Original author: Andrew Mayeda
Source: The National Post
URL: [link]
Date: October 18, 2006

OTAWA - A Commons panel that has been reviewing the Anti-Terrorism Act plans to recommend the extension for five years of two controversial provisions that give Canadian authorities broad powers in detaining terror suspects and questioning witnesses, CanWest News Service has learned.

The federal act, passed in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, added two provisions to the Criminal Code. One enables the police to arrest suspects without warrant if authorities have reason to believe a terrorist act will be committed; the other allows judges to compel individuals to testify at "investigative hearings." Both provisions were due to expire early in the new year.But Conservative MP Gord Brown, who chairs the Commons subcommittee that has been reviewing the act, said yesterday he will table an interim report in Parliament as early as Friday that will recommend extending the clauses. "That will give us a decade of experience with these provisions," he said. "This hasn't been in force for a lot of time and, of course, we see ongoing terrorist attacks throughout the world."

Under the act, the federal government must report annually on the number of cases in which either provision is used.

To date, the investigative-hearings clause has only been used in the trial of suspects in the Air-India bombing of 1985. The clause was used to compel the testimony of a witness.

The "preventive arrest" clause has never been used. Mr. Brown said yesterday his committee was told that the RCMP did not invoke either clause in the high-profile arrest of 18 terrorist suspects in Toronto this summer.

"That's not to say that won't be used in the next five years," he said. "Osama bin Laden has mentioned Canada as a terrorist target and, in fact, we're the only country that he specifically mentioned that has not suffered a terrorist attack.

So I think all the committee members took their responsibilities seriously in terms of looking at the threats to Canada but also keeping in mind and balancing civil liberties in our country."

Nevertheless, the recommendation to extend the clauses could come under fire from civil liberties advocates, who have criticized the law for suspending the universal rights of suspects to due process and a fair trial.

Craig Forcese, an expert in national security law at the University of Ottawa, said Canada's anti-terrorism laws are actually less draconian than those in other countries such as the United States.

Still, the Canadian provisions "do raise civil liberties concerns," especially if there is little evidence that they have helped prosecute terror cases, said Mr. Forcese. "It's just not clear to me as an external observer that these provisions will facilitate the prosecution of offences in a fair and open trial in a way that will protect public safety."

He noted that Crown prosecutors effectively lost the Air-India case despite the use of investigative hearings.

The two suspects accused in the bombing were acquitted last year. Mr. Forcese said there was some expectation that parliamentarians would move to strike down the provisions in the wake of the Arar commission, which investigated the deportation of Maher Arar by U.S. authorities to Syria, where he was tortured.

But the Toronto terror arrests this summer made it politically difficult to support letting the clauses expire, he suggested. "The appetite for allowing these provisions to sunset evaporated."

Mr. Brown said the committee rushed to complete an interim report on the two provisions because of their imminent expiry.

The panel hopes to release its full review of the act before the end of the year. It is expected that New Democrat MP Joe Comartin and Bloc Quebecois MP Serge Menard, who sit on the subcommittee but do not fully agree with the recommendations in the interim report, will table their own recommendations.

© National Post 2006