{"id":10104,"date":"2015-03-18T23:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T03:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10104"},"modified":"2015-03-18T23:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T03:00:19","slug":"worries-over-anti-terrorism-bill-arrive-in-newmarket-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/worries-over-anti-terrorism-bill-arrive-in-newmarket-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Worries over anti-terrorism bill arrive in Newmarket-Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nation-wide debate over the Federal Government\u2019s proposed Bill C-51 spilled into Newmarket-Aurora on Saturday morning as over 80 protestors descended on the office of local MP Lois Brown to rally against the measures. <\/p>\n

The Bill, which was introduced earlier this year, and has since cleared two critical hurdles in Parliament, will pave the way for information sharing among government agencies on issues that \u201cundermine\u201d national security, broadens the criminal code definition of terrorism, increases the mandate of CSIS, and enables restrictions on people who might pose a threat to air travel.<\/p>\n

While the Bill came in with the support of the Conservative government, as well as the support of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, it has been subject to significant criticism from the NDP opposition and has been divisive among the electorate.<\/p>\n

Those opposing were out in force in protests across the country last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a one day rally,\u201d said one woman in the crowd. \u201cIt is wonderful we are showing ourselves and standing up today, but it doesn\u2019t stop here. The legislation is percolating and it can tip the balance now. Let [politicians] know serious voters are against this bill, not people who are afraid to look like they are aligned with terrorists. We\u2019re obviously not. Let them know the face of the people who object to this bill are the people who built this country, people who are currently running this country with their hard work, and the people who want to leave a better country for their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might try to tell you you\u2019re being pushy for terrorists. That\u2019s garbage and you know it. B2ehind Bill C-51 is a calculated application of fear to ignorance distilled into hatred. How do we combat this? Community and information. It is slow, it is hard, but it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several Aurora residents were on hand at the protest, held outside Ms. Brown\u2019s constituency office on Bayview Avenue at Mulock Drive, including long-time trail and environmental activist Klaus Wehrenberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is fear mongering all the way,\u201d he said. \u201cI am also worried about them using the bill to basically swot all legitimate protests, including about the environment, which I am very interested in, as well as native people especially. They have to have the protests as a matter of propagating their cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he admitted he still feels he has more to learn about the legislation itself, he said, as an advocate, he would prefer different measures on the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe terrorism thing is blown so out of proportion, it is unbelievable,\u201d he added. \u201cWe need a different bill on the table to show what can be put in its place. Changing it a little bit here and there is probably not going to help. We need to have a forum like there is here.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a view shared by fellow resident John Cooper, who attended not just the first leg of the rally at Ms. Brown\u2019s office, but continued on to a larger demonstration outside the Newmarket Court House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to make a statement in opposition to Bill C-51 and in support of human rights and the rights of free speech and assembly,\u201d said Mr. Cooper. My main objections] are the tendency towards creating a secret police, unaccountable to public and parliament, and carrying on some of the nefarious goings-on that we have seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

A solution would be to either scrap the legislation entirely or completely revise it, including \u201cproper surveillance and supervision under Parliament and accountable to the public in an open and transparent way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope this creates a public awareness and visibility of the issue which, I think for most people, is at the risk of sliding by without due diligence and proper planning and attention from the public,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

For Ms. Brown\u2019s views on Bill C-51 and opposition to it, please see her column, Ottawa Report, on Page 5. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation-wide debate over the Federal Government\u2019s proposed Bill C-51 spilled into Newmarket-Aurora on Saturday morning as over 80 protestors descended on the office of local MP Lois Brown to rally against the measures. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/2015-03-19-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2CY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:19:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}