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While there doesn’t seem to have been any abuse (yet) of the extraordinary powers granted by Bill C-51, the ultra-controversial anti-terrorism bill that makes it easier for police to limit a suspect’s movement and crack down on terrorist propaganda – and makes it much easier to obtain a peace bond – one does wonder exactly how long it is before that blurred boundary of what exactly is enough to elicit a peace bond is crossed over into something so vague nobody would even know they’re crossing it.

It’s more than disconcerting that many young Muslim men in Canada feel they’re one wrong tweet away from having the RCMP move in.

With the ever increasing anti-Islamic rhetoric – evidenced by data released just this week by Statistics Canada showing a 60 per cent rise in hate crimes against Muslims – one starts to wonder whether the next time an extremist claiming to be a Muslim does something violent, it will get used as the justification to start apprehending a growing number of young Muslim men and women on an increasingly weakening basis, for crimes before they’ve even been committed.

Already, tools like peace bonds can be used for this. The possible expansion of their use is troubling.

Fear can push public opinion and legal lines to a level of sanctioned discrimination and paranoia against certain groups, in this case Muslims, where such arrests could become accepted practice.

While it seems hard to imagine in a country like Canada (Japanese Canadians who lived through internment camps will tell you otherwise), we have to be careful nonetheless and be aware ahead of time, because the slope is slippery.