[Bloquez l'empire!] Secret Trials Bill Stalled in House! Update and Call for New Action to Abolish Secret Trials in Canada

[People's Commission]

(Please distribute far and wide!)

Secret Trials Bill Stalled in House Likely Due to Public Pressure!
Update and January 25-26 Days of Action to End Secret Trials in Canada

UPDATE AND CALL TO ACTION
The final Parliamentary vote on the "new" security certificate process, 
Bill C-3, expected to take place earlier this week, was postponed at 
the 11th hour, and will not be considered until the week of January 28, 
2008.

Congratulations to everyone who marched, participated in community 
delegations, sent emails or phoned MPs - together, we have won the 
first round in the fight against new security certificate legislation! 
But there is still much to do.

PUBLIC OUTRAGE STALLS THE BILL!
After the Conservatives made a major point of trying to ram the bill 
through the House before the holiday break, one might conclude that 
their apparent reticence to put the bill to a final vote was in part 
due to public outrage and pressure and perhaps what the polls were 
telling the government (the Conservative Party, it was revealed 
yesterday, has spent $31 million on polling since coming to office, an 
average of two polls per business day while in office).

MPs' offices were reportedly fielding 'dozens and dozens' of calls last 
week from people all across the country, coming on the heels of several 
months of popular action against the new legislation.

The conclusion of most major Canadian legal associations, civil society 
groups, and advocates that the bill would not even pass a Charter 
challenge may also have left the Conservatives (and their Liberal 
supporters) with cold feet.

NEW BILL ALMOST A MIRROR OF THE OLD LAW
C-3, like the old security certificate section of the Immigration and 
Refugee Protection Act, will still allow for continued use of arbitrary 
arrest, indefinite detention without charge on secret suspicions, and 
deportation to torture. It addresses none of the core demands of the 
public campaign.

The minority Harper government took almost eight full months to come up 
with C-3. In a vote supported by both the Bloc and the Liberals, 
Parliament handed the bill to the "Public Safety" committee for a 
review that lasted only two and a half weeks. Only as a result of 
public protest were the hearings slightly opened up, but, in the end, 
there was not enough time to seriously ask why the law was necessary, 
or explore the outstanding submissions of groups calling for abolition 
of the security certificate. Before passing it back to Parliament for 
third reading, the committee made three token amendments which did not 
change the fundamentally flawed nature of the bill.

Parliament will not open again until January 29. If Bill C-3 then 
passes Parliament, it will go on to Senate, where it will pass through 
the same process - first reading, second reading, hearings in a 
committee, and then third reading and the final vote. Regardless of 
whether the new law is ready, the Supreme Court's suspended decision 
will finally go into effect on 23 February and the old security 
certificate process will die.

NEXT STEPS: THE FEAR FACTOR AND A CAUTION AGAINST C-3 "FIX-IT"s
After six years of public campaigning to end secret trials and two-tier 
justice, during which the Supreme court declared the security 
certificate process to be unconstitutional, the detainees and their 
families are now facing new legislation which, if implemented, will 
only prolong the extended suffering they have already experienced, and 
ramp up the fear that they will be deported to torture.

Given that the Conservatives may now have awakened to the fact that it 
is untenable to pass a law that has already been evaluated as 
unconstitutional by so many individuals and groups, they may try to 
tinker with it and add a few more pieces of window-dressing related to 
the "special" advocate. It is important to resist attempts to "fix" 
what is a fundamentally flawed and unfair law. Adding in "protections" 
will help get the bill through the House, but do nothing to help those 
who are subjected to this draconian process.

In calling and lobbying MPs, it is important to reject the notion that 
"special" advocates will save the day. Discredited in the UK, the 
special advocate system not only sets a dangerous precedent that opens 
the door to further secrecy in a variety of government proceedings, it 
also fails to meet the basic challenge the Supreme Court of Canada 
launched last February when it declared the security certificate 
process unconstitutional: How does one meet a case that one does not 
know?

MPs and "special" advocate supporters may bring in the fear factor 
that, should the law expire, chaos will erupt and the "security" of 
Canadians will be at risk. This is total nonsense. If those subject to 
the security certificate are suddenly free from detention or without 
the draconian restrictions that keep them and their families under 
house arrest, the government can do what it should have done all along, 
and what it would have done if they had happened to be citizens: if 
there is a case against them, charge them under the Criminal Code, 
allow them to see the case against them, and provide them with a fair 
and open trial.

C-3, however fixed, will only continue two-tier justice in Canada, and 
continue to subject some people to indefinite detention under threat of 
deportation to torture.

JANUARY IS THE MONTH!
Over the next month and a half, it is vital that we put greater 
pressure on the MPs - particularly Liberals - who will be voting at the 
end of January, as well as make a popular approach to the unelected 
Senate.

All the resources you need for the actions below, from petititons to 
backgrounders, flyers, and to responses to the form letter of response 
being sent by the Conservatives, are available at 
www.jerome.koumbit.org/adil/

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Contact the MP for your area, continuously. (The NDP is completely 
opposed to C-3, so please focus on Liberals, Bloc, and Conservatives). 
Warn them that a "special" advocate is simply unacceptable and will 
only continue two-tier justice in Canada, as well as create a dangerous 
precedent for a greater 'legitimate' use of secret information in other 
areas of law. Try and get them to make a public statement of 
opposition, and put it to them clearly: are they in favour of a bill 
that allows for arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention, secret 
suspicions, and deportation to torture? Are they in favour of two-tier 
justice? Send responses to justiceforadil at riseup.net to add to a record 
of public positions taken by MPs (soon up on 
www.jerome.koumbit.org/adil).

Friday, January 25 is check-in day with MPs: if you haven't received a 
response to your questions, consider sending a delegation or organizing 
a call-in day in your area.

2. Find out what Senators come from your area by going to 
www.parl.gc.ca/common/senmemb/senate/isenator.asp?Language=E.
Get in touch with that Senator regarding your concerns, given that C-3 
will go to the Senate if passed by the House.

3. Saturday, January 26 is our next call for a pan-Canadian day of 
action against secret trials, deportations to torture and two-tier 
justice. Please consider organizing a public event (march, picket, 
vigil, educational forum, visit to an MP's office, letter-writing day). 
Contact tasc at web.ca to let us know about your plans.

4. If you are in or near Ottawa, please join us for activities around 
Adil Charkaoui's second Supreme Court challenge on 31 January. This 
challenge is based on CSIS's destruction of evidence in his security 
certificate file. This case is likely to expose some of the weakness of 
the CSIS 'information' (hearsay, rumour, profiling, CSIS summaries and 
assessments, torture information) in these files. Contact 
justiceforadil at riseup.net to find out more.

Thanks!

More info:
Toronto: Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, tasc at web.ca, 
www.homesnotbombs.ca
Ottawa: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee, 
justicepourmohamedharkat at yahoo.ca, www.justiceforharkat.com
Montreal: Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui, justiceforadil at riseup.net,
www.jerome.koumbit.org/adil