Preface and Acknowledgements to the Second Edition

AuthorCraig Forcese/Leah West
Pages29-31
xxix
PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
to the Second Edition
This second edition of National Security Law i s more than a half-dec ade
overdue. Since the f‌irst edition, in 2007, Canadian national security
law has undergone sweeping changes — probably the most signif‌icant
transformations since the enactment of the Cana dian Secur ity Intelli-
gence Service Act in 1984. Those changes have delayed repeated eorts
to complete this book, as we waited for a point of relative stability to
“benchmark” national secur ity law in Canada. That moment arrived in
mid-2019, when Parliament enacted the National Security Act 2017 (Bill
C-59). That law, the several laws that preceded it (especially in 2015),
and the dozens of new judicial judgments a nd policy developments,
prompted us to re-write completely the f‌irst edition. This book is, in
eect, a brand new one.
Still, we have followed the basic principles established in the 2007
edition. First, this volume is a ha ndbook and a digest of national secur-
ity law, as practised in Canad a. It is not a theoretical work, and it does
not present a sustained critique of this area of the law. We have, how-
ever, continued to oer critical assessment s of the law in several places,
focusing especia lly on areas where the law is uncertain. Second, we
have continued the pattern of the f‌irst ed ition in approaching national
security law as a system, rather than st ructuring t his book around the
litany of powers exercised by specif‌ic agencies. We do not believe the
latter, siloed approach useful in understand ing national secur ity law,
or the tools available to the Canad ian state in confronting national sec-
urity threats.

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