this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025

109 points (94.3% liked)

Canada

9822 readers

899 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

🏒 Sports

Hockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Toronto Blue Jays

Basketball

Toronto Raptors

Soccer

Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
Toronto FC

💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales

🗣️ Politics

General:
- Canada Politics
- FairVote Canada
Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- Animal Protection Party of Canada
- NDP
By Province (alphabetical):
- BC Greens

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

otter

mp3

109

"Strong Borders Bill" is an attack on canadian privacy, immigrants, refugees, and is unconstitutional (youtu.be)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/canada

65 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Write your MP ASAP. This bill is unacceptable, unconstitutional, and unCanadian.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Showroom7561 -1 points 2 days ago (7 children)

The guy in the video makes some very good points though, don’t you think?

Yes, I guess. It's hard to know what's opinion, what's fact, and what's even grounded in reality. He's making it seem really, really bad. But is it? Can he prove that it is?

[–] cyborganism 8 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I don't understand. Prove what? It's a bill. It's not passed into law yet. He's explaining how, if voted into law, these could be applied.

Like the opening and searching of your mail and your personal electronic data without a warrant.

That breaks article 8 of the charter of rights and freedoms.

8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

Or deporting asylum seekers just because they've been in the country for a year on a visa. As written in the bill, if someone's been in Canada for a year ans a war breaks out in their country, they'd get deported without any question.

I don't know why you're asking for proof. Do you not understand English?

[–] Showroom7561 -1 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Prove what?

That his doom and gloom assumptions are based in reality. He doesn't reference any of the Parts or Sections in the bill, so is he getting his summary from someone else, and are they even right?

Like the opening and searching of your mail and your personal electronic data without a warrant.

Have you ever received a package from out of the country? Dude, they can already open and inspect your packages without a warrant. Same with mail, since at least 1985 when the Canada Post Corporation Act was made.

And mail has been opened at the border for years, and years, in an effort to stop fentanyl from entering the country.

The "unreasonable" part of Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is what protects us, but that doesn't apply if you're under investigation for crimes and stuff like a computer needs to be accessed as part of that investigation.

But anyway, looking at the bill, it already seems like sections related to this have already been repealed.

As written in the bill, if someone’s been in Canada for a year ans a war breaks out in their country, they’d get deported without any question.

I don't see anything like that in the full text of the bill. Can you point to where?

CBC reported that "The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act give the government increased power over immigration documents in cases where public health or national security are at risk. "

They also reported that this was in regard to organized crime, which sounds like a good thing.

I will repeat that the Canadian Government isn't spewing the same vitriol against immigrants as the American Government, so neither the wording nor the content of the bill suggests some military backed deportation scheme.

It should be noted that the Canadian Center for Child Protection endorses this bill because of the ability for police to act more quickly on crimes against children (see here).

As with any bill, it will not be perfect (or even ideal) for everyone in first go, and that's where amendments, repeals, and challenges come into play. The dude in the video shits all over it for a few points (that may have been exaggerated for the video), but ignores some overdue benefits to Canada.

We do have a major problem with crime (organized crime) at our border, and this bill seems to streamline the process of tackling that.

[–] cyborganism 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah there we go. Now I understand what you mean. Thank you!

As far as postal stuff goes, don't they only have the right to open packages, but not letters? And I don't think they have the right to get all our digital personal information either. At least not like they do in the U.S. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The “unreasonable” part of Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is what protects us, but that doesn’t apply if you’re under investigation for crimes and stuff like a computer needs to be accessed as part of that investigation.

It does apply. A warrant is required for confiscating and searching mail and computer equipment. It sounds here like it won't be required.

I will repeat that the Canadian Government isn’t spewing the same vitriol against immigrants as the American Government, so neither the wording nor the content of the bill suggests some military backed deportation scheme.

Maybe not, but it lays the ground for it though.

In any case, as the guy mentioned, the bill isn't ALL bad. But there are some sections that can be worrisome and prone to exploitation.

[–] Showroom7561 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As far as postal stuff goes, don’t they only have the right to open packages, but not letters?

They have the ability to open letters over 30 g for a very long time. Bill C37 (from 2017) gave border officers power to open letters less than 30 g, because criminals were sending fentanyl over in small bags, and that closed the loophole (read here)

I haven't heard of this being abused over the last 8 years, so why the assumption that it's all of a sudden going to start now?

And I don’t think they have the right to get all our digital personal information either. At least not like they do in the U.S. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

If you are being investigated for crimes against children online, then your digital assets can be seized and combed through. This new bill strengthens that in this context.

The “unreasonable” part of Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is what protects us, but that doesn’t apply if you’re under investigation for crimes and stuff like a computer needs to be accessed as part of that investigation.
It does apply. A warrant is required for confiscating and searching mail and computer equipment. It sounds here like it won’t be required.

I honestly didn't read anything in the bill that says that warrants are not required for things that they would have currently been.

In the case of the mail, what used to happen if there are suspected drugs being sent by mail (under 30g), the officer would have to get permission from either the sender or the receiver of the letter before opening it. If no response was given, they would send it back.

The problem is that criminals banked on the fact that some would get through, and because others envelops were being returned, the drugs wouldn't be seized and nobody was getting caught. This new bill tries to fix that.

Maybe not, but it lays the ground for it though.

I get it. There's always a chance for abusing this power. Maybe not now, but in 10 years.

Here's the thing: good laws can be abused by any corrupt government. And corrupt governments can always introduce bad laws (see the States).

Our current government seems to be doing this in good faith, so we have to take them at.

If Carney was giving public events saying that immigrants are all murderers and rapists, and we'll deport them by the millions, well... that would be a different story! I guess thank god we don't have a majority conservative federal government.

[–] cyborganism 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah that's my problem with this. The laws definitely can be abused. You think you can trust the government, but can you trust the police? Because in the end, they're the ones who will be doing the abuse.

And if you eventually don't like the government that's in power, and want to protest and act against it, that's when these laws turn against you.

We definitely should not sacrifice our privacy, rights, and freedoms in exchange for security. We learned that in 2001 after 9/11 and we shouldn't make the same mistake again just to make Trump happy.

load more comments (3 replies)