Canada Bill C-12 condemned over failure to address human rights concerns News
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Canada Bill C-12 condemned over failure to address human rights concerns

A broad coalition of civil liberties, data privacy, refugee, migrants rights and gender justice organizations denounced the Canadian government’s introduction of Bill C-12 on Wednesday, asserting that it fails to resolve the human rights and refugee protection issues in the controversial Bill C-2. The organizations are led by Amnesty International.

The organizations are calling for a full withdrawal of both Bill C-2 and Bill C-12, which together would form the Strong Borders Act. Bill C12 is meant to build on and fast-track several elements of Bill C2, such as expanded border enforcement, crackdowns on illegal fentanyl imports, and strengthened financial surveillance. Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG), highlighted the issues with the legislation:

Bill C-12 does not fix Bill C-2; it fast tracks some of the most egregious aspects, while still moving forward with the rest. Our government has made it abundantly clear that they will continue to fight for every privacy-violating measure Bill C-2 still contains, and are only introducing Bill C-12 to get restrictions on migrant and refugee rights adopted sooner.

The groups also said that provisions in the law could worsen the toxic drug supply crisis, and that the expanded deportation powers would disproportionately endanger women fleeing gender-based violence.

Karen Cocq, spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Network, charged:

The government is trying to skirt around the overwhelming opposition to C-2 by repackaging it as something new. But C-12 leaves intact the measures to block refugee hearings, impose arbitrary retroactive one-year bars, and grant ministers mass immigration status-cancellation powers. Prime Minister Carney is showing that his government continues to be aligned with conservative Trump-like anti-migrant sentiment. But civil society groups remain united in rejecting this agenda and calling for the withdrawal of both bills.

The coalition includes over 300 organizations, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Church of Canada, the Migrant Rights Network, the Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International.

This comes after Bill C2 had received much criticism from various organizations. Both bills were introduced after much pressure from US President Donald Trump who accused Canada of poorly defending the shared border and threatened tariffs.

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