Angry in the Great White North

Hot on the heels of NDP MP Irene Mathyssen's smear of Conservative MP James Moore for the crime of being a man who might look at pornography, the NDP is making sure that no one other than the NDP is allowed to use what a person is in deciding whether to accuse that person of something.

The NDP is tabling a bill to ban racial and religious profiling:

Today, NDP MP Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas) tabled a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons, which would ban racial and religious profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and officials. The bill was originally put forward by NDP MP Libby Davies (Vancouver East).

“I was very moved when I heard the experiences of those profiled due to their race and religion,” said Siksay. “Its impact is very serious and costly to the victims. It is not a good public policy, nor is it good law enforcement practice, plain and simple.”

It's not clear from what Siksay was saying whether victims were actually guilty of anything. But let's assume they were innocent victims, rather than criminals upset that they got caught and used the allegation that they were accused because of racial or religious profiling instead of actual evidence as a defence.

But my focus is on a new feature of the bill:

New features of the bill include explicitly including religious profiling, adding CSIS to the list of federal law enforcement agencies required to ban racial and religious profiling and report on their actions. It will also require agencies to do an analysis of how racism works in a law enforcement context.

Law enforcement, law enforcement, law enforcement. The whole press release is about law enforcement.

Fine. But then why mention CSIS?

CSIS is not a law enforcement agency. It is an intelligence agency. Indeed, CSIS was created in order to keep intelligence gathering and analysis separate from law enforcement. CSIS does not collect evidence, it collects intelligence.

Is CSIS no longer allowed to conduct intelligence gathering on activities taking place in a mosque or a Sikh temple? Is CSIS no longer allowed to conduct intelligence gathering on First Nation extremists?

CSIS does conduct security assessments for applicants for federal government positions (except for the RCMP) that require a security clearance, as well as evaluating what threat to Canadian security is posed by potential immigrants.

These are not law enforcement functions, but they do impact people's lives. Being a Muslim or a Sikh is not a reason to be denied a security clearance, and so lose out on a job or on the opportunity to enter the country.

That's not racial or religious profiling, though. That's discrimination. Racial or religious profiling means choosing to investigate one person instead of another on the basis of race or religion. In other words, it is using race or religion as a form of probable cause. It leads to harassment of entire communities by authorities.

The fact that a person is applying for a job that requires a security clearance is already probable cause for an investigation. So is applying to enter the country from outside as an immigrant. And in both cases, the investigation is already focused on one specific individual, because of his or her request for a job or for permission to enter the country, and not because of his or her race or religion.

Would the NDP bill forbid CSIS from tailoring the questions asked while performing a background check on a specific individual with regards to race or religion? If I was tasked to conduct a background check on a job applicant who was a Muslim, would I not check into whether he belonged to, or was associated with, known radical groups?

I'm not sure why CSIS was pulled into this net. CSIS is not a police force. CSIS employees are civilians, and they do not roam the streets enforcing the law with a capriciousness based on racial or religious stereotyping. They look for intelligence, but even then the intelligence is not evidence, and only police agencies are tasked with gathering evidence. When CSIS conducts background checks, it is because a person has already taken an action that instigates a background check. The background check is not conducted because CSIS suddenly noticed something about that person's race or religion.

I'm all for oversight of intelligence and law enforcement agencies. I'm also for understanding the difference between those two types of agencies, and for understanding what is racial and religious profiling and how that differs from asking pertinent questions related to a person's race or religion.