In February, the political class in Canada was preoccupied by “L’Affaire SNC-Lavalin” – the controversy over whether a prominent Québec company should be prosecuted for alleged overseas bribery, or instead dealt with under a Criminal Code remediation agreement. Lost in this discussion was the way Attorney General Ron Basford described the standards of attorney general independence in a 1978-1979 national security matter. This post revisits this forgotten case.
Read MorePart of the focus during senate hearings on bill C-59 has been on the speech crime created by bill C-51 in 2015. Debate centers on whether the roll-back of this crime in C-59 is a good thing or not. This post provides an overview of the issues, and a discussion of alternatives.
Read MoreBill C-59 will give the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) several new mandates, including the authority to engage in “active cyber” operations. This blog post briefly describes this mandate and addresses an area of uncertainty: how will the government square the use of offensive cyber capabilities with Canada’s international law obligations?
Read MoreBill C-59 creates a new “dataset” collection, retention and use system for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). It is a complicated system, responding to a series of hard policy dilemmas.
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