TORONTO — Canada’s “principal terrorist threat” comes from those inspired by extremist ideologies to conduct attacks, the government said Thursday in its latest update on the security challenges facing the country.
Released by Pubic Safety Minister Ralph Goodale just over two weeks after a failed ISIL-inspired suicide bombing in Ontario, the report said ISIL and its sibling al-Qaida “continue to appeal to certain individuals in Canada.”
Some promote violence online, radicalize their peers, recruit and fundraise, it said. “Others may consider travelling abroad to join a terrorist group or conducting terrorist attacks themselves,” said the 2016 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada.
As of the end of 2015, about 180 “individuals with a nexus to Canada” were suspected of participating in terrorist activities overseas, up from 130 the previous year, it said. More than half were thought to be in Turkey, Iraq or Syria.
About 20 per cent of Canada’s extremist travellers were women, the report said, adding that in Syria the women were not only serving as brides but were also training and fighting in some cases. Some have brought their children with them.
The report again raised questions about how authorities are dealing with the dozens of returnees — those who are back in Canada after taking part in overseas terrorism. The government was aware of about 60 such people.
It said they could use their “skills, experience and relationships” to recruit or plan attacks in Canada, noting that the recent terror killings in Paris and Brussels were carried out by former ISIL fighters who had returned to Europe.
But while the report said returnees could cause “serious security concerns for their home countries,” none of those who have come back to Canada from Syria and Iraq have been charged with terrorism offences. One who returned to Canada after being injured went back to fight with ISIL once he had healed in Windsor, Ont.
“Canadians can be assured that the RCMP is carefully monitoring these individuals who have returned to Canada as it is a top priority,” said Scott Bardsley, Goodale’s press secretary. He said the government was using “a number of tools,” including passport revocations.
The Canadian government has been struggling to deal with ex-foreign fighters since the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980s and ’90s, said Larry Brooks, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service counter-terrorism official.
The central problem is proving to the satisfaction of a Canadian judge that someone had engaged in terrorism in a foreign country, particularly the lawless ones where terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIL are based, he said.
“It’s tremendously difficult to collect credible evidence that would satisfy a Canadian court for prosecution,” said Brooks, who was the operational manager of the CSIS investigation of the Toronto 18. “The challenges are significant.”
He said Crown attorneys were also reluctant to prosecute. “Nobody likes to lose a case but federal prosecutors seem to be loath to do anything but an open and shut, iron case.” But he also said prosecution might not be the best option for some returnees.
Canada is fundamentally a safe and peaceful nation, but we are not naive about the security issues that dominate the world’s attention
Twenty people have been convicted of terrorism offences since 2002, the report said. Another 21 have been charged and are either awaiting trial or are wanted on outstanding warrants. Several of those wanted are believed to be dead.
Militant video via APFoued Mohammed-Aggad, a Frenchman who was among the Islamic State fighters to attack Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, appears in an undated propaganda video. He had been among a group of 10 men from Strasbourg who joined the extremists in 2013, most of them acknowledging they knew little about Islamic Shariah law.
The annual public update on terrorist threats was launched by the previous Conservatives but no report was issued last year, and this was the first under the Trudeau government. Goodale has been under pressure to reassure Canadians on his government’s response to terrorism since the Aug. 10 police killing of an ISIL supporter in Strathroy, Ont.
Although he was the subject of a terrorism peace bond, Aaron Driver built a homemade bomb and recorded a martyrdom video saying his planned attack was a response to ISIL’s call for “jihadi in the lands of the crusaders.”
The FBI notified the RCMP about the video and Driver was quickly put under surveillance. Confronted by a police tactical team after he got into a taxi outside his house, the 24-year-old tried to detonate a bomb in his backpack and was shot dead.
“Canada is fundamentally a safe and peaceful nation, but we are not naive about the security issues that dominate the world’s attention,” Goodale said in a foreword to the report. Canada’s threat level is at medium, meaning an attack “could occur.”
Aside from ISIL and al-Qaida, the report singled out Hezbollah as a particular threat to Canadian interests and noted the Lebanese terror group was “supported by” Iran and “remains one of the world’s most capable terrorist groups.”
“Hezbollah has networks around the world, including in Canada, and uses the networks for recruitment, fundraising and procurement. Hezbollah terrorist operations abroad represent a threat to Canadian interests.”
