The federal Liberal government is prepared to throw its support behind proposed legislation to protect the identity of journalists’ confidential sources, the Star has learned.
The government is expected to announce Friday it will back a Conservative senator’s privately sponsored bill that would, for the first time in Canada, provide statutory protection for the identity of journalists’ sources.
The bill would make it harder for police and other law enforcement or security agencies to spy on journalists’ communications or to seize documents that could reveal their sources. It would also make it harder for the cops to use whatever information is seized or captured by warranted surveillance.
The Journalistic Sources Protection Act, S-231, was introduced by Sen. Claude Carignan in November after revelations that Montreal police spied on the communications of 10 journalists in Quebec in recent years — a scandal that has prompted a public inquiry in the province.
In a major move that could see a new law adopted within a few months, the Liberals will propose a handful of technical amendments to address “legal and policy concerns” with the bill as drafted — changes that a senior government official characterized as “reasonable” and that Carignan said he supports.
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