http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070216.wxterror16/BNSto ry/National/home
Dion is 'soft on terrorism,' PM contends House debating whether to allow lapse of preventive-detention provisions JEFF SALLOT AND CAMPBELL CLARK >From Friday's Globe and Mail OTTAWA Prime Minister Stephen Harper attacked Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion yesterday for supposedly being soft on terrorism as the minority Conservative government tried to burnish its own image as the champion of law and order. Mr. Dion "is not just soft on crime," Mr. Harper said. "For the first time in history we have a leader of the opposition who is soft on terrorism." The Liberal Leader, Mr. Harper said, "is being led by extremist elements in his own caucus." Mr. Dion replied that the Conservatives were raising false allegations to divert attention from their attempt to skew the process for selecting judges to favour right-wing ideologues. The Globe and Mail reported this week that the Justice Minister filled the arms-length committees that vet applications for judgeships with Tories. At the same time, the committees were expanded to include a police representative, thereby giving Ottawa's representatives a majority of votes. The Liberals have a great respect for Canadian police and an "equally great respect for the independence of judges," Mr. Dion said. The sharp exchange in the Commons served to highlight a Conservative political strategy to depict Mr. Dion as a weak leader. But the debate had little to do with the substance of the issue -- whether Parliament should allow the controversial preventive-detention provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act to expire next month. Earlier in the day, another Conservative minister argued that Mr. Dion's stand that the provisions should be allowed to lapse will undermine the confidence of the United States and other allies in Canada's resolve. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told a conference of defence lobbyists that he was surprised Mr. Dion was parting company with prominent members of his party who enacted the controversial provisions when the Liberals were in office in 2001 and want them renewed. If Mr. Dion's view prevails in the vote, Mr. Day continued, "we will be sending the wrong messages to our allies and to our enemies." But several independent experts in this country and the United States doubt that allowing the provisions to lapse would harm Canadian interests in Washington or with other allied governments. Adopted in the months immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda assaults on New York and the Pentagon, the Anti-Terrorism Act allows police to detain suspects without charge and to compel individuals to testify about what they know about a planned attack. Canadian authorities have never used these preventive-detention and investigative-hearings powers, even in the arrests of 18 men last summer in Southern Ontario in an alleged terrorist bomb plot. This is strong evidence Canada does not need to keep these provisions on the books to deal effectively with terrorism, Mr. Dion said. Parliament imposed a five-year limit on the provisions. The powers will expire next month unless extended by a resolution in both the House and the Senate. Brian Jenkins, an anti-terrorism expert at the U.S. Rand Corp. think tank, said that Canada's image in some Washington political circles is already one of "being guilty of substandard zeal" in the six-year-old global war on terrorism. But it is unlikely that the administration of President George W. Bush would take any sort of retaliatory steps. "It will be more in terms of noise," Mr. Jenkins said. Steven Aftergood, a national security expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said anything Canada does that smacks of it going soft on terrorism "will not be well-received by the Bush administration." However, with the Democrats in control of the Congress, the United States is once again debating its own anti-terrorism regime, including parts of the Patriot Act, Mr. Aftergood said. Democrats might well applaud Canada for clawing back some of the extraordinary powers granted in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he said. Martin Rudner, a Carleton University academic specializing in security issues, said the heated political debate in Parliament is unlikely to have much of an impact at the working level between U.S. and Canadian police and intelligence agencies. "Our allies have confidence in our intelligence and police services," he said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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