Dear Editor:
Bill C-51 is about sweeping new police powers.
Responsible, independent and open oversight is required in any legislative, regulatory and practical exercise of new government power.
Bill C-51 does not have that.
In 1970, I wrote for The Ubyssey newspaper.
The RCMP asked me for information on political dissidents in exchange for money.
I knew the RCMP member personally. In the 1960’s, he boarded at my house. He was an ordinary constable. His bedroom was across from mine. We ate together. He taught me how to tie a Windsor Knot.
When he called on me five years later, I told him that I thought he was on a witch hunt. He said that I needed to know that we had to know who was with us and who wasn’t.
These were Cold War days.
My response was “ Who is us?”
Following 9-11, Canadian Maher Arar was flown from the USA to Syria to be tortured with a nod from our RCMP.
Arar was innocent and returned home a broken man.
Arar’s experience of the tragic screw-ups that plague overly robust policing here and abroad, instructed me that I am expendable to protect the almighty “us”.
Fear mongering and an abundance of police power will lead to excesses.
Many accept it. It’s about “never mind so long as all of the rest of us are safe, secure and comfortable”.
In Nazi days, German Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) described things aptly.
First, he said, the Nazis came for the Socialists and he did not speak out because he was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and he did not speak out because he was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and he did not speak out because he was not a Jew.
Then they came for him and there was no one left to speak for him.
Add the environmental activists and political dissidents to the list and you have the recipe that The Conservative Party of Canada is cooking up in Ottawa with Bill C-51.
I urge everyone who shares my concerns about this bill to contact your MP today.
Dave Cursons
Cawston, B.C.
