Anti-Terrorism Act Shaping Public Opinion in Run-Up to Canada Elections

The Conservative-proposed Bill C-51 passed the country’s lower and upper houses of parliament in May and June, respectively. The Liberal party vowed to amend the bill if it came to power, while the Green Party and the NDP opposed the act.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko – Parties’ position on the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act, which was introduced by the Conservative government in Canada and extends state agencies’ rights to collect private information for anti-terrorism purposes, is one of the key issues shaping voters’ preferences in the run-up to the federal elections, Adam Smith, Green Party candidate, told Sputnik.

“I feel Bill C-51 [Anti-Terrorism Act 2015] is having a lot of influence on the election… Any time there is a potential increase in the state's authority and ability to spy on its people, it must be taken extremely seriously,” Smith said.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed the bill in the aftermath of the October 2014 terrorist attacks in Quebec and Ottawa. On October 20, a Quebec man deliberately rammed a car into two Canadian Forces soldiers, killing one of them. Two days after, a gunman fatally shot a Canadian soldier near the Parliament building.

Federal elections in Canada will take place on Monday. According to the current projections by CBC’s Poll Tracker, the Liberal Party is leading with some 35 percent of support, followed by the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party (NDP) with 30 and 24 percent correspondingly.

The Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party follow the frontrunners.