Grown-up countries take out own trash

At first blush, the news this week might give Canadians serious pause over Ottawa’s anti-terror strategy.

The RCMP says officers intercepted 10 young Montrealers on the weekend on suspicion they were jetting off to join ISIL, something of a trend — at least eight junior jihadis have left Quebec since January, many connected to a single college.

And then there’s Jahanzeb Malik, a 33-year-old from Toronto, who police allege planned a car bombing in downtown Toronto in lieu of jetting off to join ISIL. Ironically enough, police allege, he feared that would get him busted. This too could be part of a pattern. Martin Couture-Rouleau, who in October mowed down two Canadian soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, had reportedly wanted to travel to the Middle East to join ISIL — but had been stopped at the airport.

It’s understandable some are wondering why we’re implementing these de facto exit controls on people determined to bring down the West and all for which it stands.

If they want to leave, should we not thank them and wish them a speedy demise? Would we not prefer these people wreak their havoc overseas?

In a word: no. No because Canada is at war with ISIL; it is on the side of the people for whom life is a living hell thanks to ISIL; and we can hardly shrug if our own citizens decide they want to sign up with the enemy. No because grown-up countries take care of their own garbage. And no because it ’s reasonable to hope the havoc they can wreak here is vastly less than they could in Syria or Iraq.

It’s certainly disturbing that ISIL’s savage nihilism strikes anyone in the West as an enticing prospect. But accepting that reality, the news (fingers crossed) is mostly good: Canadian police are clearly aware of the threat; they are clearly seized with nipping it in the bud, and apparently not wanting for legal measures to do so; and in at least one of the cases from Montreal over the weekend, they reportedly had help from someone close to the suspect. This suggests those who oppose terrorism (i.e., very nearly everyone) are willing to cooperate with authorities to prevent it. This should hardly be surprising, given the stakes — “My son is now in a butcher shop,” the father of one of Quebec’s ISIL volunteers told CBC in March. “We do not eat, we do not sleep …. Our lives have plunged into horror” — but it is reassuring nevertheless.

It ’s also worth considering the havoc we fear. It is not to diminish their crimes or the sacrifice of their victims to remember that Couture-Rouleau and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the Parlia- ment Hill gunman, killed one man each. According to a newly launched public database created by several Canadian universities, in the last roughly 50 years there were 469 fatalities in Canada from terrorist and extremist events. Of those, 329 were on Air India flight 182. Only 10 others were religiously motivated, according to the database, and only one of those — Couture-Rouleau’s attack — was motivated by Islamic extremism. Add Zehaf-Bibeau if you prefer and you get a whopping total of two victims of this ostensibly mortal threat to the Canadian homeland. Ever.

Yes, those victims were recent. Yes, the threat is global. Yes, it is reasonable to think that a movement capable of enticing young Canadians to immigrate to hell on earth could convince them to kill a few people here at home. Yes, it would only take one well- planned or lucky attack to add significantly to the tally — witness the potential outcome of the foiled VIA train terror plot, for which Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were convicted in March. Yes, it is reasonable to demand vigilance.

But evidence suggests we are being vigilant, and that it’s working. In a world with ISIL in it, that’s about all you can hope for. Among the many knocks against the Conservatives’ anti-terrorism legislation is that it could actually impede frontline anti-terror efforts: speech restrictions could deter terrorists from helpfully sharing their plans online, or an imam from inviting the RCMP’s counter-violent extremism team to interact with a parishioner who’s going off the rails. The successes we see this week highlight just what’s at stake.

We do not eat, we do not sleep ... Our lives have been plunged

into horror