In April of this year, the Human Rights Council at the UN presented a report on the urgent need for laws that regulate Internet surveillance practices to protect human rights standards. As the months go by, that need is becoming more and more apparent. As allegations of spying fly with the exposure of programs like PRISM and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it seems that Canadians may have real cause for concern when it comes to individual privacy.

“Canadians should know that they live in a borderless environment when it comes to North America.”

Rosenberg is not at all surprised at the reach of the government’s ability to collect information. He is, however, pleased that the issue is gaining some public momentum. 

“Companies probably want to be responsible with your information,” he said. The thing that has changed drastically in recent years is that the collection and storage of information has become cheap and easy. What has changed “is the scope."

But, Rosenberg argues that individuals who endeavour to commit acts of terrorism will work around known surveillances. “9/11 changed things a lot. You have these people who were doing a lot of planning over the Internet. If the Internet had been monitored in some fashion, could it have been anticipated? That’s not clear at all. The [Boston Marathon Bombing] just happened and that wasn’t anticipated.” 

But proponents of the bill – like Public Safety Minister Vic Toews – suggested those who opposed the legislation, “supported child pornographers."

So are we on a runaway train? Rosenberg thinks we might be. The only way to reverse the problem, he says, is through transparency.

“We are almost out of control [of the collection of information]. The problem is, we expect government to be responsible. What we need to do is, we need to know what type of information is being collected. What that information is being used for should be apparent and that it’s secure. The government claims the right to do what they want [with our information]. How did they get this right? Did they ask? The government would say: no this is just what we’ve always been doing. We just do it better now. We do it faster. We get more information. We can answer questions more quickly and we can be more efficient.” 

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 Gerry Caplan, a Canadian academic, public policy analyst, commentator and political activist.

Soon after the 2011 election, with his majority government at last in hand, Prime Minister Harper decided that nothing, but nothing, was more important to Canada's entire future than a pipeline to carry oil from Alberta to the Pacific. This came as a shock to many Canadians, first because it hadn't been raised in the election, second because many believe that to combat global warming we must reduce, not expand, our reliance on fossil fuels.

In some countries, those who disagree with their government's policies are vilified, demonized, accused of being unpatriotic and operating under the influence of malign foreign influences. In Turkey, for example, Prime Minister Erdogan blames anti-government protests on terrorists and extremists supported by "foreign conspirators."

The same is true in Egypt, as Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed the House just this week. An Egyptian court had convict 43 non-profit workers of illegally using foreign funds to foment unrest in the country and sentencing them up to five years in jail. This was unacceptable, Mr. Obhrai said.

"Civil society and international NGOs are legitimate actors in any democratic state. These individuals were working to support the transparency of the government that has been closed for too long. The targeting of civil society actors undermines the legitimacy of the judicial process and is a clear misuse of government power. Without legitimate institutions, a government cannot hope to maintain the confidence of its people. We continue to call on Egypt to work with their citizens to build a stronger and more democratic Egypt."

But this is deeply democratic Canada, of course. So here is how Harperland dealt with civil society and international NGOs who opposed a pipeline from the oil sands to the Pacific. 

In January 2012, natural resources minister Joe Oliver published an article in the Financial Post harshly attacking "environmentalists and other radical groups [who] threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda." Their agenda was obvious, he said: killing projects on which the country's future depended. And their goal was simple: "to undermine Canada's national economic interest."

In other words, these Canadians disagreed with the Harper government about Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

Suddenly, a great crusade against ostensible eco-fanatics was on. Government members, a good chunk of the media and the entire united oil industry began treating simple citizens and legitimate NGOs as disloyal insurrectionists. In the words of former Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel, "I think we're facing a very strong, almost revolutionary movement to try to get off oil worldwide." And indeed the oil industry has spent many tens of millions of dollars on advertising and lobbyists to defeat these revolutionaries.

But this wasn't enough, apparently. Soon Harperland upped the ante. Like Turkey and Egypt, the government decided to expose the sinister role of foreign influence, including "foreign money," behind Canadian environmental groups. Eight million dollars were accordingly budgeted to allow the Canadian Revenue Agency to audit charitable groups that were, so it was implied, improperly enabling the subversive work of the renegades.

And if the threat of a CRA visit doesn't do the trick, you call in the cavalry: the Senate of Canada. "Recognizing her role as a fundraiser for the Conservative party," so Wikipedia helpfully tells us, in 2009 Nicole Eaton became a Conservative senator. In February 2012, the Hon. Sen. Eaton launched an inquiry into the nefarious "involvement of foreign foundations in Canada's domestic affairs and their abuse of existing Revenue Canada's charitable status."

This too was all about the opposition to the pipeline.

Our Senate, you may have heard, has its own unique political culture. Call it Canada's Wonderland. As Humpty Dumpty informed Alice in her Wonderland, a word mean "just what I choose it to mean." So in the Canadian senate, an inquiry actually does not mean an inquiry. It is a "debate" on a topic chosen by a senator, if anyone wants to debate it, with no concrete outcomes and no vote. An inquiry can last for many days or hardly any. If no one speaks on it for 15 consecutive days, the inquiry is simply dropped. Sen. Eaton's inquiry was launched on Feb. 2, addressed by her in the Senate for 20 minutes on Feb. 28th (with two questions from other senators), and dropped on June 29th because of the 15 day rule. You might call it a non-inquiry inquiry.

As Sen. Eaton's cordial assistant Dustin Hall explained to me in an email, she would not issue a formal report on the findings of the non-inquiry. But she did eventually announce that thanks to bold action by her government – siccing the CRA on certain renegade charitable NGOs – the issues addressed by her non-inquiry were largely resolved.

But not quite, it seems. Enter Public Safety Minister Towes to up the ante once more. In September, Vigilante Vic announced that the government's new comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy would target the real threat to Canadians – eco-extremists, a.k.a. anyone who believed in global warning.

The government, the Minister announced, was now determined to be vigilant not only against foreign threats, but against a treacherous species of domestic extremism that is "based on grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism."

Those are his very words. Similar examples of "domestic issue-based extremism" were said to be the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing-168 killed – and the 2011 Norway massacre – 77 massacred. Just like Canadian environmentalists.

And that's why Canada is a great democratic country that can lecture Egyptians about how they can be greatly democratic too.

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By Jeffrey Monaghan, researcher with the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University and Kevin Walby, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Victoria.

A recent example of RCMP surveillance of environmental activists was reported last month by the Montreal Gazette.  According to documents released under the Access to Information Act, it appears that a branch of the expansive RCMP national security apparatus – the Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team – has been monitoring a group of Quebec residents opposed to shale gas development.  The group under surveillance – la Regroupement Interrégional sur le gaz de schiste de la Vallée du St-Laurent – represents more than 100 anti-shale gas citizen committees in Quebec. 

Surveillance practices targeting the environmental movement should not be surprising given recent trends toward an increasing allocation of resources to counter-terrorism programs across the country.

The RCMP’s rationale behind their surveillance of shale gas opponents relies on the potential threat of ‘homegrown extremism.’ As an increasingly visible ploy (particular since Minister Joe Oliver’s polemic regarding opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline), references to domestic extremism represents a shift in the working definition of terrorism where groups like al-Qaida or the Taliban are no longer the central antagonists.

Instead, national security agencies have presented a conflated threat of terrorism and extremism to castigate a host of groups and causes, including pacifists that organize petitions against shale gas development.

While troubling, these practices have become the norm within national security agencies.

We have recently published an academic report on security preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics using access to information requests with the RCMP and CSIS. Examining threat assessments from 2005 and 2010, our findings show how terminology of ‘extremism’ was used as a code word to describe critics of the Games.

As the Games approached, the category of ‘extremism’ was used to refer to a surprising range of actors but mostly as a catch-all for a host of left wing groups, particularly those associated with the global justice movement, environmentalists, anti-capitalists, and animal rights activists. Groups like Greenpeace, PETA, and Sea Shepherd were frequently mentioned in these threat assessments.

Groups that are catalogued in these surveillance campaigns cannot challenge such accusations, nor can they see the substantive materials that gathered by state surveillance practices. Labels like ‘extremist’ cannot be challenged.

What is important to understand about the category of ‘extremism’ is that almost any activity or communication contrary to the government can get you labeled this way.

Looking at primary documents from the RCMP and CSIS, it appears that a range of innocuous low-level political activities (i.e. riding on a bus to a protest, attending an environmental rally, advocating maple syrup boycotts) can get you lumped under this label. Further, there is a troubling association between this category and threats of violence.

RCMP and CSIS view a number of activist activities – particularly civil disobedience – as forms of attack.  Blocking access to roads or buildings are framed as violence, depicting pacifists as national security threats. In the lead up to the Olympics in Vancouver, national security agencies also used the label in association with private property destruction, specifically the property of corporate sponsors. During this time period, the label of extremism allowed national security resources to be mobilized for the protection of tarsands companies and other sponsors. 

Expanded categories for policing and surveillance practices can have a number of ripple effects. Namely, these practices can lead to the criminalization of public advocates and a broad ‘chilling effect’ on participatory democratic practices.

This is entirely consistent with the Conservative agenda on security and crime that aims to neutralize and invalidate those who challenge their policy positions. This approach is troubling given their support for controversial projects like the Northern Gateway pipeline and the groundswell of political opposition that it has garnered.

This all begs a larger question: what exactly does the government mean when it conflates ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ in their counter-terrorism policies?

It is no longer clear whom the RCMP, Stephen Harper or Vic Toews count as terrorists. If almost any dissent can get one’s actions classified as ‘extremism’ how much more does it take to be labeled and prosecuted as a terrorist in Harper’s Canada? 

Notably, one shale gas opponent has been charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act because of allegations concerning threatening letters. Likewise, student activists from Quebec are facing terrorism-related criminal charges for allegedly releasing smoke bombs during last year’s student strike.

These prosecutions point to a significant expansion of criminal liability for ‘terrorism activities.’ Coupled with efforts to include damage to, or disruption of, private property as acts of terrorism, the environmental movement should take note of the changing field of struggle – and the resources that are being amassed against it.  


Expanding the definition of terrorism allows for national security agencies to broaden their scope of operations and cast their surveillance net upon a larger spectrum of groups and activities. In an era where Canada increasingly resembles a petro-state, surveillance agencies are regularly caricaturizing activists as threats to national security. With an appetite for larger budgets and greater resources, Canada’s counter-terrorism strategies seem to be making up new threats that are used to justify further surveillance.

But what the RCMP will rarely disclose is that the threat of terrorism attacks in Canada is very low and Canadian spending on national security issues is completely incommensurate with these risks.

A much larger threat – the RCMP won’t mention – are the impacts of these surveillance campaigns on social movements: suspicion, paranoia, stress, internal divisiveness, and the potential for significant ‘chilling effects’ on supposedly protected activities like speech, association, and rights to organize. Part of contesting these mega environmental catastrophes in-the-making must also be ongoing critique of state attempts to categorize, frame, slander and maim dissent.

Looking at the flipside to these surveillance projects reveals another important dynamic at-play: the strength of ecological movements is being acknowledged.

While government would like to dismiss opposition to the current growth-at-any-cost model as a threat to national security, the PR-games associated with labeling environmental groups as terrorists might just backfire. This is likely only the beginning of a long standoff. 

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.