OTTAWA, March 8, 2005 - "Did you get our dad out yet?" one of the young children of the secret trial detainees asked us today as we returned to an Ottawa daycare space following two days of intensive lobbying on Parliament Hill.
While we did not have the answer he needed to hear, the longer-term response was that we are making steps in the right direction. At the end of the lobby period, during which friends and family of Canada's Secret Trial Five met with almost 20 MPs and Senators, it was clear that secret trials are an issue being discussed both in various party caucuses and in Cabinet.
Indeed, much to the chagrin of CSIS and their biggest booster, Anne McLellan, the issue has been forced into the wider sphere of the reviews of the anti-terror legislation. Last week, there was an all-party consent to include the security certificates in the House subcommittee's review of C-36, and excellent, persistent questioning of witnesses before the Senate committee by folks like Senators Lynch-Staunton and Mobina Jaffer, among many others).
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[REPORT-BACK] Beginning of the End for Secret Trial Security Certificates in Canada
posted on March 10, 2005 | in Category Security Certificates | PermaLink
Original author: Matthew Behrens of The Campaign To Stop
Secret Trials In Canada
Source: TASC Email list
Date: March 9, 2005
Families of Detainees Undertake Intensive lobby at Parliament Hill as Parliamentary Motion Calls for End of Abusive Process;
Three Liberals, One Tory Add Names to Growing List of MPs Calling for an End to Secret Trial Security Certificates and an End of Canadian Deportation to Torture;
Another Demonstration in Victoria adds to the growing chorus of dissent
