This is essential to maintaining the safety and security of our country … it is also a priority that we share with our neighbours.

Am I the only one who finds this statement deeply troubling?

ICE deporting people

Canada “Hold my beer”.

Shocking, it’s like BOTH parties will do what every they need to do to gain power and the favour of more powerful, people. The Canadian government has been an economic and political appendage of the US since long before Trump got on the scene.

Very, very different scope:

“We need to ensure Canada’s law enforcement is equipped with the tools they need to stay ahead of organized crime groups and crack down on their illicit activities.”

Nope. You are not.

Yes but that’s all lip service to Trump’s wild claims of Canada and Mexico being hotbeds and the source of all drugs, criminals, dark skinned people, etc. To even acknowledge that clown’s claims in their language is to let them set the agenda. Canada can and should do what it wants at its border but not with a fucking patriot act style national security giveaway.

Just remember, once it’s there, it’s there for any future admin. This was written for Trump and by industry lobbiests in CA who would benefit from decreased tarrifs and/or security/weapons/data companies that want far contracts.

Silver lining - sounds like something that could be used to stem the illegal gun importation from the US?

Hmm. I didn’t read it like that. To me, since the source of many of our issues with drugs and guns come from the States, we need to protect our borders from Americans, not for Americans.

And since organized crime, and not “immigrants”, are the problem, it seems like that’s who we are addressing.

Sounds to me like Canada is doing what’s best for Canada, not Trump. I guess we’ll see how these new powers are put into effect.

Their point (well, part of it anyway) is that whatever the government says, there’s no guarantee that the powers provided to the government by this bill will only be applied to organized crime, or that it’ll stay that way. “America doing what’s best for America” got them ICE.

Have you heard of drones being used to smuggle guns? No physical person even needs to cross a border now. Personally, I can’t think of a practical solution to this.

Drone carrying bag of handguns from United States to Canada intercepted by tree | CBC News

Ontario Provincial Police are trying to figure out who sent a shopping bag full of handguns across the Canada-U.S. border via drone -- and who was supposed to receive the illegal package.

CBC (www.cbc.ca)

It also doesn’t work. It completely gives in to conservative framing, and conservatives will always win against liberals on being “tough” on the border.

Better air space monitoring. We need to develop technology to accurately detect small drones anyway since thats the direction a lot of militaries are going.

We are better than that. At least, I hope and trust that we are.

Anything that’s capable of detecting drones would get hella false positives from birds/bikes/cars/people. There’s a reason radar usually ignores movement under a certain altitude.

You could detect via radio signals, but fly-by-wire drones are already a thing, perfect for short distances, like what you’d need to move a package over a wall.

Sweeping border powers? What, they gonna give them brooms?

Goddamn.

It probably can be done with some combination of signal sources. Yeah radar alone doesn’t sound great. It might be possible combined with computer vision, other computer signal pattern recognition, etc. Whoever gets a decent system like that working would have a lot of sales for it.

Most of it is fine on the border/tough on crime provisions, whatever.

The export inspections is good and will help with the car theft epidemic. (I don’t own a car but I can understand communities being frustrated by our current laws not being able to respond effectively to theft rings).

The one part I am concerned about is Part 15 (Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act), a mandatory confidential pathway for electronic service providers to provide information to authorities. Even though “systemic vulnerabilities” are not meant to be introduced in that Act, I can’t help imagine certain edge cases may serve as loopholes to install backdoors that are exploited by both our government and others.

The proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act give the government increased power over immigration documents in cases where public health or national security are at risk. Specifically it allows officials to cancel, suspend or change immigration documents immediately, pause the acceptance of new applications and cancel applications already in process if deemed in the public interest. Asylum claims would also have to be made within a year of entering the country, including for students and temporary residents. The immigration changes would also require irregular border crossers, people who enter Canada between official ports of entry, to make an asylum claim within 14 days of arriving in Canada.

Not the kind of legislation I would want a Tory government to inherit (and hence “strengthen”).

The changes would also speed up voluntary departures by making removal orders effective the same day an asylum claim is withdrawn.

And this kind of shit is straight up alarming.

Basically, at a time when the US is going full on fascist with respect to immigrants, I want Canada moving confidently in the opposite direction.