Canada implements no-fly list

List blasted by experts, government remains steadfast

June 19, 2007

The Canadian federal government implemented a new federal “no-fly” list yesterday which, like its U.S. counterpart, has been opposed by transportation experts and even the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (on multiple occasions). The list dates back to the Canada-U.S. Smart Border Declaration, signed by then-Foreign Affairs Minister of Canada John Manley and then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge in December 2001. The document calls for action on several initiatives, including “indentify[ing] security threats before they arrive in North America through collaborative approaches to reviewing crew and passenger manifests.”

From there, the initiative was inserted in a piece of legislation which eventually became the Public Safety Act of 2002, an act which took 2 arduous years of debate and amendment to get passed, receiving royal assent in May 2004. The act explicitly “authorizes the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and the persons they designate, to require certain passenger information (set out in the proposed schedule to the Act) from air carriers and operators of aviation reservation systems, to be used and disclosed for transportation security purposes; national security investigations relating to terrorism; situations of immediate threat to the life or safety of a person; the enforcement of arrest warrants for offences punishable by five years or more of imprisonment and that are specified in the regulations; and arrest warrants under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Extradition Act.”

The infringement of civil liberties inherent to the act did not go unnoticed on Parliament Hill. In an unusually candid appearance before a legislative committee meeting on the bill, the former Privacy Commissioner of Canada, George Radwanski, had this to say about the implications of the no-fly list:

“As I'm sure you know, in Canada we are not required to identify ourselves to the police as we go about our normal law-abiding business. Unless we are being either arrested or carrying out a licensed activity such as driving, we are not even required to carry ID, let alone to identify ourselves to the police.

“When we fly these days, that's the exception. Even on a domestic flight of course you're required to provide your name and to show photo ID. When that information is made available to the police, as it will be to the RCMP under proposed section 4.82, the effect is exactly the same as if we were required to notify the police every time we travel so they can check whether we are wanted for any of a number of Criminal Code offences.

“But when you expand it to looking for people wanted on offences that have nothing to do with terrorism or with aviation security, it's opening a very dangerous door. If we can in effect be forced to identify ourselves to the police so they can check if we're wanted on a warrant for any number of offences when we board an airplane, why stop at air transportation? Once that door is open, once that principle is accepted, why not have the same thing when you take a train, a bus, when you rent a car?

“If that kind of self-identification is acceptable, then the principle at least would permit the police to stop us on the street to check if we're wanted for something, or to pull over cars and check the ID of anybody in the car just to see if they're wanted for any Criminal Code offence.”

Yet, despite these clear warnings from the public’s civil liberties watchdog, the act went ahead unamended. The initiative next appeared in the August 2006 Report to Leaders of the Security and Prosperity Partnership which is seeking to merge Canada, the U.S., and Mexico into a North American Union. The report proclaims that: “for aviation security purposes, each country has developed, is developing or may develop its own passenger assessment (no-fly) program for use on flights within, to or from that country to ensure that persons who pose a threat to aviation are monitored or denied boarding” and goes on to set the implementation date of June 2007 for the initiative, pretty good for a body which is not altering our laws at the behest of unelected officials to erode national sovereignty after all.

On the eve of Canada’s no-fly list implementation, this severe violation of Canadians' basic freedom of travel finally started getting the attention of the mainstream media when it came out during the Air India inquiry currently underway in Ottawa that the list, although secret to average Canadian citizens, would likely end up in the hands of foreign governments. And now, just as it is being announced to the public, the list which ‘security experts’ earlier predicted would include fewer than 1,000 people has now been admitted to contain as many as 2,000 names.

This effort to infringe on the basic democratic right of Canadians to travel has moved ahead despite widespread opposition from security experts, airline representatives, government officials and most importantly the public. The current government’s acquiescence to such a measure displays their arrogance as they race to lock in the police state security grid to control the population of North America. Concerned citizens who oppose such a list should consider supporting the fledgling Canadian Action Party, whose leader, Connie Fogal, recently joined The Corbett Report for an interview on the no-fly list. Also, contact your Member of Parliament to let them know that police state measures will not be tolerated by the Canadian public.