“The terrorists need to fear CSIS. Canadians should not.”
In today’s Toronto Star, lawyer Lorne Waldman points out that the Harper government has been responded with “absolute silence” to the many revelations about CSIS of late — that the agency has been complicit in the detention of yet another Canadian (Abousfian Abdelrazik), and has misled the courts in two security certificate cases by either failing to provide evidence, or providing inaccurate evidence.
Oversight without political direction is not enough. Clearly, it’s serious when any government agency breaks the rules. But what is of even greater concern here is the absolute silence of the political overseers. Public Security Minister Peter Van Loan has been invisible and mute. So has the minister of justice. Their silence sends CSIS and Canadians an ominous message. It is that the problem isn’t that CSIS misled the court or was complicit in detaining a Canadian: the problem is only that it got caught – and the problem will go away if it is ignored. That’s the wrong message: It leaves us with serious doubts about the integrity and competence of federal security agencies. And it leaves us with equally serious doubts about the position of our government on these serious matters. Canadians need to know where the government stands. The government needs to send a strong message to CSIS. The terrorists need to fear CSIS. Canadians should not.
Read his full op-ed here.
