Chiefs (Oops!) Confronting The Issue

"You can go up to Fort McMurray ... you're relatively anonymous, you're in one of those work camps, and you can make a hockey sack of money in a very, very short period of time."
"And if you're someone that wants to be left alone or works well in isolation, there certainly is the opportunity to do that. So, yes, you can make a whole bunch of money in a very short period of time if that's what you want to do, and you can do it in relative anonymity."
"So if you want to bypass American airspace and you're on a no-fly list or something, that's a potential [Fort McMurray's international airport]."
"I can also tell you based on intelligence that (radicalization is) on the increase. So I would say we have more active files than we have had in the past. [The files are] complex in nature and long term, they're not something, you know, sort of a two-week or three-week investigation."
Rod Knecht, chief, Edmonton Police Service

 

Suncor oilsands MICHELLE ALLENBERG/TODAY FILE PHOTO

"The [Edmonton Police] is not saying that Fort McMurray is a hot-bed for extremism or terrorism, or any other community in Alberta for that matter."
"However, the economics of Fort McMurray make it easier for these types of activities to be funded easily and quickly, as was the case with the Ottawa shooter."
Brian Simpson, deputy chief, Edmonton Police Service

Now there's a surprisingly locquacious interview for a public security officer. Speaking of the opportunities for anonymity and funding for nefarious purposes available in Alberta. Young Canadian men going off to work in the oilfields making a good dollar, putting it carefully away to fund an enterprise that the Government of Canada is determined to put a stop to. A number of young Canadian men have taken short-term employment in northern Alberta before being able to travel to Syria.

Working in the oilfields of Alberta enables them to acquire the funding required to pay for their weapons of choice, their transit and whatever it takes to get them to their destination of choice; and to pay for their needs while in Syria, fighting for the Islamic State. The RCMP had confirmed that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who had had his application for a passport refused, had worked in Alberta. Instead of travelling to Syria he accomplished in Canada what he wanted to do abroad.

ISIS propaganda videos, after all, urged its followers if they couldn't travel, to commit themselves to jihad wherever they were. And that's just what the man did, shooting at two members of the Canadian reserve at the National Cenotaph and killing Cpl. Nathan Cirillo before making his way into the Parliament buildings in his plan to create a triumph of blood-letting on behalf of Islamist terrorism. According to RCMP  Commissioner Bob Paulson the man financed his "pre-attack activities" with the money he had earned in the resource sector in Alberta.

The international airport would also serve as an invitation to locate handily near to Fort McMurray, for relatively easy access to overseas travel. A number of so-called radicalized men from Calgary and Edmonton are known to have joined the Islamic State jihadists by travelling abroad through Turkey to Syria, and of their number at least six died as martyrs for the cause they were so eager to become part of.

Long-term surveillance, wiretaps, agents and informants are all being utilized by the intelligence and security communities in Canada. It is an intensive commitment, requiring large numbers of agents to monitor one single suspect in a 24-hour cycle; time-, personnel- and cost-intensive. And even so, as more than adequately demonstrated with the October 22 assault that took place in Ottawa, one lone gunman was capable of evading detection and committing murder and mayhem.

Plans are ongoing to increase the commitment to counter terrorism, with the use of community outreach programs, and plans to expand the current numbers of security personnel with an addition of 600 frontline police officers trained in terrorism and radicalization backgrounds. Having said so much, Chief Rod Knecht has now been the recipient of a chiding commentary from none other than the Edmonton police.

Deputy Chief Brian Simpson is now on record denying any clear link between the oilfields and extremist elements within Canadian society. Deputy Chief Simpson commented as well on a Wednesday report on three Somali-Canadian men from Edmonton killed fighting for ISIS in Syria following their radicalization in Edmonton; known to police there as "high-risk travellers".

"We did have knowledge that those individuals were overseas. When something happens overseas, the ability to get information in a timely fashion is dependent on the government that's in power and the processes that are in place." Presumably the government in power referred to is the regime that happens to be in place at the other end, in this case Syria, and any reciprocal surveillance and security-sharing would of necessity be vacant.

Counterterrorism efforts remain "woefully under-resourced" in Edmonton, stated both the chief and deputy chief. Explanation for the failure to ferret out proactively the increase in radicalization by a lack of adequate funding for the intensive work to identify those involved. New federal legislation may be of assistance in this respect. And may point the way to the necessity for re-allocation of scarce operating resources, since much depends on it.