PM's national security adviser suggested Emergencies Act's definition of a security threat should change
CBC
The prime minister's security and intelligence adviser says that the definition of a "threat to security of Canada" under the terms of the Emergencies Act should be reconsidered to better reflect the times.
Jody Thomas's comments to the Public Order Emergency Commission emerged as the commission continues its probe to determine whether the federal government's decision to invoke the act to clear Ottawa of protesters opposed to pandemic measures protests was justified.
Earlier this week, the commission heard that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) didn't believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security, according to the definition in its enabling law.
To deploy the Emergencies Act, cabinet must have reasonable grounds to believe a public order emergency exists — which the Act defines as one that "arises from threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency."
The act defers to CSIS's definition of threats — which includes serious violence against persons or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the government by violence.
In an interview with commission lawyers this fall, Thomas (whose title is often shortened to 'NSIA') and other officials suggested that this definition be "reconsidered."
"The panel explained that security threats have evolved in the 40-year period since the enactment of the Emergencies Act," says a summary of that conversation.
"The panel concluded that the reference to a threat to the security of Canada as defined by section 2 of the CSIS Act in section 16 of the Emergencies Act should be reconsidered."
The act was passed in 1988 as a replacement for the War Measures Act. It had never been used before February of this year and is widely considered a measure of last resort.
Thomas told the commission she was aware CSIS concluded the protests did not meet the threshold to declare a national emergency, but she felt the intelligence agency's mandate was too narrow.
The interview summary said some CSIS targets were present at the protests but they would have to escalate from rhetoric to inciting or carrying out serious violence to meet the service's legal threshold for declaring a national emergency.
"In contrast, the reality was broader than that," said the document.
"In NSIA Thomas' view, it was the totality of the circumstances that led to what she considered to be the existence of a threat to the security of Canada, and therefore, [a] public order emergency."
WATCH | National security threat 'wasn't really defined,' PM's national security adviser says
At a Tim Hortons in downtown Hamilton, drivers intent on getting their morning double doubles brave the murky waters of the parking lot, as sloshing waves reach as high as their car bumpers.
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.