Tommy Douglas secrecy order appealed by Ottawa

[shockedcanadian]

Those sworn to uphold the laws dont wish to follow it themselves. The courts are the only recourse Canadians have against CSIS and the RCMP who are more secretive than any other Western intelligence agency, by some distance. They have helped rebrand Canadian democracy into something unrecognizable.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/29/tommy-douglas-rcmp.html

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. I felt ignorant. I didn't know what this was about. Then I looked up wikipedia....

And found who Tommy Douglas is. He's a remarkable man. (Which is why he's requesting the information made in the original post's article, be made available).

From wiki:

... Douglas and the Saskatchewan CCF then went on to win five straight majority victories in all subsequent Saskatchewan provincial elections up to 1960. Most of his government's pioneering innovations came about during its first term, including:

the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp., successor to the Saskatchewan Electrical Power Commission, which began a long program of extending electrical service to isolated farms and villages;
the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automotive insurance service, the Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office;
the creation of a large number of Crown Corporations, many of which competed with existing private sector interests;
legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service;
a program to offer free hospital care to all citizens—the first in Canada.
passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, legislation that broke new ground as it protected both fundamental freedoms and equality rights against abuse not only by government actors but also on the part of powerful private institutions and persons. (The Saskatchewan Bill of Rights preceded the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas

[shockedcanadian]

2. Some points to consider...

Sarah what is at the crust of the argument here is that Mr. Douglas has passed on some time ago. In fact, some of the files which CSIS is trying to maintain closed to its citizens are 80 years old. The request for his file came from a fairly well known reporter in Canada and, to some degree by the daughter of Mr. Douglas. The reporter was sent a small file massively redacted, hence the action put forward to the courts to have his file released in full. This is an organization which is supposed to spy on bad guys, the enemy...not popular politicians.

What is more disturbing is that not only do these agencies operate with extreme, almost Stalinist secrecy, but, when the courts were deciding on the issue, miraculously dozens of the files went missing. I cannot think of another nation which allows such draconian protection of state secrets...for this matter I cannot think of any democracy that holds their intelligence agency to such limited accountability. Finally there is a judge who understands what is at stake.

The powers of CSIS and the RCMP are so immense, that I honestly would not be surprised if they refused the orders of the Supreme Court of Canada. It is frightening.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. I had no idea what goes on there is the same thing that goes on here in the U.S.

It's definitely eye-opening...

[Scruffy1]

4. You might want to check out Moueseland on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqpFm7zAK90