Carney's Capitulation
The Safe Borders Act is a total betrayal of the Liberals' pledge to stand up to Trump.
Remember the halcyon days of two months ago when Mark Carney was the only thing standing between Canada and a takeover from an openly authoritarian U.S. administration, elbow up and all that?
Well, it appears that was a total ruse.
One of the first pieces of legislation Carney’s government has introduced represents a total capitulation to U.S. president Donald Trump, implementing deeper security alignment with the United States by giving domestic authorities more power over Canadian citizens and asylum seekers to implement Trump’s anti-democratic agenda.
On Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree introduced the Strong Borders Act, or Bill C-2, in the House of Commons, which would give law enforcement the ability to search your mail, make it easier for authorities to pause or cancel immigration applications en masse and give spy agencies more power to collect data and share it with the U.S. authorities.
I have a Liberal campaign flyer pinned to my office wall, where I place election campaign literature I accumulate from various elections, which reads: Making life more affordable, protecting your rights and standing up to Trump.
This legislation doesn’t do any of these things, and in fact does the opposite of two of the three.
In December, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau unveiled $1.3-billion in border security spending to buy helicopters and drones to surveil the border in response to Trump’s concern trolling over illegal immigrants and drugs entering the U.S. from Canada, which he’s used as a justification for tariffs.
But Bill C-2 goes much further than militarizing Canada’s 8,891-km land border with the U.S.
As Althia Raj notes in an excellent Toronto Star column, the legislation implements “long-standing requests by Canadian law enforcement agencies who waited for an opportune time to slide through legislative changes.”
These include militarizing Canadian waters by enabling the Canadian Coast Guard to conduct security patrols and share information with military and spies, and giving Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) the ability to search export cargo, whereas it was previously only permitted to inspect imports.
The problem, as Raj observes, is that neither of these agencies are subject to public oversight.
The bill, perhaps most concerningly from a privacy perspective, compels Canada’s telecom companies to provide users’ information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, who can request it without a warrant under certain ill-defined circumstances.
This information can include a user’s name, home address, phone number and email address, among other private information. Authorities will also be able to order that their request be kept secret for up to a year.
Anandasangaree made it clear that the legislation is intended, at least in part, to address “irritants for the US.”
“It’s not exclusively about the United States,” the minister added.
“This is about delivering a win for Canada and ensuring that our borders are safer, our communities are safer, and of course we’re responding to some of the concerns that have been posed by the White House.”
But Anandasangaree, a former human rights lawyer, is simply conflating the Trump administration’s interests with Canada’s.
Former Canada Border Services Agency officer Kelly Sundberg, who teaches criminology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, told CTV News that it appears the legislation is strictly an effort “to appease the Trump administration.”
“Does this legislation improve our border security, improve our immigration integrity, and improve the public safety of Canadians? No, it does not,” said Sundberg. “It doesn't even come close.”
Sundberg, who has a bio on the right-wing Canada Strong & Free Network’s website, wants stricter border controls.
My point is that this Liberal policy is a failure even by the standards the government purports to uphold.
The most cruel, inhumane aspect of the act is how it throws asylum seekers under the bus to appease Trump.
It’s elbows up—not for the U.S., but for migrants and refugees.
The legislation requires the deportation of asylum seekers who’ve been in Canada for more than a year without filing an application, including people who have been legally in the country on work or student visas, which applies retroactively to anyone who’s been in Canada since June 24, 2020.
Those fleeing the U.S. have just two weeks to file their paperwork; if not, they’re sent back south. Previously, a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. allowed people who crossed the border with the U.S. to apply for asylum if they’ve been in Canada for two weeks.
According to Canadian Council for Refugees co-executive director Gauri Sreenivasan, there’s no basis in international law for these arbitrary timelines.
“Where we do find this precedent is in the U.S.,” said Sreenivasan.
While the government says that everyone targeted for deportation will have the opportunity for a risk assessment by immigration officials to ensure they aren’t facing danger in their country of origin, Sreenivasan said this assessment is less robust than a full Immigration and Refugee Board hearing, which is itself flawed.
The bill increases executive power by giving the minister the authority to revoke, suspend or modify immigration and asylum applications for entire groups of people, and cancel permanent or temporary resident status for individuals.
So the deportations of student protestors underway in the U.S. that the Conservatives campaigned on conducting in the most recent election? Those could still happen in the coming years, courtesy of a Liberal government.
Syed Hussan of the Migrant Rights Network said in a June 3 statement:
Prime Minister Carney campaigned on being different from Donald Trump, yet his very first bill is a shameful capitulation to racism and xenophobia, which abandons Canada’s legal and moral obligations to refugees and migrants. We’re witnessing the deliberate expansion of a mass deportation machine designed to tear apart families and communities.
By treating asylum seekers as an inherent national security threat and making it easier to remove them from the country, the Liberals are harkening back to some of the most draconian policies of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
But while then-citizenship and immigration minister Jason Kenney shrieked to the high heavens about “bogus refugees” and “foreign criminals” as he enabled increased deportations, Carney and Anandasangaree appear content to do the same with a smile and handshake.
Well Carney is a banker so pretty much by definition an establishment politican. The Capitalist establishment makes money on militarization so.... yeah nothing unexpected.