Key voices from the legal community will not appear before the Commons public safety committee to talk about Bill C-51 — a move one criminal lawyer says shows the committee’s Conservative majority wants to shut down debate before it begins.

While it’s been widely reported that the privacy commissioner has been blocked from the committee schedule, the committee also neglected to invite the Canadian Bar Association and the Criminal Lawyers Association.

“I think it’s more than just problematic that the government is seeking to limit debate on major changes to laws that can affect the rights and freedoms of Canadians,” said Michael Spratt, an Ottawa lawyer with Abergel Goldstein & Partners, who was asked by Liberal MPs to represent the Criminal Lawyers Association before the committee.

Spratt said neither he nor the organization ever heard a word from the committee.

“It tells us what is already quite apparent — that the government is not interested in taking into account the expert opinions of legal organizations,” said Spratt. “It goes against what the [Canadian Alliance] said in 2001, when legislation was brought in under the Liberal government. Stockwell Day, the party’s leader at the time, made comments that the Liberals were shutting down debates because there was only 19 days of debate and only 80 witnesses heard.”

C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act 2015, will only see half as many days of debate and marginally more than half the number of witnesses called in 2001.

Ironically, the Liberals also asked that Day testify on C-51 but he does not appear to be listed as a future witness.

The legal community seems to be joining former prime ministers, academics and even librarians in lining up against the bill, which critics say gives vast new powers to security services while doing nothing to enhance oversight and prevent violations of Canadians’ privacy rights. One hundred legal experts — including the chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s criminal justice section — signed a letter attacking C-51 earlier this month.

Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has warned the government that the bill’s powers are far too sweeping and present a threat to privacy rights.

“The scale of information sharing being proposed is unprecedented, the scope of the new powers conferred by the Act is excessive, particularly as these powers affect ordinary Canadians, and the safeguards protecting against unreasonable loss of privacy are seriously deficient,” wrote Therrien.

“All Canadians would be caught in this web.”

The list of experts who haven’t been asked to speak to the bill is a long one. Some MPs expressed an interest in hearing from Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault; her office says that no invitation was ever received.

Both the Liberals and New Democrats on the committee also asked for Justice Dennis O’Connor, who led the inquiry into the torture of Canadian Maher Arar in 2006. He isn’t listed on the schedule either.

When asked if he was issued an invitation, O’Connor replied by email, saying simply he was “away on holiday and (doesn’t) plan to be involved”.

“I think it goes to show the flaw in the process when you have the Canadian Bar Association not being able to get on the list,” said Liberal Public Safety critic and former solicitor general Wayne Easter.

“There’s a number of priority organizations that should be on the master list, if you can put it that way, that should be agreed to by all parties. But the way that this government operates is on a quota system.”

The government was allotted 29 witnesses for the study into C-51. The New Democrats got 14 and the Liberals only five.

“It just doesn’t work,” said Easter.

Other names requested as witnesses by opposition committee members — but never invited — include Eva Plunkett, former CSIS Inspector General; Deborah Grey, chair of of the Security Intelligence Review Committee; and Chuck Strahl, former SIRC chair.

NDP Public Safety critic Randall Garrison said the decision by government MPs to “directly block” Therrien from testifying proves they’re not willing to face up to the risks they’ve built into the bill.

“He’s not just a witness like anyone else,” he said. “So that’s different than committees making up witness lists and inviting them … It’s not up to me as a party to invite him, it’s up to committee to hear him and the Conservatives clearly said that they didn’t want to.”

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney claimed on February 18 that his office “consulted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in the drafting of this bill.” But Therrien’s office has denied that claim, saying it was only informed of the government’s intentions.