Canada: Safety and Security

"That particular attack [on a soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa], even though it was carried out by one person ... it did certainly, for many Canadians, shake our sense of security."
"This is the first time in a long time where we've had a sense of danger on our soil."
Shachi Kurl, senior vice-president, Angus Reid Institute

"People are sensitive to the fact this is a complex issue that requires a comprehensive approach."
"We don't see people falling over themselves here, seeing there's a terrorist lurking around every corner."
"The poll bodes well for what the government has been floating. There is significant support for the government to have the backdrop of punitive action if the social policy and preventive mechanisms don't work."
Christian Leuprecht, security expert, Royal Military College of Canada, and Queen's University

Sources identify the suspected shooter as 32-year-old Michael Zehaf-Bibeau.
Twitter screengrab

Canada, like much of the rest of the world community, is dealing with the psycho-political-religious pathology of extremist fanatics that have crawled their way out of Islam to inflict their fantasy of world domination in one all-encompassing Muslim International power structure, achieved by terrorizing any who express doubts that this is the kind of world they envision. For a relatively small demographic within Canada, a country built through immigration, at 2% of the population, Muslims have disrupted the country in a manner unprecedented.

Not that violent Islamism has been the only, or even the first threat to national security that Canada has ever encountered. Not so long ago it was the threat of Sikh extremism finding itself at home in a country other than India from which to launch its terrorist threat against India, in its bid to carve off a part of India as Sikh Khalistan. Canada became the expatriate command base, where the commandos of Sikh independence from India fomented terror and violence, resulting in the worst terrorist attack the country had ever, might ever, face.

Threat and intimidation, fundraising and support for terrorism visited Canada which has the distinction of providing a home for the greatest number of Tamils from Sri Lanka anywhere outside of that country. And that base gave ample opportunity for extortion and threats against the Tamil community by the Tamil Tigers' representatives calling upon Canadian Tamils to support their violence in Sri Lanka, as the world's foremost suicide bombers, the killers of two world leaders.

Both are behind us now; Sikh terrorists appear to have crawled back under the rocks they came slithering out of before they planned the 1985 murder of 329 people aboard Air India Flight 182, 280 of whom were Canadians. And the Sri Lankan government now faces United Nations charges of war crimes in its final conflict with the Tamil Tigers which resulted in the obliteration of the terrorist movement at huge cost to Tamil civilians, victimized both by the Sinhalese Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers as well.

Now Canada is faced with an even larger threat, one imposed in degree and violence all over the world, from the Middle East to North Africa, China to India, Australia to Europe, in a vast convoluted unity of purpose by Islamist jihadists. Canada has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabists, Salafists, Hamas and Hezbollah. Within the Muslim population of Canada there are supporters of all these terrorist groups, living among Muslims who moved to Canada to escape their clutches.

Their presence represents a danger to the pluralistic, egalitarian society that Canada values, its moderation and balance, its guarantees of dignity and security of person as the virulent hatred that motivates the jihadi terrorists targets all those who prefer their own cultures, values and religions to those of Islamist supremacists. A national poll recently undertaken in the wake of deadly attacks on members of the Canadian military revealed the extent to which Canadians feel themselves impacted.

Over half of the respondents to the online survey of 1,609 Canadians who took part in the poll by The Vancouver Province along with the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the Laurier Institution and the Angus Reid Institute, supported new anti-terror legislation to increase the powers of the Canadian security intelligence system, with another 22 percent claiming government should ignore civil liberty concerns and forge ahead even more proactively.

The survey was dated between November 10 and 12, shortly after the country reacted and reeled in sorrow and dismay from the back-to-back assaults on uniformed Canadian military in Quebec and Ontario. Asked whether the terrorism threat was merely overblown by the media or serious in its reality, 61 percent of respondents opted for serious, a perception reflecting a larger percentage among those 55 and older in the population.

When asked whether they felt that radicalized Canadians adopting the violent ideology of terrorism lived among them in their communities, 35 percent responded in the affirmative, while 28 percent dissented, and 37 percent were uncertain. Residents of Alberta and Ontario were the most likely of respondents to respond in the affirmative. Roughly one-third felt it was "likely" that people were responding to radicalization in their communities with the number surging to 47 percent in Quebec.

Support of Bill C-44 representing proposed legislation that would render  to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service additional powers to more closely scrutinize individual Canadians' activities was in the 51 percent range with an added 22 percent feeling the bill could go further. As for the bill trampling on civil liberties, twenty-seven percent held that opinion; people living in B.C. and those between 18 to 34 the most likely to uphold this view.

Solid support was evidenced by the responses respecting the measure to suspend, or rescind passports of homegrown terrorists planning to travel overseas. Sixty percent stated the tactic had their support, and 50 percent said they were willing to "let them leave if they want". Revocation of passports was more popular in Quebec than in British Columbia. Does this correspond to an 'under-siege' mentality in a country finding itself riddled with the prospect of eruptive jihad?

 Shirlee Engel        

Here is a photo from our office window of situation at war memorial.