A LOT OF IT WAS LISTENING, AS I’VE DONE WITH MANY GANG MEMBERS OVER THE YEARS.

service agencies were there as well. Together, they looked at each case and tried to come up with strategies that might involve treating addiction, getting into social housing, education, employment and a long list of other issues.

There are now community safety hubs across the city and dozens more across Canada, but Toronto is believed to be the first city to add violent extremism to the mix of issues they deal with.

The plan to begin referring extremism cases to the Rexdale hub was approved by Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders in June 2015. On Oct. 31, a steering committee agreed to expand the pilot project to hubs in the city’s northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast.

“It makes perfect sense because we already have these mechanisms that respond to situations of risk,” said Scott McKean, the city of Toronto official overseeing the work. “At the heart of it, it’s about connecting people to services to reduce the risks that they think that what the Toronto Police Service is doing will catch and hopefully help to re-engage those people on a different trajectory.”

To reassure community members, cases are discussed without names. Ramer called the system “absolutely anonymous.” By the end of this year, those who don’t feel comfortable coming forward to police to report concerns about extremists will be able to tell a teacher or service agency, who can bring the cases to the situation tables.

Gallant said she wanted parents, friends, teachers and anyone else concerned that someone was becoming radicalized to know help was available.

“It’s no different than the concern that their child may be starting to get into drugs,” she said. “Maybe they need a mentor to help them navigate what they’re going through.”

“We don’t have all the answers. We’re putting what we think is a good initiative forward. We may have to tweak it along the way or make some changes as we move forward, but I think we’ve done our due diligence.”

“I think it has huge potential,” said Thompson. “Everybody is watching to see what happens.”

She said the project should be carefully evaluated because so little is known about what works. “We’re all flying by the seat of our pants right now based on a small number of studies, and growing the knowledge base is so important to getting this right.”

Experts said the Toronto system will likely be effective in some cases but not others. “I don’t think it’s a panacea,” said Stephanie Carvin, an assistant professor who specializes in national security at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

Phil Gurski, who was involved in early discussions about the Toronto project when he was at Public Safety Canada, said the advantage of treating radicalization as part of a broader strategy for atrisk youths was that it avoided the stigma associated with terrorism, making it easier to get people behind it.

But he said youths caught up in drugs and gangs didn’t necessarily have the same underlying issues as those attracted to extremism. “So you’re basically treating the two populations as being very similar,” he said. “And it’s not a good fit, at least not in a Canadian setting, for violent radicalization.”

Counter-extremism programs are struggling with questions like how to measure their success, their relationships with police and how to convince parents to come forward, while meeting their responsibility to alert counter-terrorism authorities when someone is a public threat.

“This is all a work in progress,” Gurski said. “We’re going to see if it works.”

To date, only a few cases have been brought to the program. “Not to the degree that we want,” Locke said. One involved parents concerned about their child’s online consumption of ISIL videos. Underlying mental health issues were identified.

In another, a girl who had been reported missing was