The Rational National | Liberals New 'Strong Borders Act' Is Insane
Going over some of the more ridiculous details of the Liberal government's 'Strong Border Bill'. This is not what people voted for.
I gave this bill some fair, level-headed consideration earlier but overall I'm even less happy with it now.
Analyzing the bill has me see it is trying to mimic America's surveillance state in way too many areas. That ick really outweighs the parts of the bills that I thought could be helpful, like allowing for export control inspections to catch auto theft.
I just wrote an email to my Liberal MP, asking them to reject or re-write this bill to vastly narrow its scope. It's still early in the process so there's plenty of time for it to be fixed.
What the hell is wrong with Carney? Did JFK infect him with a brain worm?
This is not cool, I wish there was some stronger push back against it all, I got really concerned about the being able to look in your mail stuff.
So we have a Canadian Patriot act and the kind of "border control" that got America ICE in one package and the prevailing sentiment in what is supposed to be a very left-leaning space is "it's fine if it's only for organized crime". For the few Canadians who know proto-fascism when they see it, fight this like your life depends on it, because it does. You already have in America an example of what not to do and what happens if you do it.
Where is this left-wing space that is saying "it's fine if only for organized crime"? I've been a bit more moderate in my criticisms and hesitant to call it proto-fascism despite my objections to the bill, but as far as I've seen on Lemmy and this thread I'm in the minority.
The first thread about this had a few positive to middling reactions, but after checking again it seems I blew them out of proportion.
Edit: Apparently there are a few clowns defending it in other threads. Still bad, but certainly not as bad as I thought.
I emailed my MP.
The Migrant Rights Network is currently hosting a petition drive against this bill, you can find it here: https://migrantrights.ca/equalitynotexclusion/
How can I effectively write to my MP about this? Like what format etc? I've never done so. I think this bill needs to be vastly rewritten to only contain the necessary and valuable stuff.
I'm not an English major, I write it kind of like a normal letter. You don't have to sweat the formatting too much, but here's what I usually do.
The subject line I put in a nutshell what I want: "Re-write (or Reject) Bill C-2: Canada shouldn't mirror the American Surveillance State" is what I went with.
"Hello [Mr./Mrs./M./Mme.] [Lastname], " is how you can start it of course with the appropriate choice for your MP.
You can start with polite formalities or an introduction if you don't want to start out of the gate with negativity. At some point before you finish the letter, you should state you are a resident of [neighborhood or town your MP is representing].
For negative items, in the second body paragraph opening you should clearly state what you are writing about. For me, it was, "I am writing today to express my disappointment in the first significant order of business being the Strong Borders Act (C-2), giving sweeping powers to the government to encroach upon Canadians' privacy and civil liberties." Positive items (thanking, commending, recommending, encouraging support for) you can do that in the same spot, at the beginning or anywhere between.
You should then state what you want, followed by the reasons why you want it. So here, write about the parts of the bill that feel like overreach and you want removed, like the mail inspection provisions, or digital data seizure provisions (Part 15). You can include what parts you think might be worth keeping or pursuing in another bill.
If you want to expand further, you can note what priorities you want your MP to put ahead (e.g. climate, affordability, economy, world affairs like Gaza and Ukraine, infrastucture, transport, etc.). Regardless of what they do with respect to a particular issue, MPs always want to know what their constituents find important to guide their future efforts.
If you want a follow-up you should state so in your correspondence. (Examples: "I would appreciate your follow-up", "I would appreciate a response", "Please get in touch at your best availability")
Lastly add your full name, address, postal code (to show you are from there) and optionally your phone number at the bottom.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out in a clear manner! Makes it a lot more accessible for myself and future readers to take a more active part in the politics of our country.
eLbOwS uP
It's quite something. They want complete authority to order any providers of information services they choose (probably including your ISP, maybe not including your lemmy instance but who knows) to implement or install any new features or devices they come up with (to be determined) in order to spy on the users and give the data to CSIS on demand.
Along with a dozen other things that have nothing to do with border security.
They didn't come up with all this shit in the past month. It's a laundry list of insane things that someone in Public Safety wanted but knew they couldn't get away with ahead of an election.