The trouble with terrorism
Don’t blame Liberals for lack of prosecutions
The accusation that Liberal policies are creating a safe haven for returning jihadists seemed to light a fire under the normally unflappable Ralph Goodale.
The public safety minister’s eyes blazed like the back end of the Batmobile, as he decried Conservative “innuendo and insinuation” that the government is not protecting Canadians.
“Anyone that needs to be under surveillance is indeed under surveillance,” he thundered in response to repeated questioning from the opposition.
There was almost a sense of injustice in Goodale’s response, following criticism that the Liberal emphasis on changing the minds of returning ISIL members through de-radicalization counselling constitutes an abdication of responsibility on the government’s part.
In response to a column in this space Monday, the response of “Lyle Conservative” on Twitter was typical: “The Liberals are all idiots.”
While one can have some sympathy with the sentiments, in this case the subject matter is too nuanced and too important to indulge in partisan point-scoring.
We have a problem — the government’s public threat report said about 60 extremist travellers had returned to Canada by the end of last year. The government is sticking with those numbers, even as academic Amarnath Amarasingam claims that the true figure is much lower — “no more than 10 at most.”
Whatever the number, the existing literature suggests returnees are capable, committed and dangerous (a study by Norwegian academic, Thomas Hegghammer, pegged the recidivism rate at one in nine. His study said those who do return are more effective operators than non-veterans).
Goodale maintains returnees are under “very careful investigation” but that the government’s focus is on re-integration.
There will be those returnees who may respond to counselling by the new Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, and the anti-radicalization efforts of the Council of Canadian Imams.
But deradicalization programs have been viewed with skepticism because it is all but impossible to say whether or not they have worked.
Phil Gursky, a former CSIS strategic analyst, believes that the working assumption for security agencies must be “once a terrorist, always a terrorist”.
But if we are not prepared to hunt down and kill Canadians in Syria, as our allies are doing, and counselling is unlikely to be sufficient, what are the options?
The obvious answer is criminal prosecution. After all, it is a Criminal Code offence to participate in terrorism — a relatively low threshold that does not require proof that jihadists committed acts of rape or murder.
But Canada has only charged two individuals with leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group (three others have been charged in absentia) — a rate far lower than the U.S., U.K., Australia or even Norway.
Unfortunately for Lyle Conservative and his ilk, this is not the Liberals’ fault.
Decisions on whether to prosecute or not are made by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, based on whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction.
That, of course, depends on the evidence supplied by the security agencies.
Craig Forcese, who teaches national security law at University of Ottawa, says it’s not yet clear whether the low prosecution rate is because of cautious intelligence agencies, wary prosecutors or both.
He pointed out that in the U.K., police and intelligence services work much more closely than in Canada, where CSIS and the RCMP often carry out parallel investigations.
“It’s clunky and it makes me worry about our nimbleness were we confronted with a fast-moving, competent adversary,” he said. “Clearly we struggle in bringing intelligence agencies to bear in supplying evidence.”
He also pointed out that the U.K. employs specialized terrorism prosecution solicitors in the Crown Prosecution Service, which could increase the willingness to lay charges. “Such specialized expertise was an Air India inquiry recommendation,” he said.
The bottom line is that the security challenge is real and the solutions are not simple.
But if the blame does not rest solely with the government, the responsibility to co-ordinate the justice system most certainly does.
Yet there is security legislation currently going through the House of Commons that is more concerned with ensuring CSIS complies with the Charter of Rights, than prosecuting people who broke the law by leaving Canada to join a terror army.