this letter to itemize every problem with the bill. Rather, the discussion below is an effort to reflect a basic consensus over some (and only some) of the leading concerns, all the while noting that any given signatory’s degree of concern may vary item by item. Also, the absence of a given matter from this letter is not meant to suggest it is not also a concern.

We are grateful for the service to informed public debate and public education provided, since Bill C-51 was tabled, by two highly respected law professors — Craig Forcese of the University of Ottawa and Kent Roach of the University of Toronto — who, combined, have great expertise in national security law at the intersection of constitutional law, criminal law, international law and other sub-disciplines. What follows — and we limit ourselves to five points — owes much to the background papers they have penned, as well as to insights from editorials in the media and speeches in the House of Commons.

Accordingly, we urge all MPs to vote against Bill C-51 for the following reasons:

1. Bill C-51 enacts a new security-intelligence information-sharing statute of vast scope with no enhanced protections for privacy and from abuse. The law defines “activities that undermine the security of Canada” in such an exceptionally broad way that “terrorism” is simply one example of nine examples, and only “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression” is excluded. Apart from all the civil-disobedience activities and illegal protests or strikes that will be covered (e.g. in relation to “interference with critical infrastructure”), this deep and broad intrusion into privacy is made worse by the fact there are no corresponding oversight or review mechanisms adequate to this expansion of the state’s new levels of information awareness. Concerns have already been expressed by the Privacy Commissioner, an Officer of Parliament, who has insufficient powers and resources to even begin to oversee, let alone correct abuses within, this expanded information-sharing system. And there is virtually nothing in the bill that recognizes any lessons learned from what can happen when information-sharing ends up in the wrong hands, as when the RCMP supplied poor information to US authorities that in turn led to the rendition of Maher Arar to Syria and his subsequent torture based on that – and further – information coming from Canada.  
2. Bill C-51 enacts a new “terrorism” offence that makes it criminal to advocate or encourage “terrorism offences in general” where one does this being reckless as to whether the communication “may” contribute to someone else deciding to commit another terrorism offence. It is overbroad, unnecessary in view of current criminal law, and potentially counter-productive. Keep in mind how numerous and broad are the existing terrorism offences in the Criminal Code, some of which go beyond what the ordinary citizen imagines when they think of terrorism and all of which already include the general criminal-law prohibitions on counselling, aiding and abetting, conspiring, and so on: advocacy or encouragement of any of these “in general” could attract prosecution under the new C-51 offence. Note as well that gestures and physical symbols appear to be caught, and not just verbal or written exhortations. In media commentary and reports, there have been many examples of what could be caught, including in some contexts advocacy of armed revolution and rebellion in other countries (e.g. if C-51 had been the law when thousands of Canadians advocated support for Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress in its efforts to overthrow apartheid by force of arms, when that was still part of the ANC’s strategy). So, the chill for freedom of speech is real. In addition, in a context in which direct incitement to terrorist acts (versus of “terrorism offences in general”) is already a crime in Canada, this vague and sweeping extension of the criminal law seems unjustified in terms of necessity – and indeed, the Prime Minister during Question Period has been unable or unwilling to give examples of what conduct he would want to see criminalized now that is not already prohibited by the Criminal Code. But, perhaps most worrying is how counter-productive this new crime could be. De-radicalization outreach programs could be negatively affected. Much anti-radicalization work depends on frank engagement of authorities like the RCMP, alongside communities and parents, with youth who hold extreme views, including some views that, if expressed (including in private), would contravene this new prohibition. Such outreach may require “extreme dialogue” in order to work through the misconceptions, anger, hatred and other emotions that lead to radicalization. If C-51 is enacted, these efforts could find themselves stymied as local communities and parents receive advice that, if youth participating in these efforts say what they think, they could be charged with a crime. As a result, the RCMP may cease to be invited in at all, or, if they are, engagement will be fettered by restraint that defeats the underlying methods of the programme. And the counter-productive impact could go further. The Prime Minister himself confirmed he would want the new law used against young people sitting in front of computers in their family basements, youth who can express extreme views on social-media platforms. Why is criminalization counter-productive here? As a National Post editorial pointed out, the result of Bill C-51 could easily be that one of the best sources of intelligence for possible future threats — public social-media platforms — could dry up; that is, extreme views will go silent because of fears of being charged. This undercuts the usefulness of these platforms for monitoring and intelligence that lead to knowing not only who warrants further investigative attention but also whether early intervention in the form of de-radicalization outreach efforts are called for.  
3. Bill C-51 would allow CSIS to move from its central current function — information-gathering and associated surveillance with respect to a broad area of “national security” matters — to being a totally different kind of agency that now may actively intervene to disrupt activities by a potentially infinite range of unspecified measures, as long as a given measure falls shy of causing bodily harm, infringements on sexual integrity or obstructions of justice. CSIS agents can do this activity both inside and outside Canada, and they can call on any entity or person to assist them. There are a number of reasons to be apprehensive about this change of role. One only has to recall that the CSIS Act defines “threats to the security of Canada” so broadly that CSIS already considers various environmental and Aboriginal movements to be subject to their scrutiny; that is to say, this new disruption power goes well beyond anything that has any connection at all to “terrorism” precisely because CSIS’s mandate in the CSIS Act goes far beyond a concern only with terrorism. However, those general concerns expressed, we will now limit ourselves to the following serious problem: how Bill C-51 seems to display a complete misunderstanding of the role of judges in our legal system and constitutional order. Under C-51, judges may now be asked to give warrants to allow for disruption measures that contravene Canadian law or the Charter, a role that goes well beyond the current contexts in which judges now give warrants (e.g. surveillance warrants and search and seizure warrants) where a judge’s role is to ensure that these investigative measures are “reasonable” so as not to infringe section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights. What C-51 now does is turn judges into agents of the executive branch (here, CSIS) to pre-authorize violations of Canadian law and, even, to pre-authorize infringements of almost any Charter right as long as the limits in C-51 – bodily harm, sexual integrity and obstruction of justice – are respected. This completely subverts the normal role of judges, which is to assess whether measures prescribed by law or taken in accordance with discretion granted by statute infringed rights — and, if they did, whether the Charter has been violated because the infringement cannot be justified under the Charter’s section 1 limitation clause. Now, a judge can be asked (indeed, required) to say yes in advance to measures that could range from wiping a target’s computer clear of all information to fabricating materials (or playing agent-provocateur roles) that discredit a target in ways that cause others no longer to trust him, her or it: and these examples are possibly at the mild end of what CSIS may well judge as useful “disruption” measures to employ. It is also crucial to note that CSIS is authorized to engage in any measures it chooses if it concludes that the measure would not be “contrary” to any Canadian law or would not “contravene” the Charter. Thus, it is CSIS that decides whether to even go to a judge. There is reason to be worried about how unregulated (even by courts) this new CSIS disruption power would be, given the evidence that CSIS has in the past hidden information from its review body, SIRC, and given that a civil-servant whistleblower has revealed that, in a parallel context, Ministers of Justice in the Harper government have directed Department of Justice lawyers to conclude that the Minister can certify under the Department of Justice Act that a law is in compliance with the Charter if there is a mere 5% chance a court would uphold the law if it was challenged in court. Finally, it is crucial to add that these warrant proceedings will take place in secret, with only the government side represented, and no prospect of appeal. Warrants will not be disclosed to the target and, unlike police investigations, CSIS activities do not culminate in court proceedings where state conduct is then reviewed.  
4. We now draw attention to effectiveness by noting a key omission from C-51. As the Official Opposition noted in its “reasoned amendment” when it moved that C-51 not be given Second Reading, Bill C-51 does not include “the type of concrete, effective measures that have been proven to work, such as working with communities ‎on measures to counter radicalization of youth – may even undermine outreach.” This speaks for itself, and we will not elaborate beyond saying that, within a common commitment to countering terrorism, effective measures of the sort referenced in the reasoned amendment not only are necessary but also must be vigorously pursued and well-funded. The government made no parallel announcements alongside Bill C-51 that would suggest that these sort of measures are anywhere near the priority they need to be.  
5. Finally, the defects noted in points 1, 2 and 3 (information-sharing, criminalizing expression, and disruption) are magnified by the overarching lack of anything approaching adequate oversight and review functions, at the same time as existing accountability mechanisms have been weakened and in some cases eliminated in recent years. Quite simply, Bill C-51 continues the government’s resolute refusal to respond to 10 years of calls for adequate and integrated review of intelligence and related security-state activities, which was first (and perhaps best) articulated by Justice O’Connor in a dedicated volume in his report on what had happened to Maher Arar. Only last week, former prime ministers and premiers wrote an open letter saying that a bill like C-51 cannot be enacted absent the kind of accountability processes and mechanisms that will catch and hopefully prevent abuses of the wide new powers CSIS and a large number of partner agencies will now have (note that CSIS can enlist other agencies and any person in its disruption activities and the information-sharing law concerns over a dozen other government agencies besides CSIS). Even if one judged all the new CSIS powers in C-51 to be justified, they must not be enacted without proper accountability. Here, we must note that the government’s record has gone in the opposite direction from enhanced accountability. Taking CSIS alone, the present government weakened CSIS’s accountability by getting rid of an oversight actor, the Inspector General, whose job was to keep the Minister of Public Security on top of CSIS activity in real time. It transferred this function to CSIS’s review body, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which does not have anything close to the personnel or resources to carry this function out – given it does not have sufficient staff and resources to carry out its existing mandate to ensure CSIS acts within the law. Beyond staff, we note that SIRC is a body that has for some time not been at a full complement of members, even as the government continues to make no apology for having once appointed as SIRC’s Chair someone with no qualifications (and it turns out, no character) to be on SIRC let alone to be its chair (Arthur Porter). And, as revealed in a recent CBC investigation, the government has simply not been straight with Canadians when it constantly says SIRC is a robust and well-resourced body: its budget is a mere $3 million, which has flat-lined since 2005 when the budget was $2.9 million, even as its staff has been cut from 20 in 2005 to 17 now. Without an integrated security-intelligence review mechanism, which should also include some form of Parliamentary oversight and/or review, and with especially SIRC (with jurisdiction only over CSIS) not a fully effective body, we are of the view that no MP should in good conscience be voting for Bill C-51.

Above, we have limited ourselves to five central concerns, but it is important to reiterate that some or all of the signatories have serious concerns about a good number of other aspects of C-51 – and/or about detailed aspects of some of the concerns that were generally expressed in the above five points. The following are some (but only some) of those concerns, in point form. They are included by way of saying that signatories believe these all need to be looked at closely and rigorously during House of Commons committee study of C-51, now that it has passed Second Reading:

• C-51 radically lowers the threshold for preventive detention and imposition of recognizance with conditions on individuals. Only three years ago, Parliament enacted a law saying this detention/conditions regime can operate if there is a reasonable basis for believing a person “will” commit a terrorist offence. Now, that threshold has been lowered to “may.” There has been a failure of the government to explain why exactly the existing power has not been adequate. In light of the huge potential for abuse of such a low threshold, including through wide-scale use (recalling the mass arrests at the time of the War Measures Act in Quebec), Canadians and parliamentarians need to know why extraordinary new powers are needed, especially when the current ones were enacted in the context of ongoing threats by Al-Qaeda to carry out attacks in Canada that seem no less serious than the ones currently being threatened by entities like ISIS and Al-Shabab.  
• C-51 expands the no-fly list regime. It seems to have simply replicated the US no-fly list rules, the operation of which has been widely criticized in terms of its breadth and impacts on innocent people. Is this the right regime for Canada?  
• C-51’s new disruption warrants now allows CSIS to impinge on the RCMP’s law enforcement role, bringing back turf wars that were eliminated when intelligence and law enforcement were separated in the wake of the RCMP’s abusive disruption activities of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But, even more important than turf wars is the potential for CSIS behaviour in the form of disruptive measures to undermine both the investigation and the prosecution of criminal cases by interfering with evidentiary trail, contaminating evidence, and so on.  
• C-51, in tandem with C-44, permits CSIS to engage not just in surveillance and information-gathering abroad, but also in disruption. There are many questions about how this will work. The danger of lawlessness seems to be significantly greater for CSIS activities abroad, in that CSIS only needs to seek approval for disruption under C-51 where Canadian, not foreign, law could be breached or where the Charter could be contravened (with Canadian law on the application of the Charter outside Canada being quite unclear at the moment). And there is no duty for CSIS to coordinate with or seek approval from the Department of Foreign Affairs, such that the chances of interference with the conduct of Canada’s foreign affairs cannot be discounted. Nor can we ignore the likely tendency for disruption measures abroad to be more threatening to individuals’ rights than in Canada: for example, Parliament needs to know whether CSIS agents abroad can engage in detention and rendition to agencies of other countries under the new C-51 regime.

We end by observing that this letter is dated Feb. 23, 2015, which is also the day when the government has chosen to cut off Second Reading debate on Bill C-51 after having allocated a mere three days (in reality, only portions of each of those days) to debate. In light of the sweeping scope and great importance of this bill, we believe that circumventing the ability of MPs to dissect the bill, and their responsibility to convey their concerns to Canadians at large before a Second Reading vote, is a troubling undermining of our Parliamentary democracy’s capacity to hold majority governments accountable. It is sadly ironic that democratic debate is being curtailed on a bill that vastly expands the scope of covert state activity when that activity will be subject to poor or even non-existent democratic oversight or review.

In conclusion, we urge all Parliamentarians to ensure that C-51 not be enacted in anything resembling its present form.

Yours sincerely,

Jennie Abell, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Amir Attaran, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law , University of Ottawa

Natasha Bakht, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Clayton Bangsund, Assistant Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Margaret Beare, Professor of Law and Sociology, York University

Faisal Bhabha, Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Jennifer Bond, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Suzanne Bouclin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Civil Law, University of Ottawa

Susan Boyd, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia

Sarah Buhler, Assistant Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Karen Busby, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, and Director, Centre for Human Rights Research

Michael Byers, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia

Angela Cameron, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Pascale Chapdelaine, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Larry Chartrand, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Allison Christians, H. Heward Stikeman Chair in Tax Law, Faculty of Law, McGill University

Brenda Cossman, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Stephen Coughlan, Professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University

François Crépeau, Hans & Tamar Openheimer Professor in Public International Law, Faculty of Law, McGill University

Hugo Cyr, Professor of Law, University of Quebec in Montreal

Jennifer E. Dalton, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University

Maneesha Deckha, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria

Julie Desrosiers, Professor, Faculty of Law, University Laval

Peter Dietsch, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal

Stacy Douglas, Assistant Professor, Department of Law & Legal Studies, Carleton University

Susan Drummond, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Isabelle Duplessis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal

Stuart Farson, Adjunct Professor, Political Science, Simon Fraser University

Gerry Ferguson, Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria

Leonard, Findlay, Professor, College of Arts and Science, University of Saskatchewan, and Director, Humanities Research Unit

Colleen Flood, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa; Research Chair in Health Law & Policy

Fabien Gélinas, Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University

Daphne Gilbert, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Jassmine Girgis, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary

Isabel Grant, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia

Marie Annik Grégoire, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal

Sakej Henderson, Professor, University of Saskatchewan, Research Director, Native Law Centre of Canada

Gleider I. Hernández, Senior Lecturer in Public International Law, Durham Law School

Steve Hewitt, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Birmingham

Louis-Philippe Hodgson, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, York University

Felix Hoehn, Assistant Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Jula Hughes, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick

Allan Hutchinson, Distinguished Research Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Shin Imai, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Martha Jackman, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Juliet Johnson, Associate Professor, Political Science, McGill University

Rebecca Johnson, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria

Jasminka Kalajdzic, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Charis Kamphuis, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University

John Keyes, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Muharem Kianieff, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Jeff King, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Laws, University College London

Jennifer Koshan, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary

François J. Larocque, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Fannie Lafontaine, Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair on International Criminal Justice and Human Rights, University Laval

Louis-Philippe Lampron, Professor, Faculty of Law, Laval University

Nicole LaViolette, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Jean Leclair, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal

Ed Levy, Retired Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia

Brian Lewis, Professor of History, McGill University

Jamie Liew, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Catherine Lu, Associate Professor, Political Science, McGill University

Audrey Macklin, Professor of Law and Chair in Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Alice MacLachlan, Associate Professor, Philosophy, York University

Warren Magnusson, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria

Kathleen Mahoney, Professor of Law, University of Calgary; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Marie Manikis, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University

John Manwaring, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Michael Marin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Graham Mayeda, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Sheila McIntyre, Professor Emerita, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Michael M’Gonigle, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria

Cynthia Milton, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Montreal

Richard Moon, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Mary Jane Mossman, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Claire Mummé, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Roxanne Mykitiuk, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Pierre Noreau, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal

Darren O’Toole, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Charles-Maxime Panaccio, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Steven Penney, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta

Denise Reaume, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Philip Resnick, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of British Columbia

Darryl Robinson, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University

David Robitaille, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Ottawa and trustee at the Quebec Centre for Environmental Law

Sanda Rodgers, Professor Emerita, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Bruce Ryder, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and Academic Director, Anti-Discrimination Intensive Program

Hengameh Saberi, Assistant Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Calvin Sandborn, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Legal Director, UVic Environmental Law Centre

Steven Savit, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia

Jennifer Schulz, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba

Dayna Scott. Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and Graduate Program Director

Noel Semple, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Martha Shaffer, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Elizabeth Sheehy, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

James Sheptycki, Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University

James Stewart, Assistant Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia

Donald Stuart, Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University

Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Civil Law, University of Ottawa, and Vice-Dean, Research and Communications

François Tanguay-Renaud, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and Director, Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security

David Tanovich, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Christine Tappolet, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal

Saul Templeton, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary

Kimberley N. Trapp, Senior Lecturer in International Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London

Gus Van Harten, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Lucinda Vandervort, Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Wilfrid Waluchow, Professor, Senator William McMaster Chair in Constitutional Studies, Department of Philosophy, McMaster University

Christopher Waters, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

Wesley Pue, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia

Reg Whitaker, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, York University, and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, University of Victoria

David Wiseman, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa

Stepan Wood, Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by author and filmmaker Michael Harris. The article originally appeared on iPolitics and is republished here with permission.

From the cold porches of January, 2015 stretches out like a thousand miles of gravel road.

The country is facing an election that will be nasty, brutish and long — from now until the vote occurs, whenever that may be. The writ period is essentially meaningless. Under the Conservatives, it’s always game on.

True to his word, Stephen Harper has transformed the country, largely by stealth. Canada is now a nation that spies on its friends, guests and citizens. It accepts foreign intelligence even when there is a likelihood that it was obtained by torture. The government lies to the electorate on policy matters. It accuses veterans of exaggerating their injuries in order to take the taxpayer for a ride. It washes its hands of any stake in the fate of 1,200 missing or murdered Aboriginal women. It does not practise unite-and-lead politics, but divide-and-conquer stratagems. A government, by any democratic measure, in disgrace.

Yet have you noticed that almost all of the mainstream media look-aheads do not include the baggage of the Harper record as any kind of liability going into an election? Running for re-election used to be like going to school. You put in your year, did your work, and at the end of a testing process, others decided if you had earned promotion to the next grade.

Not anymore. Instead, the government issues its own report cards and the MSM passes judgment on the efficacy of its spin. They act like bookies before a big race, establishing the odds on who’s ahead, who has momentum, who will win. They do little to inform their audiences in advance of choosing the next government. With notable exceptions, a broad swath of the media is also in disgrace. After all, if the media stops resolving matters of fact, the work falls to the potentates of public relations. Everyone knows who and what they work for.

Confusion rules. The whirling dervish of the polling world drives the nightly news, along with those episodes that give a push or shove upward or downward to somebody’s chances. There is no attempt to ask the most fundamental question of all: on the record, does the Harper government have the character or credibility to be re-elected?

Lying, cheating at the polls, suppressing free speech, cooking statistics at StatsCan with a bogus voluntary census, crushing individuals with the full, institutional powers of government, pretending dirty oil is the answer while the planet gasps — all this would suggest that this group has failed. Few seem prepared to say it.

And now we have an even bigger problem, according to an astonishing story in the Ottawa Citizen by Kathryn May. Nearly one in five Canadians believes that the prime minister could be justified in closing down Parliament in difficult times. A further 17 per cent believe that dissolving the Supreme Court would be okeydoke in the right circumstances. The question was asked and answered without providing any details about what sorts of crises would justify imposing a dictatorship.

These alarming statistics are contained in a study by the Americas Society headed up by David Rockefeller in association with Vanderbilt University. The group surveyed attitudes towards democracy and governance in interviews with 50,000 people in 28 countries. It found that Canada was among those nations most likely to support shuttering its legislatures. In fact, the study found that only the citizens of Paraguay, Peru, and Haiti were more likely to put their democracies in mothballs than Canadians.

Although 77 per cent of Canadians questioned in this study did not support abandoning democratic governance or the rule of law at the discretion of the prime minister, there is another worrisome feature about the minority who did. Their ranks are growing.

In 2010, the same study group found that just one in 10 Canadians thought that there could be grounds for the prime minister governing without Parliament or the Supreme Court. Two years later in 2012, 15 per cent held that view.

Are we sliding towards the political equivalent of Pierre Berton’s “comfortable pew,” bearing in mind that a lazy democracy is a dying democracy? Could these strange numbers explain why Canadians yawned when Stephen Harper was found in contempt of Parliament — and immediately handed him a majority government?

Could they also explain the pathetic decline in voter turnout at a juncture in history when it is hard to imagine more being at stake? A second-rate hockey team or an aging rock star can fill the Air Canada Centre night after night in Toronto. But if the last Canadian election had been an arena with 100 seats, only 60 of them would have had bums in them for the May 2, 2011 vote. What happened?

Stephen Harper has a lot to do with it. He is the prime minister who refused to produce documents requested by a parliamentary committee. He is the leader who denounced omnibus legislation in Opposition and vastly extended its use when he formed the government. He is the prime minister who muzzled MPs, misled Parliament on the F-35 acquisition, and told more stories than Hans Christian Andersen on the Wright/Duffy Affair.

Most people play by the rules; this prime minister plays with them.

As long-time Clerk of the House of Commons and former Information Commissioner Robert Marleau told me:

“We operate under Westminster rules — an honourable understanding that you will play within the rules and by the rules. Mr. Harper has not played within the rules. Having attained absolute power, he has absolutely abused that power to the maximum.”

The clearest sign that Marleau is right is Harper’s constant refrain that he is the only person qualified to run the country — not the best person, but the only one. He has said on more than one occasion that his job is to persuade Canadians not to choose the wrong person — i.e. anyone other than him. His long-term goal is to do to Canada what the Progressive Conservative Party has done to Alberta for the last 40-plus years: turn it into a one-party petro-state where voting is the last priority on the to-do list.

That said, Harper has aided and abetted the erosion of democracy — but he didn’t invent it. Since 9/11, the greatest democracy in the world has been steadily devalued — and dragged everyone else down with it. The War on Terror, like all wars on nouns (poverty, drugs, etc.), has been an abject failure.

After 13 years, the villains have merely changed costume — from al Qaida and the Taliban to the beheading fanatics of the Islamic State. The war in Afghanistan was a trillion-dollar fiasco; where Canadian soldiers fought and died, drug lords and corrupt politicians now carry on as they did before the war. As for the United States, it spies on its own citizens, tortures its captives like the people it demonizes, and can’t even raise the moral energy to bring justice to crimes under both international and American law documented by the U.S. Senate.

The fear dividend is what has been offered to ordinary people — the exchange of rights and freedoms, privacy and liberty, for the promise of protection from endless threats. When citizens in a democracy begin to defer to such authority as that, voting is hardly any more important than the Supreme Court or Parliament.

Fear will be big in 2015, an insight no one has to pass along to Steve. The critical question is whether democracy will be even bigger.

Image Credit: Prime Minister's Photo Gallery

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This post originally appeared on MikeDeSouza.com and is republished here with permission.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is describing fresh allegations of muzzling as “absolutely ridiculous.”

Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Canadian Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq rejected criticism from opposition New Democratic Party MP Megan Leslie who said the government “will stop at nothing to hide the consequences of climate change.”

Leslie raised the issue in the Canadian House of Commons following comments from Environment Canada explaining that its meteorologists were not supposed to talk about climate change in media interviews.

“Climate change is real,” said Leslie, the NDP’s environment critic and deputy leader. “While media cannot contact most government scientists, it does have 24-hour-a-day access to meteorologists. Yet draconian government rules and fear of losing their jobs puts a gag on these meteorologists. They are avoiding talking about the crucial and scientific connection between weather patterns and climate change.”

Some recently-released quotes from a union survey included comments from a meteorologist who expressed concerns about publicly speaking about climate change and described it as a “career-limiting move.”

Leslie asked when Harper would “acknowledge that climate change is real and stop muzzling scientists.” But in response, Aglukkaq sidestepped the question and instead attacked the opposition party.

“That is absolutely ridiculous,” Aglukkaq told the Commons. “Unlike the other side, I have chosen not to play politics with this when it comes to protecting the environment. I regularly meet with Canadians across the country to speak to them about the priorities of our government, which are important to them as well. On the other hand, the opposition will continue to play politics with this issue.”

In an interview, Ted Hsu, the science and technology critic for the opposition Liberal party, criticized the government for allegedly muzzling its scientists, but said he was comfortable with some restrictions on meteorologists.

“I would not mind if meteorologists were told not to talk about climate science as long as climate scientists were allowed to talk about climate science,” said Hsu. “Because of cases of well-known climate deniers who are meteorologists in the United States, I’m sympathetic to the idea that climate scientists are the ones who should be asked for a more authoritative answer about whether a particular extreme weather event is more or less likely to happen with or without global warming.”

Internally, Environment Canada has observed an 80 per cent drop in media coverage of climate change issues in the country after it adopted new restrictive communications policies in 2007 that required scientists to seek permission from management prior to giving interviews about their research.

Both the NDP and Liberals have proposed to end what they describe as muzzling of scientists.

“I think I feel comfortable saying that if we (Liberals) were in government now, I would allow scientists to speak freely about their research and just completely change the communications policy,” Hsu said.

Hsu recently received a government response to written questions he submitted in Parliament asking multiple departments for statistics on interviews with scientists and records about their communications policies. But he said he was surprised that none of these departments claimed to have any documents explaining instructions given by their ministers.

“It’s very frustrating,” Hsu said. “You can’t really say the government is transparent when you don’t know what instructions the ministers gave to their departments. So how do I know if the minister is giving good directions or bad directions or whether the department is doing a good job or bad job? … It seems wrong to me that I can’t know what the minister did or what instructions the minister gave.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by journalist and filmmaker Michael Harris. A longer version of this article originally appeared on iPolitics.

Don’t be surprised if something big happens inside the hermetically sealed world of the Stephen Harper Party — and sooner rather than later.

It could be the departure of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, or a spectacular policy pivot, or even an election from space. Some people think there is still a chance it could be a Harper resignation.

Prime Minister Harper, like senators Duffy and Wallin, is beginning the most painful journey of all — from key political asset to major party liability.

It is a slow process, but can reach runaway elevator speed if the cable snaps. Harper is at the stage where it is beginning to fray.

Knowingly or unknowingly, the prime minister has presided over two major scandals which are both far from over — robocalls and the Wright/Duffy Affair — and one in which the party was caught cheating, the in-and-out scandal. His Conservative values are now purely rhetorical.

The PM has also tightened the choke chain around his own people, dictating not so benevolently from the PMO what he wants done. Some people have had enough, tired of taking orders from an office whose stealthy activities have brought the police when there's no Nigel to right the ship.

Last June, Brent Rathgeber broke his leash to sit as an independent. The caucus has had ants in its pants ever since — particularly the theo-cons who have been completely betrayed on their agenda by the prime minister.

Harper’s judgment in personal appointments — from the two senators now under RCMP investigation to shady characters like Arthur Porter and Bruce Carson — has been deplorable.

The PM’s political vulnerability has now reached the point where, as Andrew Coyne wrote, the party is beginning to imagine a post-Harper universe. The scary part for the Conservative Party is that the post-Harper universe may be run by a new father who is not a Conservative and doesn’t mind the odd toke.

But even more telling, prominent figures in the party used the Manning Networking Conference to speak out against the PM’s political judgement, issue management and style — ever so gently, but ever so clearly. Even a year ago, that would have been unthinkable.

Take Preston Manning. The man who laid the foundations for Stephen Harper’s political career in 1987 has urged the prime minister to restore democracy. Yikes! The only place you need to restore democracy is somewhere it doesn’t exist. Was it possibly the gentlest way of telling someone they were a dictator?

If it was, some people were less delicate. Kelsey Johnson reported in iPolitics that former Conservative MP Inky Mark picked up on Manning’s comment, using Twitter to say that Harper “was dictator since day one.”

The elder statesman of Reform/Conservative politics in Canada said out loud what a lot of Canadians have been thinking for some time: time to restore democracy, Mr. Prime Minister, not subvert it.

Give Elections Canada the power it asked for, rather than diminishing the power the Conservatives wished Elections Canada didn’t have in the robocalls investigation. How do you improve elections by reducing the powers of Elections Canada?

Conservatives across Canada are getting sick of a party that has become a cult of one — which is why one of the other things Manning advised Harper to do was to stop working the bit in the mouth of caucus, loosen the reins and go easy on the spurs.

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by YOLANDE GRISÉ, president of the Royal Society of Canada

Scientific advances have shaped modern society, have led to increased health and well-being for Canadians and have played a leading role in forming public policy. The relationship between scientists and the Canadian government is critically important, given the crucial role of science advice in supporting our country’s long-term interests.

The Royal Society of Canada was founded in 1882 by an Act of Parliament because it was understood that public policy and scientific research needed to be in dialogue. Policy and science are in a mutual relationship based on the importance given by government to scientific advice in policy development, and the recognition by scientists that government decisions are made democratically and must take into account evidence beyond that provided by the scientific community.

For this relationship to work, scientists have a responsibility to act ethically and to communicate their findings to the broader community. Science works only when discoveries made in the lab or in the field are communicated and debated, not only to other researchers but to all stakeholders. Governments, in turn, have to respect scientific advice and not impede the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

Scientists and the federal government can be at odds when government policy does not appear to be well-aligned with the best scientific advice. That tension is often constructive: For example, a 2010 report by scientists providing evidence that oil sands activity was polluting the Athabaska River led to several levels of government taking a fresh look at the monitoring practices and activity of the industry in the region.

This relationship is now at risk in Canada. Unreasonable limits are being placed on the ability of government-employed scientists to communicate their findings, whether through publication of their research results or attendance at scientific meetings. These restrictions seem particularly severe in topics related to the environment, where several government scientists have been denied the opportunity to discuss their work.

A well-known case is that of Kristi Miller, a scientist in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. She published research on the Pacific salmon stock in 2010 in the international journal Science but has not been allowed to discuss her work publicly since. The government, in its defence, has affirmed that it needs to control what its employees say, arguing that what they say could be construed as representing the views of the government.

Several scientific organizations, most notably the prominent journals Nature and Science, have raised the alarm and urged the Canadian government to rescind the restrictions.

Such restrictions fly in the face of the government’s own cabinet policy of basing policy decisions on the best science available. Furthermore, they go against the positions taken by countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, where scientists are expected to give their advice independently and free of restrictions, whether or not they’re employed by the government.

This disruption in the relationship between scientists and government is avoidable. What’s needed is a policy that clarifies the relationship between scientists, the advice they provide and the federal government. This should lay out the responsibility of the government to solicit and develop the best scientific advice possible in formulating public policy. It should underscore the government’s commitment to advance scientific knowledge and not to hinder its dissemination.

It should also demonstrate the government’s commitment to use scientific advice in policy-making, recognizing the uncertainties that often come with it. It should ensure the independence of scientific advice from government control. And it should reaffirm the responsibility of scientists to conduct their work ethically, to communicate it fairly and to declare their own conflicts of interest. Such a policy will strengthen the role of science in public policy development.

Canada will only succeed as a country if it’s able to harness the best scientific advice to make decisions. The federal government should immediately unshackle government scientists and let them do their jobs. The integrity of evidence-based public policy development is at stake.

The public should be allowed to learn directly from our scientists when they make discoveries in areas of public concern.

Yolande Grisé is president of the Royal Society of Canada.

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