by Stephen Lendman
Source: The Progressive News Hour
URL: [link]
Date: December 23, 2010


In place since 1978, it lets authorities detain and/or deport foreign nationals and other non-citizens suspected of human rights violations, alleged threats to national security, or claimed affiliation with organized crime, using (usually bogus) secret evidence withheld from defense counsel.

Since 1991, 27 residents have been affected. In February 2007, Canada's Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in Charkaoui v. Canada. However, eight months later in October, the Canadian House of Commons passed Bill C-3 (a so-called anti-terror measure), amending the 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by introducing a special advocate into the certificate process on the pretext of protecting subjects during secret proceedings.

That and other provisions are troubling, including indefinite detentions, with or without charges, draconian house arrest with continuous monitoring and surveillance, and deportations to despotic states unjustly. Doing so assures torture, imprisonment or death. It's why subjects fled to Canada, believing they'd be safe.

The special advocate provision is reprehensible, providing legal cover for a fundamentally unjust process designed to stigmatize, vilify, convict, imprison, or deport mostly innocent victims to oblivion, pretending national and public security were protected.

As a result, human and civil rights advocates, anti-war activists, opponents of extremist government policies, and targets of convenience for political advantage (especially Muslims) are unjustly charged, arrested, and persecuted. Their constitutional right of assured innocence unless proved guilty in a fair and open process beyond a reasonable doubt is denied, subjecting them to police state injustice, common in third world dictatorships.

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