Public Safety
|
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.
|
 |
- The Ashley Smith Inquest: 5 Months In
By Communications on June 17, 2013 In October 2007, Ashley Smith died tragically at the age of 19 inside her prison cell at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener after tying a ligature around her neck, while prison guards – instructed not to intervene before she stopped breathing – watched.
A public inquest into her death began in January 2013. Inquests [...]
Category: Activities, Discrimination, Equality, Gender, Liberty and Due Process, News Highlights, Youth - CCLA celebrates win for employee privacy at Supreme Court
By Dora Chan on June 14, 2013 The CCLA is extremely pleased with the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Local 30 v. Irving Pulp and Paper, a case that examined whether employers can impose random breathalyzer testing in unionized workplaces. The majority of the Supreme Court affirmed that mandatory, random and unannounced substance testing for all [...]
Category: Activities, Court Cases, Privacy, Public Safety - Surveillance Methods Cannot Compromise Fundamental Rights
By Sukanya Pillay on June 11, 2013 Recent reports of access to mass amounts of personal information via metadata obtained from telecommunications service providers are of serious concern to CCLA.
This week reports emerged that the Canadian Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), the agency responsible for gathering signals intelligence, has been involved in procuring metadata, following on the heels of reports last week that [...]
Category: National Security, News Highlights, Privacy, Privacy and National Security, Public Safety - Employee Privacy in a Unionized Workplace
By Cara Zwibel on June 6, 2013 On June 13, 2013 the Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments in the case of Bernard v. Attorney General of Canada et al. Ms. Bernard is a federal government employee who will argue that her personal contact information should not be released to the union to which she is compelled to pay dues as [...]
Category: Activities, Announcements, Court Cases, Freedom of Association, Fundamental Freedoms, Privacy, Public Safety - CCLA Intervenes to Protect Freedom of Expression and Privacy in Public
By Cara Zwibel on June 6, 2013 In 2012, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that since individuals crossing a picket line appeared in public, they had essentially waived their right to privacy. The case arose when casino workers went on strike and videotaped the picket line. This is a common union practice and is done for various reasons including discouraging people [...]
Category: Activities, Announcements, Court Cases, Freedom of Expression, Fundamental Freedoms, News Highlights, Privacy
|
|
