Craig Forcese

This book is about the democratic regulation of Canada's security and intelligence agencies at the federal level. It serves as a primer or guidebook, both for those involved in Canada's national security system and for those with an interest in it. The book proposes six values that underlie Canada's national security system and inform (or should inform) both the conduct of security service activities and the approach taken by bodies conducting democratic regulation of them. The book also discusses how democratic regulation of the security services operates in Canada, focusing on executive oversight, judicial and quasi-judicial control and scrutiny, specialized national security review, and concluding with other forms of scrutiny. It describes the background to these functions and outlines considerations properly informing their design and conduct. The book emphasizes how democratic regulation of the security services can serve as a mechanism for nudging progressive improvement in a sector often insulated from more conventional performance pressures.

National Security Law, 2e, is about the law governing the Canadian state's response to serious crises -- that is, events that jeopardize its national security. The book approaches national security law as a system, organizing its discussion of law around five themes: structure (the mandate and roles of national security agencies); threats (aggression, terrorism, interference, proliferation, and emergencies); information (domestic and international intelligence collection, sharing, and information secrecy); response (including security screening and assessment, aviation "no fly" listings, passport revocation, immigration detention and removals, peace bonds, preventive detention, threat reduction, defensive and offensive cyber, criminal prosecutions, and use of force); and accountability (national security review). Given the evolution of Canadian law in these areas, this second edition is a comprehensive rewrite of the first edition, first published in 2007. Readers may be interested in this primer course on national security law that the authors have created in support of the book.

Winner of the 2016 Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize On 20 October 2014, a terrorist drove his car into two members of the Canadian Armed Forces, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Two days later, another terrorist murdered Corporal Nathan Cirillo before storming Parliament. In the aftermath of these attacks, Parliament enacted Bill C-51 -- the most radical national security law in generations. This new law ignored hard lessons on how Canada both over- and underreacted to terrorism in the past. It also ignored evidence and urgent recommendations about how to avoid these dangers in the future. For much of 2015, Craig Forcese and Kent Roach have provided, as Maclean's put it, the "intellectual core of what's emerged as surprisingly vigorous push-back" to Bill C-51. In this book, they show that our terror laws now make a false promise of security even as they present a radical challenge to rights and liberties. They trace how our laws repeat past mistakes of institutionalized illegality while failing to address problems that weaken the accountability of security agencies and impair Canada's ability to defend against terrorism.

The Laws of Government is a comprehensive legal treatise on the law of Canadian democracy. This book is a one-stop-shop for an area of law and policy that is emerging quickly. Almost every year, Parliament has had to deal with controversies involving electoral reform, political fundraising rules, ethics and conflict of interest, access to information, judicial appointments, parliamentary reform, and minority governments, to name a few. The book grapples with these contemporary issues. Each chapter deals with a discrete area in the law of democratic governance, providing a detailed account of the relevant legal and policy issues and exploring the nature and likelihood of law reform. It includes original empirical research on judicial and non-judicial governor-in-council appointments, lobbying, and legislative productivity in Parliament. The book is intended as a rigorous legal resource, but one that is accessible to a non-legal audience. It has multidisciplinary appeal, incorporating public administration and political science themes. The Laws of Government is essential reading for journalists, elected officials, public servants, lobbyists and all who are interested in politics and Canadian democracy. This second edition incorporates changes in the law since 2005. In particular, the Conservative government's Federal Accountability Act, which received royal assent in December 2006, revamped the Canadian law of government accountability - especially that dealing with ethics. Since 2006, other refinements to the legal superstructure supporting democratic governance at the federal level have been put in place. All of these new developments are reflected in the revised volume.