Toronto - The Pirate Party condemns warrentless government surveillience of Canadians and demands all documents obtained from Canadians be purged from the "Metadata" Surveillience program. While it's illegal for Canadian government organizations to spy directly on Canadians, it has come out that our government is assisting other nations to spy on our citizens and could potentially be spying on us themselves, as there is little oversight to verify what kind of information is collected and stored. 

The Meta-Data collected by this directive does not contain contain the contents of any conversation - although it is possible this is picked up by accident and "sanitized" at a later date. It does however show who spoke to who, when, for how long, how often, and by what means. Although superficial and likely subject to conjecture, this information could be used to obtain warrants for further wiretapping or arrest. The Pirate Party strongly feels that no person - Citizen or otherwise - should be subject to any level of surveillance on their public life without due cause and process - both of which have been lacking in this case.

"The Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be held above all else," says Pirate Party leader Travis McCrea. "Canadians have the right to privacy and presumed innocence both online and off. Individuals should not have to feel guilty about protecting their privacy, any more than they feel guilty about closing the door to the washroom before using it. We have a sitting government who campaigned on transparency and yet is secretly monitoring Canadians online interactions with their friends. There is nothing open or transparent about that. This coupled with all the scandals lately, indicates that it is time for our Prime Minister to question his role in his party and in our country. Any party who does not critize this in the harshest tone possible should not be recieving Canadians' votes."

Authorized by a Ministerial Directive, Canada's meta-data collection plan has gone without scrutiny from Parliament or the courts since it's initial implementation under the Liberals, before being resurrected under Peter McKay. Such directives have the potential to leave large loopholes in a project - loopholes likely leveraged to pass data to and from foreign agencies without the oversight that would be demanded from any parliamentary commitee reading.

Further, it is important that we as Canadians stand up and demand more transparency, not just from the organization which is spying on Canadians (Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC)) but from all government. Government scandals are at an all time high, while approval ratings for parliament are at an all time low - spying on Canadians is not helping that reputation. Even the most popular well trusted government shouldn't be trusted spying on it's citizens, but certainly a government with so little support should be playing it safe, and not snooping through our emails.

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The Pirate Party is a progressive Canadian political party founded in 2006 which focuses on civil liberties and empowerment of Canadians. Media can contact us at [email protected] or call (778) 800-2744 or (877) 978-2023 dial extension 2 for media. Travis McCrea can be reached directly at extension 100 or [email protected]