Canada has dozens of jihadists walking free
Could a Manchester-style attack happen here in Canada? The answer, sadly, is a resounding “yes.”
Asking why it hasn’t happened yet is perhaps more to the point. That’s because we’ve already got jihadistslikeSalmanAbedi,the22-year-oldbehind the horrific concert attack, right here on home turf. Dozens of them. Perhaps over a hundred.
How do we know this? Because the heads of our security agencies say so. They’ve compiled the lists, they have the names and have some sense of where the radicals are at. The only thing they haven’t done is charge them.
Last March, CSIS director Michel Coulombe testified in front of a Senate committee that, at the time, there were 60 Canadians known to have returned home from going abroad to participate in terror activities.
These included paramilitary exercises, receiving jihadi training, providing logistical support for operations and more. Basically, they went to terrorist training camp. Then they came home. “Ticking time bomb” is the accurate phrase to describe this situation.
U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd recently confirmed that Abedi was known to authorities. For specifically what reasons, we’re not sure. The speculation is that it has to do with what he’d gotten up to during a recent visit to Libya.
Coulombe also said last year that there were an additional 180 Canadians who at that time were still abroad engaging in terror-related activities. A year ago. And how many of them have since come home?
These acts are serious Criminal Code violations. So if we’ve identified dozens of Canadians hot for jihad, why on Earth are we letting them move freely?
If the alleged terror offence took place in countries, such as Iraq and Syria, it’s tough to compile the evidence and get help from what exists of law enforcement in the regions.
Even when they return home to Canada, it takes dozens of officers to perform surveillance on one radical.
“We have to dedicate our limited resources to those that we think are the greatest threat,” CSIS deputy director of operations Jeff Yaworski told a committee back in 2014.
Despite all this, it’s clear Canada also just isn’t committed to going all in to charge these guys. RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson confirmed as much in remarks he gave to media last year.
“If we’re not getting the evidence, are we satisfying the safety issues by surveillance and other techniques while we collect the evidence or are there alternative ways of keeping communities safe by direct interventions with the individual or his family?” Paulson said last March.
“In other cases, we’ve assessed that they’re back, they’re sorry, they’re working to try to get their heads straight and we’re relying on family members or other professionals.” That’s right. If jihadists say they’re sorry and their moms promise to keep them on the straight and narrow, the RCMP opt not to charge them.
It’s madness.