Security In Protest

"[Numbers of] terrorist travellers [leaving Canada is on the increase]. In fact, in the last three, four months, we probably saw an increase of 50 percent in the number of people who have left for Iraq and Syria."
"Based on service assessments, the terrorist threat to Canada's national security interests has never been as direct or immediate. In addition to complex plots involving multiple threat actors over a prolonged period, we must also be alert to rapidly escalating threats posed by individuals determined and able to act with little or no warning or support."
Michel Coulombe, head, Canadian Security Intelligence Service

"We actually work very closely with key individuals within the community but at the end of the day we do not target communities, we do not target individuals based on their faith or origin. We work based on evidence."
RCMP Deputy Commissioner, Mike Cabana

"I think it's time, quite frankly, that the public be made aware and apprised of how many Canadians are actively involved, either directly or indirectly, in terrorism in this country -- whether they be here in this country or outside this country."
Daniel Lang, chair, Senate National Security Committee

People arrive to protest on Parliament Hill during a day of action against Bill C-51, the government's proposed anti-terrorism legislation in Ottawa on April 18, 2015. (Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Public life in Canada has been roiled in the past several years by one incident after another of single jihadist attacks and teams of Islamist terrorists, home-grown and prepared to defend their faith against the Islamophobia they decry that has targeted Muslims, and launched the West into a conflict with Islam. Calls to the faithful to obey the tenets of Islam, one of which demands that Muslims engage in jihad are being fulfilled by incitement to terror.

Most of the planned attacks are thwarted before they can be carried out, and the perpetrators charged and placed on trial. Intelligence cannot always ferret out the dangers that lay in store when individuals take it upon themselves to strike a blow for Islam and act independently and with malice aforethought to claim a notional enemy of Islam to become a martyr for the cause. Testifying before the Senate committee, the head of CSIS and the RCMP representative speak of their experiences.

For fear of offending 'communities' within the greater community of Canada, it is repeated time and again that faith or origin play no part in Canada's security agencies' larger arena of scrutiny and investigation. Based on the very real record of the scope and frequency of terror attacks or foiled plans to mount attacks there is no need to focus on any group of ethnic or religious background, since they boldly present themselves as the locus for all such terror attacks.

No sooner is one case settled, than another succession of similar instances arise, one after another. All of the terror plans and attacks have their origin in Islam, in Muslims resentful of the very country that has given their families haven and a promise for the future, but which they reject as hypocritical, despite that the larger community literally bends over backward with reassurances. Again now, two Montreal students arrested in the last week charged with terrorism offences.

Both 18, El Mahdi Jamali and Sabrine Djermane, studying at College de Maisonneuve charged with possession of an explosive substance, and attempts to depart Canada for terrorist activities abroad. A lawyer representing Amir Raislsadat, 20 years old, arrested on Prince Edward Island on a terrorism-related peace bond categorizes the case as a "tragic misunderstanding". Mr. Coulombe testified that the numbers of "terrorist travellers" is in the increase.

CTV Vancouver: Crowd rallies against Bill C-51

A number of key witnesses testified relating to the government's proposed anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-51, itself drawing demonstrations in several cities, protesting the bill with signs reading "Terrorism is already illegal" and "Stop Islamophobia" featured on signage carried by protesters. Last year, counter-terrorism agents were tracking between 130 and 145 people who had left Canada for terrorist activity in Syria and elsewhere.

Another 80 had returned to Canada, after their initiation into extremist causes and the art of modern guerrilla warfare. They present as a looming concern for public safety.