Much has been said recently about how the Harper government’s anti-terror legislation, Bill C-51, could potentially be used against striking workers, environmentalists who are opposed to pipelines, and First Nations people defending their land and treaty rights.

But what about citizens involved in a broad range of other issues?  For example, could this anti-terror legislation be used, either by the present government or a future one, against people who believe in gun rights and don’t like consumption taxes such as the HST or GST?

You bet it could.

As the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien has said in a statement blasting Bill C-51:  “All Canadians, not just terrorism suspects – will be caught in the web.” It should be noted that the Privacy Commissioner was appointed a year ago by Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself.  Yet, Therrien does not mince words about how the Bill is “unprecedented,” “excessive,” and “seriously deficient” in its failure to protect privacy and other rights of Canadians.

In that respect, he joins former supreme court justices, many legal and constitutional experts, the Canadian Bar Association (representing over 37,000 members), four former Prime Ministers, the government of Quebec, the Premier of BC, Christy Clark, and a host of others who are deeply concerned about this Bill.

Attempting to defend Bill C-51, Harper government officials claim that the legislation does not apply to “lawful” protests and activity.  But this is hardly reassuring.  In fact, back in 2001 when previous anti-terror legislation was being put forward, the then Justice Minister Anne McLellan removed the term “lawful” from the wording, precisely because leaving it in could leave the door open to target as “terrorist” so-called “unlawful” activity such as unauthorized strikes or wildcats, civil disobedience, boycotts, and even something trivial as failure to obtain a municipal permit or follow a regulation.  The fact that the Harper government is daring to bring the term back in now speaks volumes about its intentions and the broad net it is casting.

Newspaper reports have indicated that people in Canada involved in advocating for firearms acquisition and ownership rights are concerned about the legislation.  They should be.  Today, the federal government is singling out environmentalists and First Nations as “anti-Canadian” and “enemies of Canada.”  Tomorrow, either the same government or a new one could be whipping up fear and hysteria about people who own guns.

With Bill C-51, along with other parts of the anti-terror legislation, such a government would have all the tools to repress and spy on gun owners and anyone else for that matter.  Indeed, Bill C-51 proposes for banking, medical, travel, and business information of targeted individuals to be shared and traded like baseball cards among the bureaucrats and agents of 17 federal governmental organizations, as well as even private companies and foreign countries.

For example, a federal government could decide to bring back the mandatory gun registration program or some equally objectionable legislation that gun owners felt trampled on their rights.  Perhaps a gun owners’ organization might mount a campaign to boycott the program.  The government could easily declare that such a campaign is calling upon people to break the law and, under Bill C-51, is thus “undermining the security of Canada.”  All of a sudden, gun owners and ordinary citizens could find themselves being treated like terrorists under the heavy hand of CSIS and other federal agencies.

Whether or not we support gun rights is not the issue here.  Government overreach is.  And the ability of federal policing agencies to unjustly pigeon-hole ordinary citizens as terrorists or as targets for anti-terror investigation and surveillance.  There is no doubt about it.  Bill C-51, with its highly intrusive, secret police powers, is big government and big state with a capital “B”.

Another example – the anti-HST protests in BC several years ago.  People from across the political spectrum participated in the campaign against that controversial tax.  At that time, politicians and government officials were claiming that if the protesters were successful in defeating the HST, this would undermine the economic and financial stability of the province.

Lo and behold, Bill C-51 allows the federal government to target people and organizations that it claims will undermine or interfere with the “economic and financial stability” of the country.  So, in the future, say the present government or a future one decides to raise the GST and a protest movement develops.  Will this anti-tax protest movement now become a target of investigation and dirty tricks by CSIS?  The broad language in this anti-terror legislation suggests it could.

How hard would it be for the government using this legislation to discredit any such group deemed to be undermining either the economic stability or security of the country?  Not very hard at all, especially with the powers being granted Canada’s spy agency, CSIS, to “disrupt” organizations or groups that are targetted.  By allowing CSIS to break Canadian law and violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the federal government is giving CSIS and other policing bodies all sorts of opportunities to perform “dirty tricks” and discredit individuals and groups on an even larger scale than they do now.

There are a number of examples of such disruptive activity.  Here are just two.  At the G-8 Summit of world leaders in Montreal in August of 2007, tens of thousands of Canadians came together in a massive demonstration to protest Summit policies.  At one point in the demonstration, a group of masked individuals got involved, one who was carrying a rock.  As it turned out, they were eventually identified as undercover Quebec police officers, who many felt were sent to infiltrate a peaceful demonstration and provoke incidents in order to discredit the demonstration.

On another occasion back in the 1990s, a CSIS undercover agent was a founding member of a far right organization in Ontario.  Some members of that organization later claimed that the undercover agent was actually the most vocal in pushing the organization to carry out violent and criminal acts.  Interestingly enough, this same CSIS agent, who promoted extreme racist views, also joined the Reform Party and recruited other racists to do the same.  Why did he join the Reform Party?  Some members of the Party believe it was an attempt of the Progressive Conservative government of that time to discredit the Reform party and blacken its name.

So, to think Bill C-51 could not be used, now or in the future, to trample on the rights of all Canadians is to live in a dream world.  We should oppose it, no matter our political affiliation or perspective.

Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia.  He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca