Complaint filed over alleged spying on Northern Gateway pipeline opponents by RCMP, CSIS by Canadian Press, February 6, 2014, Calgary Herald
Civil liberties activists in B.C. have filed complaints against Canada’s spy agency and the RCMP for allegedly snooping on opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline. Josh Paterson with the BC Civil Liberties Association alleges the spying activities include illegal searches of private information, and he says some of the details were shared with oil and energy companies and the National Energy Board. Paterson says it’s illegal for police and spy agencies to gather information on the activist groups, as none of them pose any threat to public safety or energy board hearings.
ForestEthics Advocacy is one of the groups that alleges it was spied on, and campaign director Ben West says speaking out about environmental issues is part of the democratic process. The allegations stem from an access to information request filed by online publication the Vancouver Observer last November. Paterson says the documents suggest Mounties mostly gathered information through open sources such as websites, but it’s unclear what CSIS’s involvement was. [Emphasis added]
Michael Pawlik · Western College of Veterinary Medicine
You can argue all you want about the importance of this pipeline for the “sovereignty of Canada” but the Canada you (Alberta) and your conservative government are trying to “defend” is the same distorted and tainted Canada you’re trying to force on the rest of Canadians. British Columbians like myself by and large do not want this pipeline and we are fighting against the tyranny of your selfish money driven ways. This pipeline is for the benefit of Alberta (not Canada) and its supported by a federal government that cares only for Alberta. And no we’re not against the employment of many people we’re for the protection of tens of thousands of our own jobs which we risk losing as a result of this pipeline. You can drown in money for all I care but how about you let us British Columbians decide what’s best for our province.
Stew Fettes
This is the kind of stupidity by our taxpayer funded employees that can bring down our government, as more and more of this sleaze behavior begins to leak out. These goons at CSIS should be all rounded up and 25 million Canadian taxpayers should instruct our number one employee, the Prime Minister of Canada, to fire them all.
To think that they are using industrial espionage to pass information on to corporations at the taxpayers expense is incredible. That type of thing is usually conducted by the U.S.A. by retired secret service agents. We don’t need it in Canada. [Emphasis]