Democratic Rights & Civil Liberties
The right to protest, to organize, to dissent, to speak freely, are under attack, with police forces using surveillance technology against activists and journalists, intelligence agencies collecting the metadata of millions of working Canadians without warrants, and public workers being punished for their political views.
What we are watching unfold in the United States was built over decades, through legislation like the Patriot Act, through surveillance apparatus assembled quietly by administration after administration, each one refusing to dismantle what the last one built, until the tools of the surveillance state were too powerful to challenge.
The construction of that same apparatus has already begun here, with Bill C-63 and the Lawful Access Act allowing authorities to compel telecommunications corporations to hand over Canadians' private information without a warrant. We cannot allow it to grow beyond our control; that’s why New Democrats are fighting to stop it now.
“Setting people to spy on
one another is not the way
to protect freedom.”
—Tommy Douglas
Protect The Right To Protest And Free Expression
The right to protest and dissent is foundational to democracy. Yet across Canada it’s under attack: police forces continue to suppress protest through kettling, surveillance, and the intimidation of journalists and legal observers. Whistleblowers, journalists, and researchers who expose abuses of power are being surveilled and retaliated against for their vital contributions to our democracy. Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are calling for the protection of the right to peaceful protest with restrictions on police crowd-control tactics, and independent oversight of protest-related policing. We’re also demanding stronger whistleblower protections and the prohibition of the surveillance, detention, or obstruction of journalists, legal observers, and researchers engaged in public-interest reporting. Democracy requires those who can speak truth to power, no longer can we allow those who dare do it, to be punished for it.
End Warrantless Metadata Collection And Political Blacklisting
Canada's security agencies engage in mass metadata harvesting of Canadians' communications with little oversight or accountability. Surveillance tools that were designed for national security purposes are being used against activists, journalists, and social movements. And political and policing blacklists continue to punish lawful dissent, with union membership, protest participation, and political organizing used as grounds for employment, security, and immigration decisions. Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are calling for a prohibition on warrantless metadata collection, strengthened civilian oversight of all intelligence activities, and a complete ban on political blacklisting.
Ban Predictive Policing And Biometric Surveillance
Predictive policing algorithms and facial recognition technology are not neutral tools; they are systems that encode and amplify existing racial biases, disproportionately targeting Indigenous, Black, and marginalized communities for surveillance and enforcement while providing a veneer of technological objectivity to what is discriminatory policing. Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are calling for a complete ban on predictive policing, facial recognition, biometric scraping, and algorithmic blacklisting by public authorities. Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are also pushing for transparency requirements for platform algorithms and a prohibition on the suppression of lawful political content by major digital platforms. Your right to organize, to speak, and to participate in democratic life should not be subject to algorithmic suppression by elites that answer to no one.
Free Speech In Academia And Political Participation For Public Sector Workers
Canadian governments have enacted legislation restricting political speech and participation, including boycotts, by public sector workers who advocate for the rights of oppressed peoples, and legislation that restricts free speech and academic freedom at Canadian colleges and universities. Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are calling for the repeal of all such legislation. The freedom to think, to speak, and to advocate is not a privilege that governments can revoke from public employees or academics.
Build A National Restorative Justice System
Canada's justice system is not working. Punitive sentences that don't rehabilitate, prison conditions that worsen mental illness, and a recidivism rate that keeps prisons full while communities remain unsafe: this is an expensive failure by any measure. The evidence for restorative approaches is overwhelming: lower recidivism, better outcomes for victims, and real savings for taxpayers. As of a 2024 study, Canada’s five-year reconviction rate was approximately 50 per cent, while Norway’s recidivism rate was just 25 per cent. Norway’s judicial system focuses on rehabilitating those that’ve been incarcerated, and getting them reintegrated into society once they’re released. We know a more rehabilitative system can work, we just have to build it. That’s why Mission—Matsqui's New Democrats are calling for an end to solitary confinement, the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for minor offences, mandatory access to victim-offender mediation and conferencing, and restorative justice conferences for all youth offenders; to end this cycle of violence, and to get those that’ve been incarcerated rehabilitated.