It's been dubbed the Secret Police Bill C-51.

That's because the Conservative government's new antiterrrorism legislation vastly expands the state's power to monitor and arrest Canadians.

It creates two new statutes and amends three other acts. Despite its broad scope, the Conservative-controlled parliamentary committee on public safety and national security only allowed six hours for witnesses to come forward with their concerns.

Yesterday at a demonstration on the front lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery, the vice president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs raised the spectre of Bill C-51 being used to stifle democratic dissent.

Chief Bob Chamberlan held up a photo of UBCIC president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, which had appeared in the Prince George Free Press.

Chamberlin noted that the newspaper had asked if Phillip, an antipipeline campaigner, could be called a terrorist under the Harper government's legislation.

"This is what Bill C-51 is going to do to Canadians," Chamberlin said. "For when you want to be the ones to stand up and engage in civil disobedience or stand up in a protest and say what the government is doing is incorrect, you run the opportunity of being branded a terrorist."

The legislation gives policing powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and expands authorities' ability to detain people without charges.

"We, as citizens of a democracy, fully expect the government to look out for our best interests, to safeguard our rights, to ensure that we have opportunities in order to express our concerns in whatever venue, in whatever manner that we see fit," Chamberlin, chief of the Kwikwasut'inuxw Haswa'mis First Nation, told the crowd. "But when we turn and look at Bill C-51, it's extremely troubling for all of us to know that the government is expanding the role for CSIS and the RCMP, the sharing of information beyond what they're originally intended for, and to know that there is not oversight at the privacy commission to meet that broadening scope of work from CSIS and the RCMP."

Chamberlin also criticized the bill for involving the judiciary with CSIS and the RCMP in authorizing the infringement of democratic rights. (Through the issuance of judical warrants, CSIS can take measures to reduce "threats to the security of Canada" even if they contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

He said that those who have concerns about how their rights are being violated would have to go before the same judiciary for a ruling on this.

"This absolutely lays waste to democracy in Canada," Chamberlin declared.

He also pointed out that First Nations have constitutionally protected rights embedded in various court rulings and in Section 35 (1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, which affirms existing aboriginal and treaty rights.

In addition, he noted, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered the first declaration of aboriginal title in Canada with the Tsilhqot'in people.

"In the very beginning of Harper's governance, he made it very clear that the development of resource-based projects were primary and key and foundational to his government—to the point where he's deemed them to be in the national interest of Canada," Chamberlin said. "Which what I understand places it in a higher level where if we stand up and we have issue with something that they're doing, it is something that they can come down extremely hard upon us as Canadian citizens. And Bill C-51 will broaden out that tool. It will allow the government to shut us down as citizens."

Chamberlin claimed that the government had previously scanned legislation and regulations and removed all impediments, including environmental barriers, to achieving the prime minister's objective of developing the resource industry.

"So the very issue of balance from government is now done away with," Chamberlin said. "Those balances are what gave us confidence in this government to look after the environment, to look after the very land, which supports us as human beings in Canada."