What is the public entitled to know about threats?
The more security agencies grapple with terrorist threats, the less they appear to be telling Canadians. Focusing on current examples of secrecy, Postmedia News reporter Dylan Robertson spoke with experts about what the public should be entitled to know.
OTTAWA TERROR SUSPECTS ARRESTED
The RCMP held a detailed press conference after arresting suspects in an April 2013 alleged plot to derail a Via Rail train. The force did the same on Oct. 20, when a radicalized man killed a soldier in Quebec. It also held an initial press conference after Michael Zehaf-Bibeau attacked in downtown Ottawa on Oct. 22.
But the force has released only the names and charges in the recent arrest of two twin brothers and a third man, providing no details of what they are alleged to have done. The RCMP said last Wednesday it had no current plans to update the public. Why the secrecy on an issue of such public importance?
“The fact that they arrested a third person that was linked to the two brothers could mean their investigation isn’t over and they could want to arrest more people,” said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior intelligence officer at the spy agency Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
But former RCMP superintendent Garry Clement says the public ought to understand what the men are accused of doing.
“The one thing I find with the RCMP is, I don’t think they do a good job of handling media and they never have,” he said, adding that the national capital division tends to be “a lot more conservative” than other divisions, such as the one covering Toronto.
THE SECRET OCT. 22 ZEHAF-BIBEAU VIDEO
On Oct. 27, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson told the Senate’s national security committee that a video apparently taken by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau indicates his “ideological motives” and “will certainly be released some day.” But Paulson backtracked last month, saying a transcript was more likely, and of only part of that video.
In contrast, two days after a gunman killed four people in a Parisian kosher supermarket last week, a video surfaced of him pledging allegiance to the Islamic State terror group. Police said they’d investigate the source of the video, but they made no effort to suppress its broadcast.
Liberal public safety critic Wayne Easter says only the Oct. 22 video can corroborate the government’s argument that a terror attack took place with Zehaf-Bibeau and that security agencies need more powers.
Opposition leader Tom Mulcair has said the NDP is waiting until the public sees such evidence to decide whether the event was indeed a terrorist attack.
But Clement and JuneauKatsuya were both surprised the Mounties ever promised to release the tape, saying it wouldn’t benefit the public.
“The last thing you want to do is expose any weaknesses,” Clement said. In releasing such a video to the public, “you’re actually opening your hand up for any future attacks.”
Juneau-Katsuya suggested the Mounties might be trying to avoid supplying “more ammunition for a specific political party to do some mileage in an election year, capitalizing on the fear factor.”
OPP PROBE POLICE ACTIONS ON OCT. 22
The experts consulted by Postmedia News felt the Ontario Provincial Police doesn’t yet owe the public an update on its independent investigation into the actions of various police forces during the Oct. 22 attack.
The OPP said last week that it will make no public statement, and that its results will go to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the RCMP, who can decide what to make public — if anything.