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Steven Blaney, the Public Safety Minister, has said the government plans to lower the threshold necessary to mount a case against suspected terrorists.

Under the current Combating Terrorism legislation, law enforcement agencies can detain suspects on grounds of reasonable suspicion for 48 hours. It is defined as an emergency power and after that time period, police have to submit their case to a federal court judge to say whether there are sufficient grounds for arrest. Conservative sources say their plan is to lower the evidentiary threshold. “The case needs to be robust but not 100% robust,” said one source.

Wayne Easter, the Liberal public safety critic, says the government should be making better use of its existing tools to fight terrorism under the Criminal Code and anti-terror legislation.

“I really don’t understand why [Martin Couture-Rouleau] couldn’t have been held under preventive detention. The government has some explaining to do on why they haven’t tested some of these things in the courts. What are the limits of preventive detention? Most of them have not been tested,” he said.

He was also damning of the decision to remove Rouleau’s passport and then let him go free. “It boggles my mind. What the hell good does it do taking someone’s passport away if you’re worried about them being a potential terrorist. In my view, it increases the risk at home. It makes no sense at all,” he said.

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Randall Garrison, the NDP’s public safety critic, said he would have to see specifically what the government is proposing before taking a position. “But we have always said we don’t believe there is necessarily a contradiction between security and civil liberties – it’s not necessarily a trade-off,” he said.

After the London bombings, Charles Clarke, the then home secretary, wrote to the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to ask for their views, in an attempt to strike a consensus.

Mr. Garrison said there have been no such consultations with the Harper government on this issue, even after the NDP asked for a briefing for Tom Mulcair from the Prime Minister in the wake of Monday’s attack in St. Jean-sur-Richilieu.

Mr. Easter was similarly scathing. “They don’t consult you on anything,” he said.

So much for the new era of togetherness.