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
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