Four and a half months into this new government, we are worried.

Although Prime Minister Mark Carney ran an “elbows up” campaign, promising to protect Canadians from US President Trump’s threats of annexation and tariffs, he is instead sacrificing our privacy rights, as well as throwing migrants and refugees under the bus, to appease Trump’s false border concerns. This is especially true with his government’s proposed Bill C-2, the “Strong Borders” Act.

To ensure this new government protects our rights, we need your help!

Please click the button below to support our work. Thank you!

I'LL DONATE

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Bill C-2, the rights-violating “Strong Borders” Act, is back in Parliament this week.

This legislation is anti-privacy, anti-migrant and anti-refugee and will make us all less safe by:

• Arbitrarily limiting the ability of individuals to claim asylum in Canada, in violation of international human rights law.
• Allowing police and intelligence agencies warrantless access to our personal information, in violation of privacy rights.
• Granting the government the power to issue secret orders to internet service providers to modify their systems to facilitate surveillance and possibly undermine encryption, placing our data at risk.
• Allowing for the mass cancellation or suspension of the processing of immigration documents (ex: visas and permanent residency cards) for entire groups of people, including individuals from certain countries.
• Allowing Canada Post to open and search our letter mail.
• And much more.

It can’t be allowed to pass!

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Help us build the resistance!

Already, we’re working hard alongside hundreds of partner organizations and thousands of Canadians, to stop this dangerous, cruel and unnecessary legislation:

• We reacted quickly after the bill was tabled and our concerns were covered by many media outlets, journalists, and mentioned in the House by several MPs.
• We analyzed the bill thoroughly and created an action calling for C-2 to be withdrawn. Thousands of letters were sent to MPs and the government.
• We co-initiated a letter against the bill signed by 176 organizations, and joined with others in a press conference to announce, “Over 300 Organizations Unite to Demand Complete Withdrawal of Bill C-2“
• We co-organized and hosted a webinar against Bill C-2 featuring privacy and migrant rights experts that was viewed by hundreds.

But much more needs to be done:

• We are meeting with MPs across the political spectrum to tell them about the problems with this bill and why it must be withdrawn.
• We are working on a brief and a presentation for the Parliamentary study of the bill.
• We continue to help organize the Stop C-2 network to exchange information and strategize to stop the dangerous bill.

MANY more experts, media commentators, organizations, people across Canada and MPs have opposed the bill since it was first introduced.

But Prime Minister Carney seems determined to have it adopted despite the MASSIVE opposition to the bill.

We will need all the help we can get to protect our rights and stop Bill C-2!

HELP US STOP BILL C-2!

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What else is coming up in Fall 2025?

While we will continue the fight against C-2 throughout the fall we are also expecting to see other national security bills or policies that will threaten our rights and freedoms, on top of continuing our work on existing files. These include continuing to:

• Oppose Canada’s complicity in the genocide enacted on Palestinians by Israel in the name of “fighting terrorism” and defend our freedoms of expression, association and assembly on this issue and others.
• Push for ending the use of political, rights-violating and secretive watch lists, including the Terrorist Entities List, and the Canadian and the US No Fly Lists.
• Call for an end to Canada’s complicity in indefinite detention, unfair extradition and torture, including resolving the cases of Abousfian Abdelrazik, Mohamed Harkat and Hassan Diab, and repatriating all Canadians and family members detained in camps and prisons in Northeast Syria.
• Oppose the impacts of counter-terrorist financing laws on humanitarian organizations and Muslim-led charities in Canada.
• Work to reinforce accountability, transparency and due process, including ensuring that any national security review fully involves civil society and impacted communities, increasing funding for review bodies, and reducing restrictions on the defence accessing evidence and other information in terrorism cases.
• Monitor any upcoming artificial intelligence regulation to ensure there are no exemptions for national security agencies or activities, as was the case with the previous government’s Bill C-27.

Prime Minister Carney has described his party as “the party of the Charter,” and committed in Spring 2025, including in conversation with the UN Secretary-General, to protecting human rights.

So far, that is not what he is doing; quite the opposite.

Will you support our work of protecting our rights and freedoms from the negative impact of Canada’s national security apparatus?

I SUPPORT ICLMG

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Please share widely and invite your networks to help us protect our rights via email and on Facebook + Bluesky + Instagram + Twitter

Thank you!

Xan & Tim

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The ICLMG is a national coalition of Canadian civil society organizations that was established in the aftermath of the rushed adoption of the Anti-terrorist Act of 2001. The coalition brings together 45 NGOs, unions, professional associations, faith groups, environmental organizations, human rights and civil liberties advocates, as well as groups representing immigrant and refugee communities in Canada. Our mandate is to defend civil liberties and human rights in the context of the so-called ‘War on Terror’.

This year marks the 24th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Today, we remember the thousands killed that day, but also the millions killed since because of the decades-long “War on Terror” and its ongoing legacy that continues to be used by governments, including Canada, to justify and carry out serious human rights abuses, targeted attacks and mass killings around the world.

The idea of a “War on Terror” may no longer be as prominent, but the policies, actions and logic that underpinned it continue to reverberate today, and must still be confronted, including:

• Using the justification of “fighting terrorism” to defend and excuse Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people, and crackdowns on protesters worldwide
• The ongoing legacy of death and destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries attacked and occupied in the wake of 9/11
• The exponential expansion of mass surveillance worldwide, supercharged now by AI systems exploited by national security agencies in secret and with little to no regulation
• The tightening of borders and increased criminalization of and violence towards migrants and refugees, under the guise of protecting “national security”
• Racism, racial profiling, xenophobia and colonialism that underpins so much of anti-terrorism and national security measures
• The justification for unlawful, indefinite detention, abuse and torture, including at Guantanamo Bay, in Northeast Syria, and many more
• The erosion of fundamental rights, including free expression, freedom of movement, and privacy rights, and attack civic space
• The rapid increase in police and intelligence agencies’ powers – including the use of anti-terrorism laws for other purposes – accompanied by a lack of effective accountability or oversight mechanisms
• Counter-terrorist financing laws blocking humanitarian aid and international assistance, and being used to target, investigate and shut down humanitarian organizations and international solidarity organizations
• Recent dangerous moves to combine the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror”, already leading to extrajudicial killings and signalling a troubling new intersection of two of the most misguided and deadly policies of the past decades

Over the past 23 years, our coalition has worked collectively to push back against these developments in Canada and, to the degree we can, internationally. Today especially, we call on governments to abandon these policies.

As concrete steps, the Canadian government must immediately withdraw Bill C-2, act to address systemic racism, roll back surveillance powers, introduce greater accountability mechanisms, increase funding and powers for independent oversight bodies, do all in its power to stop the genocide in Gaza, and take further steps toward dismantling government counter-terror and national security apparatus overall.

You can find out more about our work in our 20^th anniversary publication, looking back on two decades of confronting anti-terrorism overreach in Canada: https://iclmg.ca/20years/

To help us continue in this work, we need your support. We are a non-partisan organization that does not take government funding and relies on our members and the public to support our work. To donate, visit: iclmg.ca/donate

Since you’re here… … we have a small favour to ask. Here at ICLMG, we are working very hard to protect and promote human rights and civil liberties in the context of the so-called “war on terror” in Canada. We do not receive any financial support from any federal, provincial or municipal governments or political parties. You can become our patron on Patreon and get rewards in exchange for your support. You can give as little as $1/month (that’s only $12/year!) and you can unsubscribe at any time. Any donations will go a long way to support our work.You can also make a one-time donation or donate monthly via Paypal by clicking on the button below. On the fence about giving? Check out our Achievements and Gains since we were created in 2002. Thank you for your generosity!