Proceedings of the Special Senate Committee on
Anti-terrorism
Issue 7 - Evidence - Meeting of October 4, 2010
OTTAWA, Monday, October 4, 2010
The Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism met this day at 1:00 p.m. to examine matters relating to anti- terrorism.
Senator Hugh Segal (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Colleagues, welcome. This is the eighth meeting of the Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism of the Third Session of the Fortieth Parliament of Canada.
As we await legislation from the House of Commons, we continue our inquiry into the changing nature of the terrorist threat in Canada. Today we have two parts to our meeting; first, a panel with two specialists in research on anti-terrorism, and second, a presentation from a community leader on a 12-step de-radicalization program taking place in Toronto.
I will introduce our guests.
[Translation]
Our first witness is Mr. Stéphane Leman-Langlois, a criminology professor at the School of Social Work, Laval University. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Surveillance and the Social Construction of Risk and is Research Director for the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Research Group at the International Centre for Comparative Criminology at the University of Montreal.
He is also a member of the Institut québécois des hautes études internationales, at Laval, and the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Development Studies at UQAM. His research has focused on justice during political transitions, policing, security intelligence, terrorism and new surveillance technologies. His most recent publications include, with Jean-Paul Brodeur, in 2009, Terrorisme et antiterrorisme au Canada, in 2008, Technocrime: Technology, Crime and Social Control, and, in 2007, La Sociocriminologie.
On the same panel, we would also like to welcome Professor Guillermo Aureano, a lecturer with the Department of Political Science at the University of Montreal and associate researcher with the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies since it was founded.
Professor Aureano has completed postdoctoral studies at the Paris Institut d'études politiques and served as consultant to UNESCO and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs. His primary teaching and research interests are the new threats to international security (terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, corruption and money laundering).
In 2007, he received the Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Faculty of Arts and Science. The following year, the University of Montreal also gave him the Award for Excellence in Teaching.
[English]
We are delighted to have the benefit of your advice and counsel and will be pleased if we can then put questions to you, both on the substance of your presentation and also on the broader work you have done in this area.
Professor Aureano, we will start with you.
[Translation]
Guillermo R. Aureano, Internship Coordinator, Department of Political Science, University of Montreal, Associate Researcher, CIPSS, as an individual: Mr. Chair, I am going to be making a presentation on the fight against the funding of terrorism. Two years before the attacks of September 11, a former CIA agent, now a university professor, Paul Pillar, argued that the financial response to terrorism is and will remain illusory. He said that it was impossible to prevent the attacks by following the money trail. Nevertheless, he also emphasized the importance of the symbolic value of the fight against terrorism, particularly because of its intimidating effect and also to show that the government was taking action against terrorism on all fronts.
For all intents and purposes, therefore its usefulness, in his opinion, even before September 11, was limited. The facts appeared to support Paul Pillar. There is no real evidence of attacks or plots that were foiled by following this money trail. However, the battle against the financing of terrorism has turned out to be a very effective, strategic geo- political tool.
After September 11, 2001, throughout the world, we witnessed a process to harmonize antiterrorism legislation that may have occurred at the fastest pace ever seen in contemporary history. Nearly every country passed legislation to fight against the funding of terrorism. Even those countries that already had provisions, that already had a relatively formidable legislative arsenal, felt compelled to legislate even further.
Indeed, most of this terrorism-related harmonization was done by simply adapting the existing legislative and legal measures to deal with drug money. Very little innovation was done at this level. However, two important changes were noted: first, the FATF, which is a front-line international agency to fight money laundering — the Financial Action Task Force, established by the G7 — strongly emphasized, alluding to certain suspicions regarding the funding of September 11, the need to control charities, particularly Islamic ones, which was entirely new and pushed this need to the forefront.
Another significant change is that, under the United States Patriot Act, the United States has turned into a type of information pump, by drastically changing the legislation governing correspondent banks, which enables a very large number of American banks to conduct transactions with small local banks elsewhere in the world. Now data must be collected for all correspondent bank transactions.
These two major changes have suffered a very different fate. The FATF had to recognize, for various reasons — I could go into them later on — that it was very difficult to control charities, particularly all of the Awallah systems that are very popular with migrant workers in order to send money to their countries of origin. This still holds true today.
However, the United States did manage to collect a great deal of information and still does so regularly today, on correspondent banking. There is even a bill currently before the U.S. Congress, requiring banks not only to collect this information and report any suspicions, but also to forward all of the collated information to a central government agency of the United States.
Indeed, the entire discussion on the fight against the funding of terrorism is based on a few suppositions, on a few a priori which are, in a nutshell, quite simple. It is presumed, for instance, that the terrorists require large amounts of money in order to carry out organized attacks and that, for the most part, they use the formal financial system or that the controls of the systems can be adapted to a more informal system. These are all doubtful a priori, suppositions. Indeed, as certain professors have said, including Tom Naylor, the attacks were carried out, for the most part, as a result of the self-financing of the members, the people who prepare them. Moreover, we must remember that the government must demonstrate that it is taking action. So we find ourselves in a type of dead end in this antiterrorist battle. On the one hand, the scientific community and even some researchers are quite clear about the fact that it is very difficult if not impossible to single out, from the huge body of transactions, those that will enable you to uncover a future attack, and on the other hand, the governments must show that they are taking action against terrorism on all fronts, including the financial front.
Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Professor, University Laval, Director, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Research Group, as an individual: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me. I am honored to present my little research before this committee.
I was asked to provide you with a comprehensive overview of terrorism trends, which I have done by means of the three or four sections in my document. I will be referring to a few small graphs that I have included in this document. You may find it helpful to follow along with me.
My remarks today are based on information from a data bank on terrorist acts that has been established in Canada since 1973. You will note that we have indicated the evolution of the terrorist threat in Canada from 1973 to 2006 — that is 2006 and not 2010 — because we are waiting to receive more information on terrorist acts before including them immediately in the data bank. So the trends that I am going to be referring to today are up to 2006, but I do not believe that there is a great deal of difference between 2006 and 2010. The best that we could have done today would have been perhaps to have included 2009 data, because 2010 is not yet over. However, I do believe that the data is valid even though it is not completely up to date.
The first thing to note, according to the databank at least, is that terrorism appears to have been an activity that took place in Canada particularly during the 1980s. In Figure No. 1, you can see very clearly that there was strong activity during the 1980s followed by a very weak period of activity, one that was, statistically speaking, close to zero. And you see two curves on the graph because a distinction has been made. As you know, there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the definition of terrorism. Consequently, depending on whether you define terrorism more or less broadly, there may be more or fewer acts of terrorism that need to be included. What you see here on the first graph is a curve showing all of the terrorist acts that I referred to as nuisances or background terrorism, which primarily consists of threats, plots that were never carried out, significant acts of vandalism, et cetera. And you have another curve which designates more violent terrorism, which probably is more closely in line with the more universal definition of terrorism. You can see that the two curves — there was in fact a period of activity which more or less corresponds, in the 1980s in both cases — follow each other on a more or less constant basis in the years that follow. And this curve is not unique to Canada. If we were to trace the international curve or the curve of various foreign countries and we were to put the years over the Canadian curve, they pretty well match, and also they show heavy intensity during the 1980s and a subsequent drastic reduction.
I have given you a reference: for example, Europol collects statistics on terrorist events that occurred in Europe and breaks them down according to whether the incidents are a result of separatist, left wing or Islamic terrorism. In all cases, there has been between a 40 to 43 per cent drop in the past year, namely from 2008 to 2009. The case of Canada here is no different from the other countries of the world.
If we take a look at Figure No. 2, it explains what I have just said, that the background curve, as you've already seen in Figure No. 1, is much higher than the violence curve; the pie slice shows us the same thing. If we were to imagine that terrorism means random violence, a great deal of massive destruction, you have something that can be seen in the smallest pie slice represented by that, representing less than 2 per cent, rounded off here in the figure, it is less than 1.5 per cent. And then you have to look at the international graph for Canadian content. For example, let us say that there are incidents that occur in Peru; let us say that the Canadian Embassy in Peru came under attack, this would go in to our databank because we account for all attacks where Canada is involved, whether they involve Canadians, terrorists or victims, or where Canada is targeted symbolically.
And so, even if we put all of that into our huge salad bowl of terrorists, we can see that the seriousness of the acts is very low. In all probability, if we were to create the same pie slice in all and every country in the world, Canada would have the slice showing the least violence, or, we could say that we would be very very close to the last place in this category.
One thing, however, that is interesting is that we can break down terrorism as well, not only according to the seriousness of the perpetrated acts, but also according to the motivation, the political statement that the individuals who carried out this gesture were trying to make.
Figure 3 shows the type of activity prevalent in each type of terrorism. I do not want to begin to define all of that for you because this could take quite a long time, and I want to refer you to something else in order to go into more details. If we look at the good old conventional type of demand terrorism or separatism terrorism, you can see that these types of terrorism — and here we are talking about Canada, obviously, rely on acts of terrorism that are much less serious. And those terrorists who perpetrated much more serious acts of terrorism, including plots that were relatively credible, which we refer to as restoration terrorism, which includes the infamous terrorism of al Qaeda, which is talked about to great length in the medias, but it also includes, in Canada, all kinds of things such as, for example, the Air India attack. And we can see that with this type of motive, there is a tendency to cast a much wider net, and, obviously, to cause a lot more damage.
We cannot make too many conclusions about this, however, because we are basing our decisions on a very small number of acts. We must not draw conclusions based on statistical trends because we do not have adequate numbers for these trends. It is, however, interesting to observe that the infamous terrorism of restoration is not what we saw back in the 1980s. Back then, there was practically none. And this is terrorism that is much more contemporary in our day and age.
As I mentioned to you, this is subject to an analysis based on statistics that do not exist, but we do have something that is somewhat akin to a change in the type of terrorism conducted in Canada, because the type of terrorism found here has been transformed.
In the second part, I would like to talk to you about a few small trends which may be more qualitative in nature. I would like to talk about what we refer to as homegrown terrorism — often referred to as domestic terrorism, but I do not think that that quite matches the definition of homegrown terrorism. Homegrown is something that we thought we observed as of September 11, first of all because we paid a bit more attention to terrorism from that time on, but also because the focus of attention, up until then, had been more closely trained on international terrorism, mainly, the terrorist who changed countries, who is based abroad and who attacks a foreign country. Indeed, we started talking about homegrown terrorism primarily in conjunction with Great Britain, when we realized that long-time citizens, individuals who had been landed immigrants for a long time, were starting to commit acts of terrorism on British soil. We said that this was a new phenomenon.
The fact that terrorists are suddenly motivated locally and attack locally is not what is important to note. There is nothing new about that. Indeed, homegrown terrorism is not a new phenomenon because people are attacking local targets, but because the motivation that causes these people to take action comes from an external source. That is what is a little bit new.
We have always had terrorists that have been motivated locally, for local political reasons. However, the terrorists who are perpetrating attacks in Great Britain because of international events that occur outside of Great Britain — that aspect, however, is new. So it is not the homegrown aspect that is new, but rather the external motivation.
One last comment on this, perhaps a hypothesis, but again there are very few numbers available on this. My next point will deal with information technology. I have three important observations and I will wrap up with those.
First, information technology is often spoken about as being a powerful recruitment tool for terrorists. To date, that has not really been borne out by the facts. We haven't seen very many terrorists who have become terrorists because they were in contact with other terrorists on the Internet.
Second, terrorists have become more and more informed about what is happening on the outside. That perhaps partially explains this famous motivation through external events. In other words, new information technology puts individuals in contact with a series of international events that may increase their feelings of powerlessness and perceived injustice, as one would say in criminology, and therefore encourages a certain number of individuals — obviously a very small minority — to act based on what they perceive has being an unjustified attack against people they identify with.
Third, these technologies are not used to directly commit terrorist acts, and therefore for now we cannot really observe cyberterrorism. There is not any, unless you use a very broad definition of cyberterrorism. What we can observe, however, is that the use of the Internet or information technology by terrorists changes the way in which they organize themselves. They have much less of a need to meet each other and they can use these new technologies to organize their group and communicate with each other. That could change the way terrorist networks are structured. We will not do a network analysis but what is important is to note that terrorist cells are probably undergoing a structural transformation. Once again, there are not actually any statistics one can use; this is a qualitative observation.
The Chair: We will now move on to question period. I will ask the deputy chair, Senator Joyal, to begin.
Senator Joyal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome gentlemen. My first question is for Mr. Leman-Langlois and my second question will be for Mr Aureano.
Mr. Langlois, you appear to be saying that the motivating factors that may encourage first, second or third- generation Canadians to commit terrorist acts are external events rather than an injustice that may be perceived in Canada. In other words, the circulation of international information may cause an individual, a Canadian, to decide to link up with a network or to look for motivation in this international information that corresponds to the kind of acts that he will commit.
If that is your conclusion, then what kind of approach should be developed in order to monitor or prevent that kind of mobilization? What do we do?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I do not think that there is really a miracle solution that can be immediately applied. Obviously one can talk about Canada's position in the world and its reputation. What is Canada perceived to be doing in the world? And what will Canada's image be in the sources of information coming from abroad? That is strictly long-term work. This involves significant changes in our foreign policy, in Canada's activities abroad, and in its actions on foreign territories. I think that Canada's image abroad is still very good for now. In foreign sources of information, Canada is generally completely absent in the majority of cases. With respect to the other sources, it still has a relatively good image except with respect to Afghanistan.
Before looking for an immediate solution, we can say we are going to censor the Internet and that would probably be our first reflex, however this is a self-destructive strategy, and in the end we will not be very successful and it will probably have many more negative than positive consequences. I think we can hope to change the way in which Canadians perceive phenomena and events abroad based on a Canadian perspective — that is what we are interested in right now — by paying attention to Canada's image in this information from abroad. Once again, this is not a button that we can press to all of a sudden transform our image.
Senator Joyal: On page 3 of your brief you mentioned three cases involving with international networks. Ahmed Ressam or Saïd Namouh, the "Maskinongé terrorist", as you described him, or again Mohammed Khawadja, are Canadians who linked up with international networks. They did not target Canada because they were dissatisfied with Canada. They attacked Canada or any other target because they shared the goal of an international group. In my opinion, that is a particularly important factor when it comes to developing a preventive approach. I think that prevention is a very important part of any antiterrorist policy that we need to understand. In order to understand it, we have to figure out where that conviction link is that triggers an individual to become motivated or mobilized to act. Based on the cases that you have highlighted it seems to me that criticism of Canada is not an issue so much as the more global context of international politics, the Middle East issues, the way in which certain international organizations intervene in regional conflicts. I think it is that context that we should be focusing on. Am I right, or is that not where our attention should be focused?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I think that you are absolutely right. First, those three cases involved very different personal radicalization stories. For example, Ahmed Ressam became radicalized after coming into contact with a group of individuals as a small-time criminal, who was stealing coats and wallets. The process that ensued was completely different and had nothing to do with international information or information technology. Obviously. However, Saïd Namouh's case was almost the opposite, that is that he was very involved in broadcasting information on intervention in foreign countries.
You are also right in saying that these individuals were not focusing on Canadian targets. However, what you must pay attention to is the fact that all three cases involved individuals who had been on the CSIS radar, and who were arrested or arrested at the last minute after CSIS lost track of them, as in the case of Ressam, for example, but this is like looking for needles in haystacks. Here we have investigations that were undertaken in the traditional manner and that put an end to those plots. However if you want some type of automatic process that will enable you to detect the radicalization of individuals without any investigation, I think that would be almost impossible because you are talking unique cases, so unique, involving such unique circumstances, that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all method that will allow you to detect that kind of radical transformation, that takes on greater proportions in those cases.
Senator Joyal: Mr. Aureano, you do not appear to support the idea that the financing of terrorism at the international level is an important part of training for budding terrorists. When you look into the past of many perpetrators of terrorism, you realize that they went somewhere, to Afghanistan at the time, or to another country — that shall remain nameless to avoid causing a diplomatic incident — for a period of training, a training camp, et cetera, and that is costly. People have to travel, pay for airline tickets, stay in these countries and so on. It seems to me that the government cannot afford to lose interest in tracking the financing of certain international organizations which are banned under the Antiterrorism Act. I believe that remains an important aspect of the growth of these groups and the possibility of a large-scale terrorist attack. I agree with you that a suicide bomber does not perhaps represent a significant investment in terms of preparation and involvement. One individual can cause considerable damage, but the fact remains that international networks exist and are funded through illegal activities, or through funding that becomes illegal because it is destined for illegal purposes. Do you not think that aspect remains an essential one? It is not the only one, but as part of an antiterrorism strategy, tracking the financing of terrorist groups is important.
Mr. Aureano: Absolutely. By that I mean the deterrent effect this can have on known organizations, as you mentioned; that is important. It is difficult to achieve, as these organizations often borrow names, create companies, and so on, to continue their operations.
This deterrence is undeniable and important. We cannot deny its importance nor can we deny the symbolic role it plays. It shows governments that we are concerned and taking action to thwart terrorism. Analysis is also important. Following attacks, we can track and gain a better understanding of how certain cells operate. As for prevention, most authors have their doubts. Tom Naylor, a Canadian researcher, Ibrahim Warde, or other Dutch authors conducting research internationally, all agree that prevention is the most problematic. In other words, researchers are unaware of any cases where tracking the financing made it possible to prevent an attack.
When you talk about training in third countries, which countries I will not mention either, you need simply look at what we know about the failed attack last May 1 in New York — surely you remember it — by Faisal Shahzad. According to him, he put away $4,500 to prepare, for the travel plus five days of training, which did not do much good in the end, as he was unable to build the explosive device. His cohorts allegedly put in $4,900, for a total of just under $10,000.
If you look at another case where we have a better understanding of how the financing was arranged, such as the Madrid attacks of three or four years ago, you can see that the terrorists took considerable risks raising funding. They committed minor offences and constantly ran the risk of being caught, for example because of small drug transactions or because of petty theft perpetrated on individuals, which would jeopardize preparations for a major attack. Tracking the money in that case after the fact taught us a lot about terrorism.
As a deterrent, it is important to have an arsenal ready against the funding of terrorism. However, to prevent terrorist attacks, the work in progress does not inspire much of a positive or optimistic vision. It is extremely difficult, and the dynamics are the same as my colleague just mentioned, namely the dynamics of the needle in the haystack.
In the world, there are many migrant workers — as I state in the document that I handed out — who conclude thousands upon thousands of small transactions to help their family back in their homeland. Now it is extremely difficult among thousands of transactions, to detect a transaction that contributes either directly or indirectly to the funding of a terrorist network. We are far from being able to do that. However, it is true that having to register, to give out one's information and to declare one's suspicions all act as deterrents, but these measures are deterrents rather than preventive measures.
[English]
Senator Marshall: My first question is for Mr. Leman-Langlois. Let us go back to the concept again about radicalization and second- and third-generation immigrants. What sort of analysis has been done? You talked about the fact that there is no recipe and we are looking for a needle in a haystack. Have we completed enough work to try to assess what leads people; what are the characteristics that point out certain people to us? Have we undertaken enough work, and if not, who should undertake it? Can you speak to that issue? It seems like we have targeted a certain segment of the population, but is there some way we can tell in advance who may be at risk?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: So far there is not. There is growing literature on this subject but it is far from enough. Part of our problem is that there are few cases that we can study to the extent that we could come up with a model. What we can see when we line up all the cases is that the stories of radicalization are extremely different. Some cases take place over a matter of years and some within hours. Within hours, it is a case of the last straw breaking the camel's back and someone throws a Molotov cocktail at a Jewish landmark, people may be hurt and that sort of thing. Radicalization is extremely unpredictable and it comes in so many different flavours that we do not have a full particular of radicalization so far. When we do, I suspect there will be so many different modalities of radicalization that it will not be easy to find out what to do in terms of trying to stop it.
The other problem with radicalization is that it is difficult to tell various kinds of radicalization apart. A lot of radicalization takes place through speech; radical speech. People talk about killing Mr. X, Mr. Y and blowing up this or that, and they talk about it a lot, it turns out. Lots of people talk about these acts and we are all thinking about al Qaeda here, but there are many neo-Nazi radicals and there is the rise of the extremist right and the militia movement in the United States. Probably there will be repercussions in Canada sooner or later, and I suspect these groups are having repercussions already. A lot of people have extreme speech; they talk about killing, how they will kill and all that. Only a small minority will move to any kind of plot. There is a big difference between the two groups.
Often on the Internet, because I am on the Internet often myself, I find myself in a one-upmanship sort of discourse. I do not talk about terrorism; I talk about cameras or whatever my hobby happens to be at the time. Someone says something about a subject and I want to say more, so I write even more. Then someone else in the discussion forum says, "Oh, no, but you do not know this, this and this."
People often talk on the Internet that way and it is difficult for someone who is monitoring this discourse to figure out who is so serious about this subject that they will not only talk about it but will take steps to do it. This is the problem with radicalization. This limit is almost impossible to see.
Senator Marshall: For that example, the question is: How do you determine which ones are the talkers and which ones are the doers? As you were saying earlier, there is no recipe. However, when you look at this situation, it is almost as if you are assessing risk.
I notice that you hold the Canada Research Chair in Surveillance and the Social Construction of Risk. What is the social construction of risk? Does it relate to what we are talking about now?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: Yes, it certainly does. Social construction of risk is about how we perceive risk and how we decide what is more important and less important risk; how we decide whether we will drive or fly somewhere, and how this decision squares off with the probability of harm occurring. It turns out it is difficult, the way we perceive things. For instance, we tend to perceive less risk with things that we are familiar with, or that we are in control of — for instance, driving a car — and a lot more risk with things we are less familiar with, like flying in a plane, although I suppose people here fly a lot more than an average Canadian. In a plane we are not in control. We sit back and there is a locked door and someone else flying that plane. We do not even see that person; we know the name if we catch it when the engines are starting. We perceive flying as a higher risk. Statistically, the reality is the exact opposite; we are far safer in the air than we are on the road.
There is a story about September 11. A number of people cancelled flights and drove to their destination following September 11. There were almost 4,000 more road deaths following September 11, because people drove to their destinations instead of flying.
Senator Marshall: It comes back to what you said earlier; there is no recipe.
To go back now to this document that was handed out a few minutes ago with data going up to 2006, is there an issue with regard to obtaining current data? You said the number of cases is small, but is there a problem with regard to obtaining data? You need data to keep your assessment going. Is there an issue with regard to current data? If we had data to 2010, what would it show?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I have the records. I do not put them in the database before court cases are heard and we need to file evidence. Not that I take the court as a final authority on what is real; a court is a special process that comes to judicial conclusions, but we wait to have the final story before we put the record in a database. All this information has been collected but it has not been integrated in a database yet. I suspect it shows what you see there. You will not see a new trend suddenly, I suspect.
Senator Marshall: It will follow along the same line.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I am sure, yes.
Senator Marshall: Chair, do I have time to ask Mr. Aureano one question?
The Chair: Yes you do.
Senator Marshall: When we talk about following the money trail, I have the impression this trail was not a big help but it was some help, and that it was almost more of a preventive thing.
Am I correct in understanding that the money trail would be followed in all countries? Is it followed in Canada and then in the U.S? Do you know whether one country follows this trail better than other countries, or do all countries have the same practices? Does Israel have the best practice and the U.S. the next best?
Can you elaborate on the money trail a little more? My background is as an accountant so I am always interested in money. Can you elaborate on that subject a little bit? I am interested in what you have to say.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: There is not a single model that stands out after having finished all the reading. In terms of efficiency, an excellent article was published in the New York Times on September 12 this year, entitled "Following the dirty money". The author of this article is a former secret agent who succeeded in completely destabilizing and practically bankrupting the BCCI, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, in one of the greatest financial money laundering scandals. This reminds us of a basic factor: there cannot be a properly working anti money-laundering system if the work is not accompanied at the same time by information gathering, through double agents who pretend to be delinquents or people who need services. But these entrapment operations are very costly and they require highly qualified personnel. They are difficult to prepare, difficult to carry out, and this is perhaps why there are not that many being done, or perhaps we have not been advised about this kind of operation.
In most countries today, there is a centralization of information based on financial information cells like the CANAF here in Canada. These cells have been criticized over the years, because they are rather slow. It must be said that these groups work on the basis of information they receive regarding he suspicions of banks or financial officers. However, we must say that these cells are always in a reactive mode, they do not provoke anything, they do not produce any intelligence. I think that this double agent, Mansour — that is his last name — is right to a great extent: we must go forward and prepare provocation or incitement operations — only where it seems justifiable, obviously, because otherwise there are legal problems.
There also was — and your question is very important — a widespread standardization effort beginning with September 11, as I said at the beginning of my speech, and this was perhaps the quickest such phenomenon in the world regarding such a sensitive issue. Before September 11, all the countries resisted, because they are very jealous of their independence when it comes to criminal law and fiscal law. But in any case, all the countries found ways to adapt, even if they adopted the same anti-money-laundering model, and they all allowed themselves a certain amount of flexibility in the application of the model.
Some very good research on the flexibility in each country has just been published in France.
[English]
Senator Furey: Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today. I am interested in hearing your views on the terrorist use of the Internet, not so much from the perspective of proselytizing, recruiting or, as Professor Leman-Langlois said, organizing, but more from the point of view of creating havoc and chaos in our day-to-day institutions such as our banks, governments, municipal services, hospitals and that sort of thing.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: There are stories that go around of people creating such havoc, so far not terrorists, but hackers, and sometimes young hackers. Some stories are not true and are apocryphal, such as the story of the supposed young hacker who almost managed to open the main dam at the Hoover Dam, for instance.
That story flows around a lot. It has become a mythology of cyberterrorism. It never happened but it stays in people's minds as an example of what terrorists can do if they manage to obtain access to Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, SCADA, systems; computers used to control anything from dams to water purification to electrical distribution.
Of course, the information networks themselves are used by banks or financial transactions, by government agencies, et cetera; all of these networks are to a certain extent vulnerable to all forms of cyber-attacks.
The Government of Canada recently decided to spend a new $90 million on protecting some of this infrastructure against cyber-attacks — not cyberterrorism per se, but it is part of the target. Fortunately, so far there has been no real attempt at such an attack. Of course, we have to differentiate between an attack on the Internet itself — websites or databases on the Internet — and the use of the Internet network to cause havoc in the real world, through, for instance, infrastructure. If we limit ourselves to attacks on the Internet we can see that some groups have started to use traditional — "traditional" is a strange word to use with regard to the Internet — denial-of-service attacks, for instance, against government websites when they disagree with governments. Some people include these attacks in the definition of cyberterrorism. They say there has been this much cyberterrorism because such-and-such websites were defaced or information was stolen, changed or destroyed, et cetera. I think that a proper definition of cyberterrorism must include some kind of effect in the real world. If they simply attack the network itself, I do not think it is sufficient to count as cyberterrorism. Even the attacks against those websites are oftentimes extremely minor and can be fixed in a matter of hours or, at the absolute worst, a few days, so we are talking about something that is of much lower impact.
I am not afraid of these attacks, because I do not think terrorists are particularly interested in that type of attack, but we should look at how terrorists can attack infrastructure through the Internet. My gut feeling is that terrorists are not interested in this type of attack because even though we think of this attack as something that will hurt us a lot, terrorists do not see it as an interesting military-type action where stuff explodes, so it will be a spectacular semi-martyr scenario. Terrorists like to leave an immediate scar on the landscape and this type of attack will not provide it. Either that, or terrorists are completely incompetent and cannot manage it, but I think the reason is that they are not particularly interested in that type of attack.
The Chair: Mr. Aureano, do you care to comment?
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: One of the major problems is certainly the fact that we can keep on scaring ourselves for a very long time, and it is very easy to scare oneself. However up to now, as my colleague just said, the possible and true terror attacks have had much less importance.
Let me give you an example: there have been entire programs on Radio-Canada, which is far from being a sensational network, regarding the possibility that some terrorists might blow up the big Hydro-Quebec dams in Northern Quebec, without any preliminary inquiries — that a journalist could have raised. For instance, how many trucks of dynamite would it take to cause even the slightest problem in one of these huge concrete dams? When we raise the same question regarding the possibility of contaminating all the potable water in Montreal, in Ottawa or in some other big Canadian city, what quantity of bacterial material would you need? Can a terrorist group do this? Does it have not only the will but also the capability of carrying it out? When we want to scare ourselves, we can scare ourselves no end, that is certain, but we must always wonder, if these attacks were as easy to carry out as certain journalists or researchers or politicians have been telling us, then why have they not already carried out? This is, I believe, the question that we should always be asking.
Between the will to do evil and the capability to do evil, there is a large gap, there is often a discrepancy. The same thing applies with weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons, radiological weapons or chemical weapons. There might be some will to use them, but they are a long way from being able to do so. I think that it is always important to take into account this difference between the declared will and the real capability to do harm.
[English]
Senator Furey: I am looking at your graph, Professor Leman-Langlois, on the grading by seriousness of terrorist acts in Canada. I believe I heard you say that the graph is reflective of what is happening elsewhere in the world. Is that because we are doing as good a job as other countries, or are there other intervening factors? As well, I want to ask both gentlemen if they think perhaps Canada should move in the direction of a U.K.-U.S. parliamentary-type oversight committee of intelligence and anti-terrorism.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: First, I do not believe that the graph has a strong relationship to counterterrorism. To a certain extent it does. In the 1970s, all sorts of measures were taken against hijacking airplanes, for instance. It is hard to believe today that people were not even searched before boarding a plane until not so long ago, or they could check in baggage and not travel on the plane — all things that we can no longer do. Those measures already existed in the 1980s. In the 1980s, we had a boiling over of a certain number of issues. We had constitutional issues here in Canada that made certain elements boil over, let us put it that way. Since then, the reason there has been a lowering of issues, I believe, is the same reason there has been a constant lowering in crime rates since these years. If we look at crime statistics, we will see not a drop but a steady decline in crime from the end of the 1980s. The reason is that the population is becoming older. It sounds a little weird, but many of the young men who commit crimes, including terrorism, become older and move on to other things, other interests, or they go to jail. We have a population that is older and that older population impacts both crime statistics and that special form of crime we call terrorism. I think that an older population is the reason.
Your second question is about oversight of intelligence. Yes, I think we need this oversight. I wish this committee was something like that. An oversight of intelligence services in Canada from a parliamentary perspective has nothing to do with what I just said. I believe that would be the way to go, yes.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: Perhaps you know that I come from Argentina, a country that is suffering from severe democratic and institutional deficiencies, and thus I can only be in support of a committee, because this strengthens an essential characteristic of democracy, i.e. the system of accountability which defines democracy. This is especially true for an intelligence community that is rather scattered about through various organizations and that always suffers from problems of institutional jealousy and perhaps is used to a certain independence. I also think, as does my colleague, that this could eventually be a gold mine of information for us as researchers. Thus, all this, I am certain, is very important not only from the analytical point of view but also from the institutional point of view.
[English]
Senator Tkachuk: Mr. Leman-Langlois, you mentioned oversight of intelligence by a parliamentary committee. Were you thinking that it would be the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, and anyone else? Were you thinking of something as in the United States where parliamentarians, members of the house or Senate, are sworn to secrecy and receive special briefings; that kind of committee? I think we should have something like that oversight, but I want your opinion on how it would work exactly.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I did not come prepared for this question.
Senator Tkachuk: You brought it up.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: It would be the second part, as far as I am concerned, with officials of government having oversight not only for CSIS but also for everyone who is involved in intelligence, including the RCMP and multiple agencies. I think the Canada Border Services Agency is engaged in a lot of intelligence that we know nothing about. The CBSA is busy with this activity. They have a colossal database with data mining programs that I will not name. They have all these technologies that they are using, too. Of course, no one even knows about these activities let alone oversees what they are doing, how they are doing it and the consequences.
Senator Tkachuk: How do we deal with the Bloc?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: The Bloc Québécois or the other block?
Senator Tkachuk: I am talking about the Bloc Québécois in the house, yes. On the intelligence in this committee, how would we deal with the Bloc?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I do not know. I have not given that subject much thought.
The Chair: No; that area of inquiry may be another one that we pursue at another date.
Senator Wallin: Thank you, guests, for being here today. I was interested in an important distinction that I understood you both to make that domestic terrorism does not equal homegrown terrorism and vice versa because it is about motivation. I guess it does not matter whether they are mad at Canada or not mad at Canada. This country would be the site of their target because they obviously use targets of opportunity.
I have two questions in two different directions that come from that point. One is more specifically about the work that you do. When we try to deal with this issue — and as everyone has said, it is complicated — do we best try to deal with the individual or do we try to deal with the community? There is always an overlay of whether you can relate to people on those issues, but that is an important point.
If we go over to the other side, one of the issues that arises from time to time in this committee is whether we treat people who are involved in terrorism as criminals, as enemy combatants or as soldiers in the war on terror. If they are citizens and domestic residents, and because it is difficult to define that global area of the war on terror, what do we think about that when we talk about domestic or homegrown terrorism, because that definition raises another issue. I want to hear from both of you on that point.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: With regard to the government's plan, I will once again refer to my country of origin where some terrorism came out of the middle class and also the upper class that is called the patrician class in Argentina; these people are very rich, their wealth is immense. Thus, it is always very difficult to understand the motivation and I believe that intervention should be done at a collective level. If we look in retrospect, as we should, at the training of guerillas and terrorists in Argentina, we can see, for instance, that many of them were "recruited" in right wing and extreme right wing Catholic organization activities and then, there was a reversal during the 1960s, and they converted back to Marxism, to various branches of Marxism. Perhaps we should have intervened on a collective level and carried out programs to avoid the radicalization that was a trend and known to all. I think that from the government's point of view, individual interventions are unlikely and even impossible.
Your other question, if I understand correctly, is about the status that should be given to these terrorists, especially from a legal point of view. I believe, and this is my very personal opinion, that their status should be exactly the same as that of any other citizen who commits such a serious crime, one that would fall under the current Criminal Code.
Creating a different status means that we give these individuals some importance, that we attract attention to them and then we end up creating martyrs. This is perhaps one of the objectives pursued by al Qaeda. Much research suggests that al Qaeda, that has no political project for creating a country, and that has no social organization model to propose apart from recreating a Muslim community that has never existed, may have as its most immediate political objective the provision of martyrs for Islam. If we give the terrorists a different status, especially the Islamic terrorists, we convert them into martyrs and the same applies to white supremacists or any other group or small cell that would thus have the people who had sacrificed themselves for their cause confirmed as martyrs.
This is why I believe that we need to treat everyone on the same footing, as nothing extraordinary, that we must manage to deal with this kind of crime through the proper channels without making a special case out of it, because that would be favourable to the objectives of radical groups.
[English]
The Chair: Mr. Leman-Langlois, do you wish to add anything?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: I do not have much to add, but calling these people "soldiers" makes them play the role that they set for themselves. People watching them think that these people are soldiers. They are soldiers for freedom, justice, Islam or whatever cause. The extreme right militants in the U.S. think of themselves as soldiers. They dress like soldiers, they use military weapons and they have military organizations. If you confirm that they are soldiers, in ideological terms it is extremely counterproductive.
It is not only us making this point. One of the major experts in the field of international terrorism, Marc Sageman, says the same thing in his latest book. When we arrest these guys, we treat them like criminals. We do not make a big case out of arresting them. That is difficult to do, but we do not do it. We do not show everyone the thousands of police who were material in bringing them to justice. We do not show that it was a huge deal. We do not put snipers on the roof. Every extra layer of security and danger that we represent portrays an image that reinforces that approach.
Senator Wallin: I understand that theory. Earlier, you gave the example of a pickpocket. If the pickpocket is looking for $10 so that individual can go and buy a burger and a Coke, or maybe a joint, then that is one thing. If individuals are picking pockets because they are funding terrorist activity, does the state's response have to be different?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: We already have laws about financing terrorism. The laws go far enough to cover the difference between these two things. If they are financing terrorism, they are responsible for something altogether different than buying a burger.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: I think that changing the status is clearly counterproductive.
[English]
Senator Smith: Some of us roam around a bit. In recent days, there was the Eiffel Tower incident. You are all familiar with that incident. Several European governments have issued a high level of awareness and sensitivity; so have the Canadian and U.S. governments. It reminded me of the first few weeks and months after 9/11. I was travelling to New York frequently then for various business reasons. One could not board a plane without being a bit nervous, in particular when going to New York. I remember one incident that might not be politically correct, but I cannot resist telling you about it.
I was on a plane and sitting up front. There was an empty seat beside me. They announced that one passenger was missing and they hoped to leave soon. All of a sudden, at the last minute, in cames this big guy. He had a bag; he looked stressed. He said about one sentence to the attendants and I was certain that he was neither Canadian nor American, which was confirmed. He sat down and the plane taxied right out. I was asking myself, "Who is this man?" We were almost at the runway and the plane started to roar down it, and I was totally relaxed. I was totally relaxed because — and this is the honest truth — out of the corner of my eyes, I saw him make the sign of the cross.
Senator Joyal: I thought you were Anglican.
Senator Smith: I am a Baptist — not that it matters.
Are there behavioural patterns here for members of al Qaeda? How we define al Qaeda these days or being connected to it is anything but clear. Is there some pleasure that people take if everyone in the Western World, as you vaguely described it, are stressed, nervous and worried? Are these leaks real?
When we hear these stories and all these high alert notices, I know all you can do is speculate — and the man was not from Argentina; I wish to point that out — what do you think about? Are there thoughts that come to mind when that many major Western governments say, we have information that we should be nervous about because it sounds as if there is a good chance they are planning something big?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: It allows various ideologues on the terrorist side to remain relevant and say, we are still in the game and we are still in the media and on the front page; although we do not do anything, they still talk about us all the time.
Osama Bin Laden has his name in the paper, as does al Qaeda, although, as you say, it is an extremely vague thing. People like to write it on their business card if they want to sound important in the terrorism world.
These alerts are an echo of a possible terrorist attack that does not occur, but it still keeps the movement and the ideology on the front pages.
Senator Smith: Maybe it does, but within a small group. For most mainstream groups within the Islamic community, if anything it further alienates them.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: Of course.
Senator Smith: When that Toronto-18 incident first happened, a number of people said police were overreacting. These people could not believe it when over half the Toronto-18 pleaded guilty. If anything, incidents like those alienate them from the overwhelming majority of people from the Islamic community. Maybe they do not care about them. I am only probing your thoughts.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: All these waves of threats, especially against France, took place in a very specific context, namely a government that showed itself to be almost uncompromising regarding issues with certain immigrants, such as the Eastern European Roma, but also regarding the entire issue that we hear very little about, but which is very current in France and in Europe, of the Islamic veil. These threats are made in a very specific context and the governments are always worried and they always need the population as a witness and they need to show that they are doing something. It is better to have advised people of the threat, than to have something happen afterwards that makes it seem that we did not act in time. This is also a way of showing that we are prepared to face the terrorist threat with the essential counterattack mentioned by my colleague Stéphane, namely that we show the terrorists that they are still part of the game and that we are contributing in a certain way to highlighting the threat that they want to deploy against the west. This game is always ambivalent, it is not a linear game when it comes to raising the threat level. In the United States, we saw very clearly with the constant decrease, that we were moving from one level to another depending on certain threats whose origins we did not know. This kept the population alert and showed that reality was proactive.
[English]
Senator Mitchell: My first question is a big one, but I will ask you to give me what you have on it.
Do you believe that Canada has deployed sufficient resources efficiently managed in this sector to protect Canadians properly against terrorist acts and terrorist threats in the prevailing environment? Is it possible to assess that situation?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: There are a lot of resources and a lot of different aspects of the matter.
Lately our main police agencies — and I use "police" in the widest sense of the word — including CSIS, the RCMP and important municipal police forces, have shown us in the last eight to nine years that they have found a way to work together. They are far more efficient at leading investigations. The Ahmed Ressam story probably was the last crack of the whip that showed that both agencies had failed miserably at something. It was only the word "extremist" that caused a U.S. customs agent to stop Ahmed Ressam at the border, although he was on the radar of both the RCMP and CSIS for a long time before that. Since then, we have seen a lot more efficiencies, better deployment of resources and better use of resources. There were a couple of little hiccups with Maher Arar, for instance, which was a bad mark for our police forces although they are not ultimately responsible for the whole thing.
With the Toronto-18, the latest arrests, and things like that, we see that they can work together. Another major event other than Ahmed Ressam that showed that something ultimately had to be done was the biker gangs in Quebec. They forced a new kind of policing. Special organizations of police forces were invented more or less. They were imported then to fight terrorism. I think both these events explain the better policing we have today.
In terms of money, no, I think we still spend lots of money on terrorism — an immense amount of money. However, that amount depends on what we call "fighting terrorism." If we say we are in Afghanistan fighting terrorism, then that is a whole big slice of money that we spend on terrorism that we can discuss. If we are talking about other things, then that is different again.
Senator Mitchell: I am talking about policing.
Mr. Leman-Langlois: With policing, we are doing a pretty good job.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: I also think that if we take into account, for instance, the notification put out by the White House after the failed attack last Christmas in an American airport, we can only share Stéphane's point of view, because coordination seems to be even more important than the quantity of available resources.
Coordination, especially in a country as large and diverse as Canada, is even more important than the quantity of resources. It determines the possibility of succeeding in creating this coordination. That said, the history of all institutions, without any exceptions, shows that coordination is always extremely difficult. Institutional jealousies, turf wars are as important as coordination efforts. We must not lose sight of this fact and believe that we have reached some kind of nirvana of coordination in Canada or anywhere else. Perhaps there was progress and the police rejoiced over this coordination when three suspected terrorists were arrested in Ottawa, a little more than a month ago. This is something very difficult not only for policing institutions, but for all institutions in general.
[English]
Senator Mitchell: The answer to this question may have been woven throughout your other answers and if so, I ask that you consolidate it. I read an article some time ago, which I think was in The New York Times, by someone who had been senior in this area in the United States. He struck a positive note, because he said there is reason to expect that this terrorism may be a cycle that will run its course. He made the point that, although it is hard to believe, a lot of the al Qaeda leadership has been killed and much of the organization has been isolated.
You might say the same thing has happened to other terrorist leadership, which is leaving many young men on the Internet coordinating or trying to coordinate great relationships, often bragging and using, as you said, over-the-top language. Even if these people are serious, they cannot be lead effectively because the group is so dispersed.
The expectation of this expert is that in time this terrorism will run its course. For those of us who thought it would never end, this outlook is positive. What is your assessment? Is there any truth in that analysis?
Mr. Leman-Langlois: In terms of al Qaeda and the multinational terrorism that it was, that is true; it has run its course. It was an outlier in terms of statistics. When we look at terrorism, al Qaeda is more of an exception than a rule. It is not representative of terrorism as a greater category of activity. That terrorism is almost over. What we hear today is that people call themselves al Qaeda because it is more evocative than calling themselves an alphabet soup of letters, an acronym, or something else they might come up with. If they call themselves al Qaeda, they are immediately on the radar for the media. That attention is helpful to them.
The centralized al Qaeda we had in the 1990s, which ran all these attacks from a command-and-control, tight network of individuals, is an era that has passed. However, does that mean we will no longer have terrorism? Terrorists do not need a centralized organization to have terrorism. The FLQ, crisis, Front de liberation du Québec, here showed that the cells were in tenuous contact, if in contact at all. The cells were isolated groups that shared an ideology, which they spoke about it in their newspaper La Cognée,and other communiques. They did not coordinate their actions at all with one another, and yet we had this crisis.
I think the al Qaeda era is finished and we are into the next era. There is no way anyone can say that by 2010, 2015 or 2035, there will not be any terrorism anymore. That is impossible.
[Translation]
Mr. Aureano: If we look at the attacks that were carried out in the United States and in Canada, they all failed or they were short-circuited by the police, which is a good sign. This means that al Qaeda, or those who claim to belong to al Qaeda are not succeeding in recruiting or training terrorists properly, so that they can succeed in their attacks. There is also the fact that each failed attack or attack that was short-circuited by the authorities reminds people of September 11, and therefore even the symbolic power of a failed attack is important in the west.
I think we are going to see the emergence of gangs, as we already see in Africa, that will claim they are a part of al Qaeda to get all the publicity, but will be perhaps more interested by ransoms and the money they can extort from people they kidnap than in various kinds of religious or ideological claims. It is also difficult to foresee, because we do not know how the situation will evolve in Central Asia. Two countries that are occupied by the west and other countries are facing serious political and economic problems. Therefore it is extremely difficult to foresee how the situation will evolve in the Middle East and in Central Asia. Thus, al Qaeda might be a thing of the past, but al Qaeda could be claimed or revived by other groups. It is always a possibility for various reasons, especially, as I said earlier, to grab the spotlight.
I am optimistic because the most recent attacks have shown how difficult it is to recruit good terrorists or to be able to train them properly. From that perspective, I am rather optimistic. There is a lot of amateur work going on. However, regarding the evolution of the sociopolitical situation in Central Asia and in the Middle East, I am a little less optimistic.
[English]
The Chair: Colleagues, we have reached the end of our first session. I want to thank, on your behalf, Professor Leman-Langlois and Professor Aureano for their thoughtful and constructive counsel and advice and for their frank responses to a broad range of questions.
We are fortunate to have with us Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin, who is the chair and founder of Al Sunnah Foundation of Canada and vice-president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada. In 2006, he founded the concept of a systematic de-radicalization program as a counter-radicalization program initiative in Canada in response to the 2006 Toronto-18 terror plot. His program is specifically tailored to undermine the ideological underpinnings of extremist ideology. Over 50 mosques and Islamic organizations throughout Canada have since privately endorsed his de- radicalization program to their congregations. Today, he will share with us the main components of the 12-step program, and he has agreed to take questions.
I welcome our guest here today. Much of our testimony today has been about how to analyze what is happening and how to assist with policing and coordination. Our guest is one Canadian who is working to prevent bad things from happening, and I think his advice and insights will be of immense value to our committee.
Mr. Amiruddin, I give you the floor.
Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin, Chairman, Al Sunnah Foundation: Thank you. Canadians have been painfully confronted with the fact that some Canadians, born and raised here or raised here, are receptive to extremist propaganda and manipulation. As we know, a number of them underwent a radicalization process and were successfully recruited for the "jihad against Canada," with the ultimate prospect of martyrdom.
These groups of individuals, who pose an imminent threat to our national security, were effectively radicalized over a period of time through a wide variety of means but, from what I know, mostly through the widely available Internet-based al Qaeda propaganda.
The court hearings from the Toronto-18 case specifically reveal that the group in the 2006 Toronto-18 case was inspired by al Qaeda propaganda while residing in Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Area.
The threat represented by al Qaeda-inspired extremism in Canada, as we know, has grown into a considerable and permanent external and homegrown threat. From a couple of specific cases in 2003 and 2004 — that of Mansour Jabarah and Momin Khwaja, for example — to the arrests of the Toronto 18 group in 2006, it appears that a process of radicalization is definitely present here in Canada.
Much different from the Israeli-Palestinian equation, the radicalization process of Western-raised individuals is not triggered by oppression, perceived suffering, revenge or desperation; rather, this radicalization is motivated specifically by ideology.
The 9/11 Commission Report, one of the earliest reliable texts on this issue, reports on page 362 that:
Usama Bin Laden and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition) from at least Ibn Taimiyya, through the founders of Wahabism . . . That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both . . . With it there is no common ground — not even respect for life — on which to begin a dialogue.
The jihadi-Salafi ideology is the driver that radicalizes —
The Chair: Mr. Amiruddin, can I ask you to slow down a little bit. Our translators are working hard to catch every word, so if you can slow down a tiny bit, that will be of great assistance. Thank you so much.
Mr. Amiruddin: The jihadi, or the Salafi-jihadist, ideology is the ideology that drives young men and women born and raised in the West to carry out "autonomous jihad" via acts of terrorism against their home countries. While many followers of this particular stream of Islam may not advocate jihad directly via acts of terrorism, or may even condemn terrorism wholly, the fact remains that this ideology is the only stream within the Islamic tradition that is directly conducive to the radicalization process and the sanctioning of "autonomous jihad" via acts of terrorism.
The Salafi ideology has served as the inspiration for numerous homegrown groups, including the March 2004 Madrid bombers, Amsterdam's Hofstad Group, London's July 2005 bombers and specifically, the Toronto-18 group arrested in 2006.
In 2005, prior to the arrests of the Toronto-18 group, our foundation carried out a detailed survey on radicalization and homegrown extremism in Canada. We shared our concerns with authorities and community leaders to give them a better understanding of the potential and imminent threat posed by homegrown radicalization. In 2006, with the arrests of the Toronto-18 group, our concerns proved to be true.
We found that to create and sustain effective de-radicalization strategies, there must be three main components in this process of counterterrorism. First is the prevention of radicalization through fostering committed partnerships with expert groups within given communities who are working towards the delegitimization of violent extremism; second is the proliferation of an integral cultural counter-narrative in the context of being Canadian; and third is the integration of people at the individual, social and political level.
Our foundation focuses particular attention on the following priority in the specific context of supporting de- radicalization and preventing radicalization: We are committed to identifying the causes, drivers and means of radicalization and proactively to crafting strategies and plans to diffuse or ideally to eliminate these subversive and severely destructive elements within at-risk cultural communities.
We have devised a systematic de-radicalization strategy, or program. Our strategy focuses primarily on the psycho- spiritual development and ideological rehabilitation of at-risk youth. We achieve this goal through our 12-step program.
I initially submitted a handout, which will be given out after this presentation. Because of the amount of information in the handout, there was not enough time to translate it.
Through our 12-step program, from the get-go, or step 1, individuals are made aware of the theological, ethical and legal aspects of their own culture pertaining to clarifying the beliefs, states and actions that give rise to extremism. They are empowered with knowledge of psycho-spiritual perfecting paradigms within their own culture. By the time an individual completes the 12 steps of our program, the traces and vestiges of extremism are wholly uprooted from them.
We are implementing this program at two levels. We have provided it at the grassroots level since 2006. Over 50 mosques in Canada have implemented parts of our program to their respective congregations. If we are to deal with this issue of radicalization on a national level and at a level where we can tackle the problem from its roots, we believe our program needs to be backed with resources to be implemented.
The success of our implementation strategy is based on a group of professionals and experts that we deal with to implement our strategy. These various groups are outlined in that bigger document, which you will have access to after this meeting.
For example, we have medical practitioners as advisers in the implementation of our program, such as psychologists and psychiatrists, who can provide guidance and advice on medical and other factors that may be enablers in the radicalization process, which may be surprising to many. Specifically, we deal with hyper-religiousity, which is a diagnosed system of bi-polar disorder treated with prescription drugs.
We have identified academic advisers and we have social workers who give us an idea of social issues that may drive individuals down that path of radicalization. We have established effective community relationships with clergy and with interfaith leaders to give us better leverage and to put us in a better position to deal with input from community members.
Level one of our implementation strategy to prevent radicalization and deter home-grown terrorism in Canada, includes a mass communication campaign, the setting up of a website, a hotline, brochures, posters and advertising in the mainstream and ethnic media to allow Canadians to know the existence of an independent, non-law-enforcement organization and its ability to aid fellow citizens and fellow Canadians.
We intend to work with all public and private educational systems to carry out annual presentations, similar to how we have presentations against drugs and drug prevention. We also aim to provide training and certification courses in our 12-step de-radicalization program to community leaders, members and individuals concerned, throughout the community. This training is similar to how St. John Ambulance or other organizations within the community carry out certification courses to identify those specific signatures exclusive to the radicalization process and to help deal with radicalization at that individual level.
We have also come up with an evaluation plan. Specifically, we hope to achieve, through the implementation of our de-radicalization strategy throughout Canada, deterrence in radicalization and terrorism overall, related specifically to our cultural group. We hope to increase dialogue in rejecting terrorism and rejecting the drivers behind the radicalization process within our community. We also aim to decrease anti-Semitism, which we found to be a main driver in radicalization of individuals, both on the right, as we are discussing in the U.S., for example, and also for those who are motivated by al Qaeda-inspired extremism.
We also aim at reducing anti-Western, anti-secular jihadist sentiments within our community, and we expect an increase in the popularity of the relevant counter-narrative, specifically aimed at delegitimizing the ideology that drives young men and women, raised in this part of the world, to carry out acts of terrorism against their countries.
Last, but not least, we aim to increase participation in our democratic process of individuals from our community.
We must look specifically at Canadian Muslims as we are dealing with radicalization in the context of al Qaeda- inspired extremism. We note that Canadian Muslims represent the largest growing denomination in Canada, with a population growth rate, according to Statistics Canada, of 128.9 per cent since 1991.
What we are faced with is a feeling of being neglected by government agencies in terms of being allocated sufficient resources to carry out our programs. I have been carrying out my program since 2006 and have not yet received, or applied for, any government funding because there are no programs to my knowledge that would specifically support our already ongoing efforts. I have been implementing this program with my own efforts and with community support.
What we feel is happening, as a result of the lack of resources made available to us to implement our strategy on a grand scale within our country, is that there is a growing trend, within our community and within the rest of the mainstream community that I feel is destroying the harmony of our multi-cultural society. That trend is an epidemic rise in mistrust between 3 per cent of our population and the rest of Canada, each of whom are beginning to view each other as "the other."
A good example is Senator Smith's experience on the plane that he spoke about when he was nervous and, as soon as that individual did what he did, Senator Smith's discomfort left him.
We specifically have estimated, through our accountants, a minimum cost of implementing such a program, as you will see in the handout.
We feel our program is a logical solution to cutting costs in domestic counter-terrorism, and a solution to prevent radicalization in at-risk communities, as we have already demonstrated. Simply put, our program works. If our government wants 3 per cent of our nation's population, with the youngest age median in Canada, to address radicalization effectively, before it reaches the state of involvement of law enforcement agencies, the government must fund pro-active initiatives and solutions like ours.
We look forward to establishing a relationship with authorities, as we already have in the past, and maintaining that relationship in order to support our program, which we are confident will save lives and is of benefit to all Canadians.
The Chair: Thank you, and I will open the floor to questions. I will take the chairman's prerogative and ask one specific question.
You made reference to the 12-step approach. When many of us, including you, hear the term "12 steps," I am sure one of the thoughts that occurs to you is that is classically one of the references to programs that help people work their way out of some sort of addiction, whether it is alcohol, tobacco or whatever. That type of program usually implies an ongoing presence in the community, whether it is Alcoholics Anonymous chapters or other support groups, wherein they can be confirmed and encouraged in their desire to disengage from what is deemed to be a destructive activity for themselves, and not a helpful community activity.
Does your approach envisage some kind of support mechanism once people at risk have been constructively identified, invited to look at and consider other options and to have a fresh assessment, for example, of hyper-religiousity, et cetera? Does your program anticipate support mechanisms in the community? Clearly people receive support from their peers, and, if they are isolated from their peers in some context, that makes the task for them — and I expect for you and those working with you — even more challenging.
Mr. Amiruddin: In the past and to date, we have worked with different organizations within our community: over 50 mosques have implemented this program. What we see now is the rising trend in high school students becoming more receptive to al Qaeda propaganda, which is widely available on the Internet.
Some organizations within the community, I personally feel, may have been part of the indoctrination stage. The New York Police Department report on home-grown extremism has identified four stages of the radicalization process, and the third stage in this process is the indoctrination stage. This stage does not necessarily call to arms or to struggle against the home countries where these individuals are based. However, in my experience I think it is also important for us to have some sort of a network throughout the country set up where we can work directly with high schools, not only community centres, mosques and religious institutions across the country, to work proactively towards deterring the radicalization process.
Senator Joyal: When I was listening to you, I could not but think that the religious factor is an important one for some people who are more receptive to a religious message than to a political message, per se, for the reasons that you will easily understand.
Effectively, if we have to address that fact, how can we answer the need to prevent indoctrination on the basis of the interpretation of religious beliefs that lead to jihad?
Mr. Amiruddin: We specifically look at the opinions of experts in this field. They have identified, within the Islamic tradition, for example, one particular stream of Islam, which does not necessarily call for terrorist acts, or terrorism for that matter, but is conducive to the radicalization process.
A way to perhaps implement that program, in the context of the Canadian Muslim community, for example, is, while not directly becoming involved in the religious affairs of the community, to make programs available for organizations that are proliferating a counter-narrative that is more conducive to being a well-integrated Canadian and something that supports our concept of democracy within the context of being Canadian.
Senator Joyal: If I recall from the background information that was released with the Toronto-18 group of people in the incident that we know of, most of them had been regulars at the mosque where the imam was preaching to a point almost of resorting to violence. How do we monitor — or can we — within the framework of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that activity in a way that recognizes the freedom of religion, and prevent that kind of belief from being spread to persons who are more vulnerable than others because they are younger, generally, and more susceptible to being convinced by those calls?
In contrast, we have a person with a certain level of maturity — as you have heard from our earlier witnesses today — whereby a person has grown up, and, let us say, is now 45 or 50 years old, has seen life in a different perspective and is less susceptible to being convinced or to answer a call to jihad. That seems to me to be the conundrum of the situation.
Mr. Amiruddin: I think that, specifically, if we adopt the best global policies or practices used by our allies throughout the world, we do not have to be so concerned with necessarily reinventing the wheel on how to deal with this issue.
Canada, like other Western democracies, has a number of rights that are available to its citizens in regard to freedom of religion and speech. However, in this particular context of al Qaeda-inspired extremism we must see that, while we are interested in being politically correct and protecting the rights of our fellow citizens, which we should be, the fact remains that some individuals exposed to one particular type of indoctrination are pulled or drawn toward radicalization. That process is, specifically, in my understanding, almost the catalyst in that process to turn a thoroughly indoctrinated individual into an aspiring terrorist. It is not even something that they would learn at mosques; rather it is propaganda widely available through the Internet.
I can visit YouTube, for example, and view videos of al Qaeda propaganda from Russia and all over the world. From my understanding and my insight into the Toronto-18 group and the other groups that I have looked at, the best solution for us to prevent that final stage in the radicalization process, which has been identified as jihadization, is to come up with some sort of system where we come up with a strategy to prevent al Qaeda propaganda from entering our country and being viewed. It would be similar to how we prevent people from viewing child pornography or different things that are unacceptable to us as a society. Something that leads to the fourth stage of the radicalization process, which is what we know as jihadization, where individuals are motivated to carry out acts of terrorism against their fellow citizens, should not be allowed into the country in the first place.
On an international level, we have to see specifically what we face. In Canada we have many initiatives within our community. We have gone out of our way to prove to fellow Canadians that we do not accept this type of thinking, that we reject it. For example, our organization, the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, and also our foundation, issued a fatwa earlier this year condemning terrorism again, in addition to what has been going on since 9/11. Another Canadian Muslim imam, Sheik Tahir-ul-Qadri, who recently migrated here from Pakistan, issued a 600-page fatwa against terrorism stating explicitly to young men and women that those callings toward acts of terrorism are not callings toward the Islamic understanding of paradise, but rather invite people towards hell.
We rejecting that ideology and mindset in whatever way we can, but we are limited because we are community-based organizations. We are faced with the difficulty of breaking the legitimacy that this ideology currently carries, due to its monopoly at the heart of the Islamic world in the Middle East, without specifically giving names of countries.
This ideology, which has been found to be the root or the driver behind the radicalization of young men and women in the West, and particularly in Canada, enjoys a strong legitimacy throughout the Muslim world and even in Canada. My organization is faced with a severe obstacle when we attempt to delegitimatize it because of the monopoly that particular ideology enjoys in the heart of the Muslim world.
Perhaps another initiative we can take is to have members from our government work with their counterparts in the Middle East, specifically that one country that is responsible for the proliferation of this ideology, and try to work perhaps even towards breaking the monopoly of that one particular group in the heart of the Muslim world. This initiative is not because we are interested in the affairs of what religion is practiced in a different country or otherwise, but one must keep in mind that every year, over 4,000 Canadians, for example, visit that same country for a pilgrimage.
We are concerned with what they are coming back with, and what they are being indoctrinated with. Not every person going to that one country for that pilgrimage, greater or lesser, is being indoctrinated, but they are being exposed to that ideology. That ideology is enjoying strong legitimacy within the relevant cultural group because of that monopoly. That initiative would be an important part of deterring or preventing radicalization.
The Chair: A number of senators want to ask questions, so thank you very much.
Senator Tkachuk: The Nazis and the Communists, to me, were the greatest terrorists of the 20th century. They had enemies. The Nazis did not like the Jews, and the Communists did not like the capitalists.
Who is the enemy of extreme terrorists?
Mr. Amiruddin: The enemy of the extreme terrorists, specifically, are those individuals opposed to their world view and their ideal world model for a government. They are calling toward the revival of the Caliphate, similar to what was present during the time of the Ottoman Empire, but ironically the government they are calling toward, this world government, is very different from the model of the Ottoman time. Therefore, their enemies are anyone who stands in the way of this global call.
In Afghanistan, what we fail to point out repeatedly — as I see in media — is that the legitimacy that the jihad against western soldiers and against Hamid Karzai's government enjoys is specifically drawn from the fact that they have appointed a leader, Mulah Omar, to be the Caliph of this worldwide Caliphate. They see themselves as soldiers of Mulah Omar's Caliphate, fighting to establish this government in Afghanistan, and they look at expanding that government into the central Asian region, and different parts of the world that then would join into this Caliphate.
Senator Tkachuk: In your 12-step program it seems that the most successful and dramatic incidents, the USS Cole incident, 9/11, and many others that are public, involved suicide bombers. We deal with suicide bombers in Afghanistan, and the Americans deal with them in Iraq. How do you deal with that subject? How do you deal with suicide bombing as part of your program, with parents letting their children — do you know what I mean? To me, it seems so beyond anything that I know. How do you deal with that thought process when you deal with imams or groups that spread this kind of belief?
Mr. Amiruddin: The most important component of our program is the delegitimatization of the ideology that is conducive to that radicalization process, and leads one to legitimatize acts of terrorism. Part of our strategy and part of the strategy of counter-narrative groups throughout the world that are working with their own governments or with different governments in the world against the al Qaeda call to terrorism, inspired by al Qaeda, specifically focus or aim at delegitimatizing the ideology that makes terrorism permissible.
These individuals, keep in mind, are highly devoted to their faith. These individuals prefer not to look at, if they are males, a beautiful woman that walks by. They follow their religion strictly. These individuals do not eat non-halal meat. These individuals are particular and devoted to their faith. How do you convince someone who is so devout and devoted to their faith and piety to justify in their hearts and minds, the carrying out of a suicide attack against their fellow citizens?
The world community of experts on terrorism has come to conclude that this process is specifically motivated by ideology. In our 12-step program, the way we address that process is by delegitimatizing the ideology that justifies these types of attacks, making them impermissible, making individuals understand that, from an Islamic — because this community is the one we are speaking of — point of view, acts like this do not carry one to paradise, as promised to them by their al Qaeda leaders or by different groups that radicalize them. Rather, these acts lead them straight to where they do not wish to go, which, in the Islamic or religious context, is hell.
Senator Furey: Thank you very much for coming today. I congratulate you on your program. I think it is an excellent program. I agree that the program is a logical solution to preventing radicalization. When I look at the implementation through mass communication, working with the school system and training public officials, it appears to me that the program is geared toward just that: prevention.
Does it work, or what, if anything, works on young men and women who have already bought into the jihad-Salafi ideology and have gone over to the dark side? Is there any hope for those individuals, or are we looking at prevention only on a go-forward basis?
Mr. Amiruddin: When dealing with individuals who are radicalized, again, I will refer to the four stages of radicalization. If we are talking about individuals who are in the first or second stage, which are the pre-radicalization stage and the self-identification stage where they are beginning to explore the Salafist ideology, or even at the third stage where they are indoctrinated thoroughly, if we can reach out to them through our de-radicalization strategy and work at shifting their thought process and delegitimatizing the legitimacy of carrying out suicide attacks, then we will be effective.
However, individuals who have passed that third stage of radicalization — they are consuming al Qaeda propaganda from the Internet and they are ready to carry out attacks at the right moment when the opportunity strikes — are not individuals we see ourselves as having the capacity or the resources to intervene with. We hope that our national security apparatus and the international efforts against terrorism will be more effective in dealing with those individuals.
Senator Smith: How many people have completed your program, and how do you define completion? Do they go to a certain number of classes, are there focus groups, and are there exams or a paper they have to write? What are the criteria for completing the program, and how many have completed it? Are there examples of how it has been successful?
Mr. Amiruddin: Definitely there are. To date, since 2006, we have a little over 200 individuals who have completed our 12-step program. That program was not marketed to them specifically as, "Here are the 12 steps; you are a radical and we want to de-radicalize you." That approach would not work and would defeat our entire strategy.
What we have set up, as you can see on our website today, are specific learning outlines that deal with the different points of interest within the cultural community in terms of ideology and theology that are conducive to the radicalization process. Through our learning outlines, we aim to delegitimatize that ideology.
As I said, over 200 people have completed that program, in terms of my own direct experience. That is one way. Those learning outlines have questions and answers. When they are completed, some individuals — in our particular case — have a question-and-answer session with me specifically, and they are awarded what we call, in our community, an ijazah. Ijazah means an Islamic certification or a licence stating that someone is trained in what that person has taken and that the person is certified as a sheik or an instructor in this one particular discipline.
Senator Smith: My other question relates to how you become sanctioned or blessed by the umbrella groups, for lack of a different word? I know there has been a little controversy over the last day or two that one of the current leaders was uninvited to give a speech because of bad words that had been used by a previous leader. I am aware of some of these umbrella groups. You are familiar with that one. Are there ones that include, say, the Sunni groups, the Shiite groups and some of the other factions? I know some of the Ismailis, some Muslims, do not consider them bona fide Muslims.
Who do you look to, to be sanctioned? Is your group from any one particular group? Is it a Sunni group? You get the gist of what I am talking about. Enlighten us on this area.
Mr. Amiruddin: I think, in dealing with that question, we have to understand better the at-risk group itself. In terms of al Qaeda-inspired extremism, it is not an issue that directly affects individuals following the Shiite faith or Sufis, for that matter. These individuals are from the Sunni interpretation of Islam, including my own organization, which is a Sunni organization.
That is one way of looking at it.
Senator Smith: Wahhabi is a group. I think the country you were referring to was Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Amiruddin: Yes, it was. Specifically, in dealing with this area, we have a group of organizations. We have, for example, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, which is a body of Canadian Muslim organizations affiliated to that stream within Sunni Islam. That body supports the traditional model or interpretation which, I would say, is open to Sufi Islam and does not reject it. One of the primary signatures of those individuals who are receptive to extremist manipulation, those groups, is their rejection, for example, of Sufism as a discipline within Islam altogether.
These groups we are working with now represent a silent majority within our community. These groups are specifically Sunni, and hence we are working to build bridges between other groups that are similar to ours. To date, as I said, we have over 50 organizations that are part of this one particular strategy.
Those groups within the Sunni group, generally, that may have literature available to their congregations that may be conducive to radicalization, those groups, of course, would reject our arguments. These arguments are not our arguments in regard to our concerns about the radicalization process. These arguments are the findings of groups such as the NYPD and the 9/11 commission report. They have access to a lot of resources and information that we cannot argue with.
Senator Marshall: Thank you very much for being here. I noticed from the document that you handed out that you also talk about implementation. You target general groups: You have your website, posters and your school visits.
Do you target specific individuals and groups in addition to the general group that you target? Do you narrow down your target to specific groups?
Mr. Amiruddin: It depends on how we want to deal with it. Unfortunately, terrorism now is an international phenomenon. I do not think there is any high school student, for example, throughout Canada who does not know about terrorism, or is not exposed to some sort of media coverage of terrorism.
Once they are exposed to knowledge of terrorism in the context of al Qaeda, then they also have some sort of background understanding or preconceived notion of what Islam is or is not. In the context of al Qaeda, the knowledge is related to Islam or an Islamic so-called war against the West or other people who oppose their goals and agendas.
The way we have structured our 12-step program is not specifically to target or offend any particular group, but rather to take a generalized approach. We do not use the word "Muslim" or "Islam," for example; we use "at-risk cultural community," or "a cultural group." Our 12-step program is a program that can be applied to what was discussed earlier; the right-wing groups in America, for example. To apply it, all we have to do is work with a specific church group or a group that has a thorough understanding of the ideological or theological context of that group, and they can apply the same 12-step model to their group. It is not necessary that we identify specifically a cultural group for that program.
Senator Marshall: You talk about evaluation, and you mentioned evaluation in your document including information on the process. How do you measure the success of the program? If you are looking at spending a certain amount of money on the program, how do you determine whether your work has been successful?
Mr. Amiruddin: In the handout you will receive after the presentation, you will see our aims and objectives and how we will measure success. One way of measuring is through the media and occurrences of terrorist or home-grown terrorist cases. Another is to work closely with partners and the police, and any reports or complaints they want to share with us as a community-based organization. Parents sometimes do not know where to turn. That is another way of looking at it.
Another way is through surveys and different privately obtained data that we gather within the community, questionnaires for example. That data will give us a better understanding of where we stand in terms of this process. I have highlighted that process thoroughly in the handout. Hopefully, that handout will make it clearer.
Senator Marshall: What is your source of funding now, if that is something you can tell us. Did I understand you correctly that no government funding goes into the foundation?
Mr. Amiruddin: Not since I have been operating. It is important to point out that the task I am taking upon my shoulders and carrying out is out of goodwill as a good Canadian citizen. I was born in this country and this is my country. I look at this task as an important task because the current global climate of terrorism, and Islamic terrorism for that matter, affects me directly both as a Canadian and as a Muslim, so I have been doing that work.
My life and my security are at risk as well in what I am doing, yet I am still carrying out my job. Since 2006, since we implemented the plan, we have not received any government funding. Possibly, it is because of the lack of availability. That is one aspect to look at. The other is that we did not feel that we were necessarily given the opportunity to apply for some sort of funding to implement our strategy.
Senator Marshall: When you say you received no government funding, does that mean you have not applied yet or you applied and were rejected?
Mr. Amiruddin: There is no program that we can apply to specifically that fits directly into the work we are doing. From what I know, there is no specific program that I can apply to for funding for my program.
Senator Joyal: I understand from your answers to Senator Marshall that you were not part of the round table where representatives of various community groups and organizations involved with communities were called upon to share best practices and advise the Minister of Public Safety on initiatives to be taken.
Mr. Amiruddin: No, we are not.
Senator Joyal: You have never been invited?
Mr. Amiruddin: We have never been invited. If we were to deal with this particular issue honestly and highlight the problems posed by extremist ideology, and those interpretations within our cultural community that are problematic and give rise to extremist views and lead to radicalization, had it not been for the group that we set up of over 50 mosques and organizations throughout Canada, we would become a marginalized group. These other groups within our community are well funded from overseas governments in the establishment of their agendas.
One mosque particularly in Mississauga, where I am from, according to The Globe and Mail, was given over $5 million to start and $1.5 million every year, so they could fund their organization and carry out their plans.
If we were to tell that organization that these particular ideas or these particular books or teachings found in their mosque or in the library at their mosque, while they do not call for terrorism against Canada or any other country for that matter, are still conducive to the radicalization process, right away we would have an issue with them. We would have a hard time working with them because they would reject our findings. The findings are not ours, but rather those of experts in the field.
The Chair: Is it fair to conclude as a final matter, that because your organization has been so hands on, so direct and prepared to confront some of the elephants in the room that others do not want to talk about, both inside your community — which is not monolithic — and also inside the broader Canadian community, that work has made some people uncomfortable with your efforts because they have been so direct and so hands on? Am I overstating that point?
Mr. Amiruddin: No, I think you are stating it as it is. That is exactly the current condition that we are faced with.
If I can conclude with this point: I hope this meeting will allow the committee to see the importance of funding — or supporting through resources — organizations like mine that are working toward this important goal, which is of benefit to all Canadians.
The Chair: Sheik, I want to thank you for your time this afternoon. I know I speak for all my colleagues. It has been refreshing and encouraging that a young Canadian leader would take this kind of initiative and be prepared to share it with us this afternoon. Thank you very much.
Mr. Amiruddin: You are welcome.
The Chair: Colleagues, I need a two-minute, in camera session to talk about one or two future items.
(The committee continued in camera.)