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Public Safety
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The CCLA’s Public Safety Program promotes the importance of civil liberties in relation to policing and the criminal justice system. Our work recognizes the important role that governments play in protecting public safety and advocates for the striking of an appropriate balance between public safety and civil liberties in this context. We believe that governments should treat the promotion of public safety and the protection of civil liberties as mutually reinforcing objectives and approach our public safety work from this perspective.
The CCLA monitors the legal and policy frameworks that govern policing and the administration of justice in Canada to ensure that they are sufficiently respectful of civil liberties and Charter rights. When an issue of concern is identified, action is taken to encourage governments to be more respectful of civil liberties. The CCLA has a long history or promoting civil liberties in the public safety sphere and continues to build upon this expertise through its ongoing efforts in the following four key issue areas:
Police Powers
The CCLA seeks to ensure that police powers are used in a manner that is necessary, proportionate and consistent with constitutional standards. Specific police powers that the CCLA has focussed on include detention and arrest, the use of force, and search and seizure.
Police Accountability
The CCLA seeks to ensure that police services and individual officers are accountable for their actions. Accountability mechanisms, such as police complaints and external investigative bodies must be independent and effective in order to enhance public faith in policing.
Privacy and Policing
The CCLA seeks to ensure that personal privacy is adequately respected by police when they are handling personal information. This is particularly important in the context of procedures that may result in the disclosure of personal information, such as background checks.
Liberty and Due-Process
The CCLA seeks to ensure that the criminal law is flexible enough to allow the judiciary to fashion appropriate and proportionate responses to criminal conduct on a case-by-case basis.
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- CCLA Demands Accountability for G20 Rights Violations in light of Scathing OIPRD Report into G20 Police Conduct
By Communications on May 16, 2012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact:
Penelope Chester
647.822.8764
media@ccla.org
www.ccla.org
CCLA Demands Accountability for G20 Rights Violations in light of Scathing OIPRD Report into G20 Police Conduct
Calls for Immediate Action from Chief, Police Services Board
TORONTO, May 16 2012 – The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) today released its systemic review into policing during the 2010 Toronto G20. [...]
Category: Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Expression, Fundamental Freedoms, G20, News Highlights, Police Accountability, Police Powers, Press releases, Public Safety - CCLA to Montreal City Councillors: Don’t Adopt New Protest Bylaw
By Communications on May 16, 2012 The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has written to the Mayor of Montreal, and to city councillors, to express its concerns regarding the City of Montreal’s proposed adoption of amendments to a bylaw that would make it illegal to wear a mask during a public demonstration, and that would require demonstrators to provide prior notification to police authorities [...]
Category: Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Expression, Fundamental Freedoms, News Highlights, Police Powers, Public Safety - CCLA before Ontario Court of Appeal on police background checks, fairness and presumption of innocence
By Abby Deshman on May 15, 2012 On Tuesday May 15 the CCLA will appear before the Ontario Court of Appeal in J.N. v. Durham Regional Police Service, a case that will examine the procedural protections and constitutional rights owed to individuals with non-conviction records that are retained and disclosed by local police forces. Read the CCLA’s factum.
Police run hundreds of thousands – [...]
Category: Court Cases, Liberty and Due Process, News Highlights, Public Safety - CCLA in Supreme Court to advocate for constitutional protection for employees’ private information
By Abby Deshman on May 14, 2012 The CCLA will appear before the Supreme Court to argue that the private, personal information in our communication devices must be protected by the Charter – regardless of whether they are owned personally, or provided through our workplaces.
In R. v. Cole the Court will examine whether an individual whose work computer may be accessed by [...]
Category: Court Cases, News Highlights, Privacy, Public Safety - Press Release: CCLA: Report into RCMP G20 Complaint Bolsters CCLA Concerns, Highlights Need for Answers from Toronto, Ontario Police
By Communications on May 14, 2012 May 14, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact:
Penelope Chester
647.822.8764
media@ccla.org
www.ccla.org
CCLA: Report into RCMP G20 Complaint Bolsters CCLA Concerns, Highlights Need for Answers from Toronto, Ontario Police
TORONTO, May 14, 2012 – The Canadian Civil Liberties Association welcomes the long-awaited report into RCMP conduct during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits. This report was produced by Commission for Public [...]
Category: G20, News Highlights, Police Accountability, Police Powers, Press releases, Public Safety
Features & Multimedia
Demand a public inquiry now!
“It is imperative that there be a full public inquiry into what happened during the G20 in order to get at the truth and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The maintenance of public confidence in law enforcement demands nothing less.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Union of
Public and General Employees are pleased to present [...]
Happy Birthday Charter of Rights and Freedoms!
“There is a song by Jean-Pierre Ferland that romanticizes that it is at 30 that women are beautiful. Before, so the rhyming goes, women are only pretty. Is the Charter beautiful at 30? Has its features grown harmoniously? Does it project an air of maturity without cynicism or a sense of capabilities without [...]
An interview with Alan Borovoy on the new cybersurveillance bill (podcast)
Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow posted this interview on their blog under the headline “Canada’s bull-moose civil libertarian on Canada’s new domestic spying law“. We couldn’t think of a better way to introduce this interview, from TVO’s Search Engine with Jesse Brown.
Listen: Alan Borovoy interviewed by Jesse Brown (Feb 14 2012)
Nathalie Des Rosiers Speaks About Lawful Access (video)
Watch Nathalie Des Rosiers, CCLA General Counsel, speak about concerns regarding lawful access legislation, as part of a project is a response to the serious threats to privacy, free speech and civil liberties raised by proposed lawful access legislation. To understand what is at stake in this invasive and costly bill, the (un)lawful access project [...]
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