Balancing liberty and security

The balance between individual liberties and national security was the subject of much discussion at the first-ever Symposium on Counter-Terrorism and Civil Liberties last week at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. The conference, co-hosted by the Human Rights Working Group, the Arab Law Students Association, the Muslim Law Students Association, the Comparative Constitutional Law Society, and the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, brought together prominent policy-makers, practitioners, academics, and members of the public for an engaging series of lectures and panel discussions.

The panels revolved around three central themes: the securitization of immigration policy, the role of civilian oversight of intelligence and security agencies, and Canadian intelligence cooperation with the United States in the war on terror. The challenge from the point of view of the organizers was to avoid creating a “false dichotomy” between security and civil liberties. While panelists approached the issues from a wide range of perspectives, all acknowledged the seriousness of both the threat of terrorism and the erosion of constitutionally-protected freedoms, and proposed various mechanisms for bridging the two. “We have to recognize that it is the responsibility of states to ensure that citizens are able to exercise their rights,” said Paul Kennedy, former chair of the Commission of Public Complaints against the RCMP, “terrorism is a direct attack, a direct threat, on those very rights and freedoms. The challenge for the state…

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