Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond moved second reading of Bill S-256, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act (seizure) and to make related amendments to other Acts.

He said: Honourable senators, today, I’m pleased to begin the second reading of Bill S-256, the Canadian Postal Safety Act.

My bill is rather short with only eight clauses, only one of which is of substance. The others are ancillary amendments to the first clause.

The amendment of substance proposes to amend subsection 40(3) of the Canada Post Corporation Act, which sets out the following principle, and I quote:

Despite any other Act or law, nothing in the course of post is liable to demand, seizure, detention or retention, except as subject to this Act and its regulations . . . .

This principle dates back to 1867 with the passage of the Post Office Act. At that time, it was inconceivable to interfere with the operations of the Royal Mail or to read the content of letters one was tasked with delivering. In short, the objective of this law was to protect privacy.

For quite some time, only a postal inspector could detain an item, for instance if it wasn’t sufficiently stamped for the class of mail or if it contained items that were illegal to send by post. It would be more than 100 years before any exceptions to the principle of prohibiting interference with mail items were adopted. This was done through the passage of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act in 1984, an amendment to the Customs Act in 1986 and the passage of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act in 2000.

Under the amendment to the Customs Act, a shipment entering Canada may be subject to inspection by border services officers if they have reason to suspect that its contents are prohibited from being imported into Canada. If this is the case, the shipment, whether a package or an envelope, may be seized. However, an envelope mailed in Canada to someone who resides at a Canadian address cannot be opened by the police or even by a postal inspector. Paragraph 41(1)(c) of the Canada Post Corporation Act states the following, and I quote:

The Corporation may open any mail, other than a letter, to determine in any particular case . . .

The Letter Definition Regulations state that a letter is a mailed item that does not exceed 500 grams. However, postal inspectors may open a parcel if they believe it contains something that is prohibited under legislation that applies to the post. If it is, the item is confiscated and turned over to police.

I will conclude my introduction by saying that Canada Post handles billions of items per year. In 2020, Canada Post delivered 6.4 billion items, of which 2.5 billion were letters, 384 million were parcels and the remainder was advertising.

That is the current situation in Canada.

[English]

To summarize, nothing in the course of the post in Canada is liable to demand, seizure, detention or retention, except if a specific legal exception exists in the Canada Post Corporation Act or in one of the three laws I referenced. However, items in the mail can be inspected by a postal inspector, but if it is a letter, the inspector cannot open it to complete the inspection.

Thus, a police officer who has reasonable grounds to suspect that an item in the mail contains an illegal drug or a handgun cannot be authorized, pursuant to a warrant issued by a judge, to intercept and seize an item until it is delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender. I am told that letters containing drugs have no return address.

While an item is in the mail, the only option the police have is to work closely with 1 of the 25 inspectors at Canada Post — 25 to cover the whole country. An inspector could then find a way to inspect a parcel and retain it if illegal material is found inside. Subsequently, based on the information communicated by the inspector, the police could seize the item for further investigation and possibly to lay a charge. It is important to remember that if the illegal object — for example, a packet of fentanyl — is in a letter weighing less than 500 grams, it cannot be opened by the postal inspectors. The most they can do, if they identify such a letter, is to remove it from the course of post as non-mailable matter and call the police.

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By the way, colleagues, 500 grams of fentanyl currently has a street value of $30,000.

Incidentally, in 2020, postal inspectors inspected approximately 3,287 items, with 3,067 found to contain non‑mailable matter. During that same year, as I said a few minutes ago, Canada Post handled 6.4 billion items. Of these, 384 million were parcels that could be inspected, including being opened, and 2.5 billion items were letter mail, which cannot be opened; the rest were direct marketing materials and advertising.

This context is, unfortunately, well known by criminals, including drug distributors.

In 2019, Maclean’s reported that the Canada Post system is exploited by drug traffickers in an article entitled, “For fentanyl importers, Canada Post is the shipping method of choice.” That article outlines that on the dark web, an anonymous online marketplace for illegal drugs and other contraband, Canada Post appears to be traffickers’ preferred shipping method for Canadian orders.

Mike Serr, chief of the Abbotsford Police Department and co‑chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Drug Advisory Committee said in 2019:

The word is out there that you don’t use the courier service, you use Canada Post because of the limitations to law enforcement.

In the same Maclean’s report, an anonymously quoted man from London, Ontario, who had ordered fentanyl, heroin and other drugs online from the dark web said:

Some will also offer private courier services at really high prices, but almost always offer Canada Post as the base option. Sending through Canada Post can never be a 100 per cent surefire way to beat the cops, but it works 99.9999999 per cent of the time.

A Canada Post carrier told Maclean’s that the postal system moves too quickly for due diligence:

You don’t have time to be discerning as to what you’re actually delivering and handling. You’re going to throw it in there, get into your truck and get out there as fast as you possibly can.

One carrier told Maclean’s:

As an employee, you’re going, ‘Jeez, I didn’t sign up for this.’ I signed up to be a mailman, to deliver Christmas cards. Not fentanyl.

To complicate the matter further, in a recent judgment from the Supreme Court in Newfoundland and Labrador called Her Majesty the Queen v. Christopher Gorman, the judge concluded that the power of the inspector to seize a parcel was unconstitutional, being too broad. The judge granted the Attorney General of Canada one year to fix the problem, until April 12 next year. This judgment was not appealed.

My bill is an attempt to put an end to the perception that our postal service is the best way to ship illegal drugs and other illegal materials.

The Canadian postal safety act’s purpose is to assist law enforcement, Indigenous communities and rural municipalities in their efforts to intercept dangerous drugs, particularly fentanyl and other opioids, that could be delivered by the mail system, especially in remote areas.

As such, this bill will facilitate police operations and should reduce harms in Canada, assisting efforts toward this goal of Canada Post inspectors and customs officers.

Rest assured that, under this bill, any detention or search of parcels or letter-sized items in the mail would be subject to the same judicial authorization already required by law in situations for such items while outside the course of post, such as a search warrant.

The aim of this bill is not to weaken or change requirements for searches and seizures, but rather to remove an old statutory limit that prevents police from fully assisting Canada Post inspectors and customs officers in enforcing the law.

Canadians’ expectation of privacy in the mail will not be reduced by Bill S-256, although there will no longer be a legal barrier to appropriate authorization of police searches and seizures while an item is in the course of post.

This legislation will simply grant police the same powers for Canada Post mail that police currently have in relation to items shipped by private courier services such as FedEx, UPS or DHL. Incidentally, such powers already apply to Purolator, a courier company 91% owned by Canada Post.

To sum up, section 40(3) of the Canada Post Corporation Act, as drafted now, prevents law enforcement from detaining and seizing items in the course of post. For example, although police may have reasonable grounds to believe that a package of fentanyl or a prohibited weapon is being sent through the mail, the police cannot lawfully detain the item until it has been delivered to the addressee or until a postal inspector has intercepted it independently of the police investigation.

This framework places an unnecessary operational and logistical burden on the police in doing their job and bringing drug traffickers to justice, costing valuable time and resources, including for surveillance, and risking exposure of investigations and missed opportunities.

The current framework also seems to preclude the possibility that some mail should be situationally delayed to identify and remove contraband, such as if a package of fentanyl is dropped in a red postbox and the item risks becoming unidentifiable if mixed with other mail.

As the law stands now, the police cannot go to the red box where somebody has dropped 20 letters and try to seize these letters. They have to call an inspector, and if they are lucky enough and the inspector comes along with a little truck when they empty the mailbox, they can inspect the thing. With judicial authorizations they will be able to seize the letters in that mailbox before they go to the little truck, the distribution centre and sorting centres where billions of items are processed. And, of course, the letter is difficult to retrieve.

Parliament’s past actions do suggest that the ability to open letter-sized items, where authorized by law, may be important in intercepting fentanyl. In 2017, Parliament passed Bill C-37 to allow customs officers to open mail weighing less than 30 grams, due to the problem of fentanyl imports. Parliament effected this change by repealing section 99(2) of the Customs Act. At the time, it was said in reply to the Minister of Health, the Honourable Jane Philpott:

My Conservative colleagues have been pushing the government to finally acknowledge the flaws at our borders and grant officers the authority to search and seize suspicious packages weighing less than 30 grams. . . . Removing the “30 grams or less” exemption from the Customs Act is a much-needed step in combatting the opioid crisis facing our country.

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Senators, why should the same not be true of Canada Post mail? The change proposed by my bill will be further progress along the lines of Bill C-37, allowing police to detain and search letter-sized items with judicial authorization where sufficient grounds are present to believe that they contain fentanyl or other contraband.

To address this enforcement loophole — I call it a loophole — in the Canada Post Corporation Act, I propose to amend section 40(3) of the statute to read:

. . . nothing in the course of post is liable to demand, seizure, detention or retention, except as subject to this Act and its regulations or an enforcement statute.

In Bill S-256, the term “enforcement statute” means any act of Parliament, any law of a province or territory, or any law of an Indigenous jurisdiction. My intent is an approach of cooperative federalism and reconciliation. Essentially, an illegal item present in the mail will no longer be a barrier to law enforcement for any jurisdiction, while still requiring the same judicial or other authorization necessary for search or seizure in other situations, such as a search warrant.

On this point, it is an important step for any federal statute and our postal system to respect Indigenous jurisdiction, including self-determination to prohibit or limit the importation of certain products into the nations’ territory, provided this is done in a lawful way. This bill aims to facilitate Indigenous and other police forces to enforce Indigenous laws as the federal government works to support Indigenous policing and self‑government. At the same time, Bill S-256 does not impose any policy on any Indigenous nation but rather upholds their jurisdiction.

I am encouraged and honoured that the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, or AMC, has supported the goals of this legislation through a resolution adopted at their annual general assembly on October 25-27 of this year. This followed a review of a preliminary draft of the bill as part of my consultations. The AMC represents 62 First Nations across Manitoba. Their resolution reads in part:

WHEREAS, a statutory limitation currently exists whereby police are unable to search packages sent through Canada Post . . .

WHEREAS, legislation is being proposed to the Canada Post Corporation Act that would allow jurisdiction for police forces to search mail in the possession of Canada Post, if duly authorized with a search warrant, for the purpose of seizing contraband . . .

WHEREAS, opioids, firearms, illegal alcohol, and counterfeit items . . . are being sent through mail carriers and are an ongoing issue for First Nations in particularly in northern and isolated First Nations.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the AMC Chiefs-in-Assembly calls upon the federal government to amend existing legislation or create a new law . . . . ensuring law enforcement’s ability to search and seize mail through Canada Post . . .

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that any federal legislation to prevent contraband from entering First Nations should also provide First Nations police forces with the same powers as their federal, provincial, and municipal counterparts . . . .

Thank you to Senator McCallum for her help and her leadership in this project. She facilitated the adoption of these resolutions, and I am grateful to her.

This past January, the Winnipeg Free Press reported on a death where drugs sent through the mail are believed to have been a contributing factor. This incident occurred in the Sayisi Dene First Nation, the northernmost First Nation in Manitoba. Chief Evan Yassie said in that news report, “Drugs were involved, drugs are involved, and it’s coming in steady through the mail.”

In June of 2021, the Health Canada Expert Task Force on Substance Use released its second report, regarding recommendations on the federal government’s drug policy. One recommendation reads:

Define the role of enforcement as a means to clearly support the aims of the public health framework and legal regulation by focussing on criminal organisations and the illegal toxic drug supply.

Colleagues, Bill S-256 is consistent with this recommendation, as enforcement actions against illegal drug supplies and traffickers, including organized crime groups, are complementary to harm reduction approaches on this public health matter.

In advancing the Canadian postal safety act, I’m happy to be working with Member of Parliament and prospective House of Commons sponsor Ron McKinnon, representing Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam in B.C. From Mr. MacKinnon:

The Canadian Postal Safety Act is one more important tool in the harm reduction tool kit which will help get poisonous drugs off our streets. Too many of us have lost friends or family because of the toxic drug crisis. This bill is an important move that will disrupt criminals and save lives.

Mr. McKinnon previously authored the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act. This was also a private member’s bill, Bill C-224, passed unanimously in 2017, to provide a legal exemption from possession charges or violations of related conditions for persons calling 911 to seek help for an overdose, as well as those at the scene. On May 4 this year, the fifth anniversary of that bill passing, Senator Gold told this chamber that the government will be pleased to work with parliamentarians on potentially expanding the Good Samaritan exemption such as to other non-violent offences.

I am also honoured to be working to close the Canada Post loophole with some members of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s Drug Advisory Committee. Canadian police chiefs have been pushing for the change in the Canada Post Corporation Act for years.

Bill S-256 is a response to their call. A resolution adopted in 2015, already seven years ago, calling for police authority to seize illicit drugs, weapons and counterfeit items from the mail where authorized by law. That resolution reads in part:

. . . BE IT RESOLVED that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police requests the Government of Canada to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act to provide police, for the purpose of intercepting contraband, with the ability to obtain judicial authorization to seize, detain or retain parcels or letters while they are in the course of mail and under Canada Post’s control.

This was seven years ago. Unfortunately, so far there has been no response from the government to their call.

Chief Mike Serr, co-chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Drug Advisory Committee, and to whom I referred previously, said about my bill:

The legislation responds to the CACP’s 2015 Resolution #08 which calls for police authority to seize illicit drugs, weapons, and counterfeit items from the mail, where authorized by law. The CACP Drug Advisory Committee supports legislative changes that provide tools for law enforcement to keep communities safe.

In advancing this bill, I wish to thank particularly Rachel Huntsman, who was in the gallery previously today, also from Newfoundland and Labrador, and Member of the Law Amendments Committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, or CACP. Her knowledge, advice and passion have been critically important to launching and shaping this bill. We have been working on this bill together for two years, along with Canada Post, the police chiefs and a lot of other people. I want to thank the Progressive Senate Group for providing research funds to finance this work.

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Colleagues, the question with this bill becomes, “What are we waiting for?” I hope a Senate committee will hear from witnesses on this point and, if they reach the same conclusion as I have, that Parliament would proceed to close this loophole as soon as possible.

In conclusion, with Bill S-256, the “Canadian Postal Safety Act,” I think we are creating one more tool — an effective tool — to enforce the law and reduce the illicit distribution of fentanyl and other drugs through the mail. I hope that, as a chamber, we will make a difference and adopt this bill on second reading and send it to committee as soon as possible. Thank you, meegwetch.

Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Honourable senators, as we prepare to conclude debate on the principle of Bill S-7, allow me to offer a few comments that may be useful during the committee’s study.

First, I would like to thank Senator Boniface for her April 28 speech, in which she did a very good job explaining the origins of the bill and its substance. In essence, the government is proposing that personal digital devices, such as smartphones, tablets and computers, be subject to a search or examination only if the customs officer has a reasonable general concern that an offence has been committed under the acts that the officer is responsible for enforcing.

As the senator said, this bill is the government’s proposed response to a Court of Appeal of Alberta ruling on October 29, 2020. In Canfield, the court found that the application of paragraph 99(1)(a) of the Customs Act to the inspection of these devices was a violation of section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees all Canadian citizens a sphere of autonomy and privacy. The ruling also gave Parliament 12 months to amend the legislation. That deadline was extended to April 28, 2022, and no further.

In a ruling issued in the Pike case on April 14, after this bill was introduced, the Ontario Superior Court came to the same conclusion as the Alberta Court of Appeal. The judge also refused to grant the government a further one-year extension, choosing to uphold the deadline set by the Alberta Court of Appeal. As a result of these two rulings, as of April 29, 2022, customs officers in both Alberta and Ontario may search one of the above-mentioned digital devices only if they have a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed under a law that they are responsible for enforcing.

[English]

It means that currently, at the busiest airport in Canada, Toronto Pearson International Airport, customs officers can only ask for access to the content of a digital device if they entertain a reasonable suspicion that it contains a document that cannot be legally imported to Canada. This is, of course, also true at all international airports in Alberta and Ontario and at all border customs stations located in these two provinces. In other words, since April 29 a large proportion of travellers entering Canada can only be subject to a search of their personal devices if the customs officer entertains a reasonable suspicion that the traveller is trying to import illegal material — a threshold that has been described, and rightly so, by Senator Boniface as being higher than the one proposed in the bill.

During committee study of this bill, this important new fact should be studied in order to measure the difficulties, if any, met in the operations of customs officials in Alberta and Ontario compared to the rest of the country. The rest of the country can still operate under the existing regime where customs officers apply section 99(1)(a) of the Customs Act to search personal devices, being restricted only by internal guidelines issued by the Canada Border Services Agency. These guidelines have been found by both the Court of Appeal of Alberta and the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario to be insufficient to meet legal requirements because they are not legally binding.

Incidentally, this is the same test that customs officers have always applied to the inspection of material in the mail without complaining about their inability to ensure that illegal products such as child pornography are not imported to Canada through the mail service. This is certainly another feature of the current system that could be studied in committee.

As observed by the Court of Appeal of Alberta, the content of a personal device is incredibly larger in terms of personal information than what you could find in a letter, even a long one.

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Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Honourable senators, I rise to explain why I will vote against the motion.

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the ordeal inflicted upon the residents and businesses of downtown Ottawa for over three weeks. I have no hesitation in saying that their nightmare has been the result of illegal acts such as a permanent occupation of downtown streets, honking day and night, keeping rig engines running, impeding access to residents and so on. Senator Cordy referred to many appalling examples. Unfortunately, those in charge of enforcing the law at the municipal and provincial levels let them down. In the circumstances, federal assistance was not only welcome, it was necessary.

This occupation of downtown Ottawa was happening at the same time as various blockades across the country. Those participating in these events all shared the conviction that the time had come for all governments to end, immediately and once and for all, all COVID measures. They had the right to express such a demand, even if ill founded.

Unfortunately, some were also led to believe that it was proper for them to call for a new system of governance to replace the recently elected MPs and the current government. Others believed that the vaccination was a way to control their brain or to reduce their lifespan.

We can now see the adverse consequences of social media promoting all kinds of conspiracy theories, rejection of professional journalism and easy access to unregulated financing, including from abroad, in the construction of an alternative reality.

It is in this context that, on February 14, the government stated that it believed that an emergency existed throughout Canada, comprised of blockades by persons and motor vehicles as well as threats to oppose measures to remove the blockades, including with force, directed at achieving a political or ideological objective. The government added that these activities were adversely affecting the Canadian economy, including by blocking international border crossings and imperiling the availability of essential goods and services.

Was such a description exact? Was it sufficient to meet the tests of the Emergencies Act? The inquiry, mandated by the act under section 63, with the benefit of additional and possibly confidential information, will most likely answer these questions.

For the time being, suffice it to say that I agree with the sponsor of the Emergencies Act in 1988, the Honourable Perrin Beatty, that the government had, on February 14, a high and stringent test to meet, defined in the act as the existence of an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that:

. . . seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it . . .

and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.

I add that the majority of premiers did not believe so. In a Sunday interview, the British Columbia Premier John Horgan said:

I think the premiers agreed that the events in Ottawa were just not tenable and something had to be done. But at the same time, we all expressed our concerns about the intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. We all expressed a concern that it be locally focused, geographically focused.

And he added, “I leave it to [Ottawa] to defend it.”

[Translation]

In Quebec, Premier Legault opposed the use of the Emergencies Act and then, on February 15, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion calling on the federal government to not apply this act in Quebec, but to still “be concerned about the current disruptions” in Ottawa and at the border.

Then, two reputable organizations not known to be right‑leaning, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the BC Civil Liberties Association, publicly stated that this declaration did not meet the test of the act. Furthermore, the CCLA has filed an application in federal court to have the February 14 declaration quashed.

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[English]

Lawyer Paul Champ, who successfully argued for an injunction against sounding the horns in Ottawa and who has been a board member of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association for 10 years, stated that:

. . . although I am acutely aware of the trauma experienced by Ottawa residents, I fully agree that the Emergencies Act is a dangerous tool that was not required.

All that said, it remains that the motion before us is to decide if the declaration shall continue to have effect or rather be terminated. This has to be decided based on the facts as they now exist, as of today. As I said a few minutes ago, the evaluation of the situation on February 14 will be the task of the inquiry as well as the Federal Court.

By now, we know that law enforcement has dismantled the occupation of downtown Ottawa and that all border crossings are fully operative. Let me take the opportunity to pay tribute to and thank all police services involved for their professionalism.

There are also indications that the emergency measures helped the police to end the occupation of downtown Ottawa by the big rigs, temporarily control entry of people to the red zone, efficiently operationalize police services from across Canada, secure equipment and create strong financial deterrents.

All that said, I am inclined to conclude that there were hard facts amounting to reasonable grounds to declare a state of emergency on February 14, but they appear to have since passed. Now we hear ministers referring to potential attempts to erect new border blockades or to occupy downtowns across Canada. These appear to be rather vague allegations. Furthermore, they are made in a context quite different, considering that the police have learned a lot from the previous incidents as we could see in the last protests in Toronto and Quebec City. I am also convinced that information collected by police and other security agencies is now processed and shared rapidly.

In my view, to adopt the motion in such a context may set the precedent for a lower threshold than the one even considered applicable on February 14.

Furthermore, if the situation deteriorates, with speculation becoming hard facts, the government will be entitled to a new declaration if, in their view, the stringent test is then met. Of course, a new parliamentary process to consider the declaration will repeat.

This brings me to my last point. In the past few days, we have heard ministers and the RCMP refer to the significant impact on truckers of the Emergency Economic Measures Order. As you know, it requires financial institutions to freeze the accounts of alleged participants in the Ottawa occupation and to stop providing them with financial services.

[Translation]

Yesterday, the RCMP released a statement on how it was planning to enforce this order. I will quote, as follows:

Under the Emergency Economic Measures Order (Emergencies Act), the list that was provided to financial institutions included identities of individuals who were influencers in the illegal protest in Ottawa, and owners and/or drivers of vehicles who did not want to leave the area impacted by the protest. At no time, did we provide a list of donors to financial institutions.

We are now working with the banks to build a process to address the accounts that were frozen.

This approach is, indeed, consistent with the order, which does not require that the people and organizations in question receive a detailed copy of the information obtained by the RCMP, and which provides for a neutral review mechanism to be put in place, with the power to order a seizure to be cancelled. Furthermore, the order does not address whether the RCMP or the financial institution can use that information in the future or whether they have an obligation to destroy the information.

[English]

In my view, this process designed to punish a person, even temporarily, by seizure of assets without any judicial oversight, is a clear violation of section 8 of the Charter, which reads: “Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”

In 1984, in Hunter et al. v. Southam Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that section 8 guarantees a broad and general right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures which, to be properly preserved, requires that authorizations to search and seize be issued by independent judges.

I quote the court, which said that the purpose of section 8 is:

 . . . to protect individuals from unjustified state intrusions upon their privacy. That purpose requires a means of preventing unjustified searches before they happen, not simply of determining, after the fact, whether they ought to have occurred in the first place. This, in my view, can only be accomplished by a system of prior authorization, not one of subsequent validation.

In 2003, the Supreme Court reminded us of that principle again:

Courts also ensure that the power of the state is exercised in accordance with the rule of law and the provisions of our Constitution. In this capacity, courts act as a shield against unwarranted deprivations by the state of the rights and freedoms of individuals.

The Supreme Court also stated that limits under section 8 rights are unlikely to be justified under section 1, given the overlap between the reasonableness standard under section 8 and the minimal impairment analysis under section 1 called the Oakes test, which is not applicable under section 8.

In my view, the Emergency Economic Measures Order as currently drafted is fatally flawed because it authorizes the seizure of assets at the instigation of the state without any form of prior judicial authorization in order to sanction the person or organization for an alleged but unproven offence.

A judge is needed to balance government interest and the rights of the individual concerns by this measure, an examination that can be done ex parte like most warrants. There are nearly 1,200 federally appointed judges in Canada, most of them sitting in Superior Courts, and many more provincially appointed judges. All of them have the power to issue warrants. It would have been easy to seek judicial authorizations in connection with the 76 accounts frozen by Saturday — a number that increased to 206 by yesterday.

Senators, since this order seems to be the most important new tool provided by the declaration, we should not hesitate to vote “no” and put an end to such an unconstitutional piece of overreaching regulation.

Finally, let me offer two comments. First, a negative vote in this chamber cannot be considered as a matter of confidence in the government. That can only happen in the House of Commons where elected MPs sit.

Second, if we conclude there is no necessity to continue the declaration, the regulation and the order will cease immediately to have effect for the future, but charges laid before will continue to be processed by the courts. For all these reasons, colleagues, I will vote “no” as suggested by The Globe and Mail, La Presse, many political leaders and a lot of legal experts and associations such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Thank you. Meegwetch.