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After months of alluding to new anti-terror legislation in the works, Justice Minister Peter MacKay is expected to announce the new bill on Friday."These measures are designed to help authorities stop planned attacks, get threats off our streets, criminalize the promotion of terrorism, and prevent terrorists from travelling and recruiting others," Harper said in his Sunday speech, hastily adding that, "to be clear, in doing so, we shall be safeguarding our constitutional rights of speech, of association, of religion and all the rest."Two sections of the Criminal Code have been singled out as targets, introduced by the Liberals in 2001 and beefed up by the Conservatives in 2013, allowing police to preventively detain suspected terrorists without charge, if they believe an attack is being planned. Those powers have only been used once so far, and the Conservatives have been considering loosening the judicial thresholds to make them more accessible to law enforcement.
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The Harper government has spent much of the past few years bragging loudly about its prowess at fiscal management, job creation, and economic growth.But, thanks to a pissing match between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel and American oil producers, the price of oil has plunged and left Canadian exports in the lurch.That has led banks to scale back Canadian economic growth predictions. TD Bank now expects growth to be 2.4 percent for the 2014 fiscal year once the numbers are available, and just 2 percent for 2015. That's a downward revision of about half a percent overall.TD also expects the Alberta economy to come to a stand-still next year, while equally oil-dependent Newfoundland is predicted to fall into a recession.Growth in Ontario and British Columbia, buoyed by the manufacturing and exports that are made easier by a low Canadian dollar, is expected to carry much of the country.Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada made the announcement that it would pare down interest rates to just 0.75 percent. That should put some coal into the engines of manufacturers, and could even encourage some oil companies to continue investing in the tar sands despite rock-bottom oil prices.
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Even though it feels like they've covered their bases already, Harper has promised a crown jewel in his tough-on-crime agenda.
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