National Security - Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (CSISA)
. R. v. Jaser
In R. v. Jaser (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed a terrorism-related criminal appeal. Here the court considers aspects of the CSIS Act:
[67] Section 21(2)(a) of the CSIS Act requires that the affidavit in support of an application for a warrant must include the facts relied on to justify the belief, on reasonable grounds, that a warrant is required to enable an investigation into “a threat to the security of Canada…”. The term “threats to the security of Canada” is defined in s. 2 of the Act as including: “activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada…”.
[68] Although s. 21 does not contain an explicit evidentiary threshold for issuance, the Federal Court of Appeal has interpreted the provision as requiring reasonable grounds to believe – credibly-based probability – that a threat to the “security of Canada exists and that a warrant is required to enable its investigation”: Atwal v. Canada, 1987 CanLII 8975 (FCA), [1988] 1 F.C. 107 (C.A.), at p. 109; see also Mahjoub v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2017 FCA 157, [2018] 2 F.C.R. 344, at para. 177.
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