The Probing Questions, The Responses

"The question I have is, how come this particular piece of legislation [Combatting Terrorism Act] isn't being utilized more often in view of the threat that Canadians are facing with the numbers that we're talking about?"
Senator Daniel Lang, chairman, Senate National Committee on Security and Defence

"The legitimate investigation by the police of those individuals does not necessarily coincide at this moment in time to there being that many cases that are ready to go for charges."
George Dolhai, deputy director public prosecutions, Public Prosecution Service of Canada

"It's a challenge the police face, to gather evidence for activities that people may have been engaged in while they're overseas in countries where it's difficult for our authorities to have access to."
"We have to prove that somebody is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that will not be changed."
Brian Saunders, director of public prosecutions

Martin Couture-Rouleau, 25, ran down in his car and killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent

After questioning CSIS and the RCMP, it was the turn of the public prosecutor's office to explain why Crown attorneys were not using the year-old Combatting Terrorism Act which outlaws travel for the purpose of terrorism, to prosecute on behalf of the government seeking to diminish opportunities for Canadian citizens picking up the Islamist challenge to jihad to travel abroad to join foreign conflicts.

The questions were to the point, revolving around the perceived lack of action by police and prosecutors to use that law and others to move against the 93 Canadians thought to have travelled abroad for terrorism training and/or fighting in the Islamist and sectarian Muslim conflicts ongoing in North Africa and the Middle East. What are future plans? The observation was made that scant advance has been made on the file to date.

Messrs. Dolhai and Saunders spoke of seven Canadians inclusive of the five initial suspects in the Toronto-18 terror case who were placed on peace bonds. Representing court orders restricting the ease of movement of those not found legally guilty of an offence, but nonetheless because of their activities considered to represent a risk to the public weal. If someone under a peace bond, they pointed out, is later found guilty of a crime, they would be subject to stiffer sentences.

But according to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, who had earlier appeared before the committee, the legal threshold to enable the obtaining of peace bonds should be lowered to a "reasonable suspicion". The point to be made here is that Canada's laws are drafted primarily to address ordinary crimes, not the extraordinary crimes of religion-inspired terrorism where there are no boundaries and where organized recruitment to take part in violent attacks present a terrifyingly new threat to public security.

The laws that Canada observes and practices are basically meant to remedy the faults of sociopathy in a civilized society. They do far too little to address the more highly threatening advance of radical fundamentalists having no regard for Canadian values, and yet utilizing the laws they despise of a system of governance they hold in raw contempt, to nonetheless protect them from prosecution and penalties in committing acts they consider conforming to Islamist practise related to conquest.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, Muslim fanatic stormed  Parliament in Ottawa minutes after shooting dead Corporal Nathan Cirillo.




The result is a brutalized ideology of totalitarianism, revelling in the absurdity that civilized laws of democracy shelter them from the justice that democracy metes out with its especial emphasis on protecting civil rights. Civil rights even of those conspiring to do great harm to the society under whose rules and values they live, must be upheld at all costs.

Senator Lynn Beyak spoke of her frustration in stating with anger that Canadians "don't want to hear us talk, they don't want to hear one thousand reasons why we can't solve this problem. They want us to put our collective heads together and find a way to protect the rights of 35-million Canadians, instead of the rights of 90 or 93 or 130 individuals", seeking to inflict harm in the cause of Islamofascism.

That last a word forbidden in polite company given to wincing at the very idea that such nomenclature be imposed upon a religion which its practitioners steadfastly insist is one of peace and good fellowship. Simply misinterpreted by misunderstood young fellows who have succumbed to the irresistible blandishments of those posing as representing Islamic values. Resulting in a social climate rife with 'Islamophobia'.