Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 12 - Evidence - Meeting of December 8, 2014
OTTAWA, Monday, December 8, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 1:02 p.m. to study and report on security threats facing Canada.
Senator Daniel Lang (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence for Monday, December 8, 2014. Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to begin by introducing the people around the table. My name is Dan Lang, senator for Yukon.
We have Josée Thérien, clerk of the committee, and our Library of Parliament analyst assigned to the committee, Holly Porteous.
I would like to go around the table, invite each senator to introduce themselves and state the region they represent, starting with our deputy chair.
Senator Mitchell: Grant Mitchell, Alberta.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Stewart Olsen: Carolyn Stewart Olsen, New Brunswick.
Senator Beyak: Lynn Beyak, Ontario.
Senator Enverga: Tobias Enverga, Ontario.
Senator White: Vernon White, Ontario.
The Chair: Colleagues, on June 19, 2014, the Senate agreed that the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence be authorized to study and report on security threats facing Canada, including but not limited to, cyber espionage, threats to critical infrastructure, terrorist recruitment and financing, terrorist operations and prosecutions, and that the committee report to the Senate no later than December 31, 2015.
This afternoon, the committee will be meeting for four hours as we continue our look at threats to Canada, specifically terrorism. We will be hearing from academics, legal experts, a moderate Muslim professor who has written extensively on this subject, and a representative from the Sûreté du Québec.
This weekend, Canadians were exposed to another video by a radicalized Canadian fighting with ISIS who called upon Muslims in Canada to either join the jihad or sharpen their knives. This young man is a Canadian but has decided to wage war on Canada, Canadians and our allies on behalf of the Muslim caliphate that he claims has been established by ISIS.
As noted before at our committee, we need to understand how young Canadians are becoming radicalized, where they are becoming radicalized and who is radicalizing them through religious doctrine and a victimhood narrative. This national conversation is an opportunity to learn more about the threats Canadians face, what is being done and what more should be done to ensure peace, order and good government.
So far, we have learned that at least 93 Canadians have been defined as high-risk travellers. They are seeking to leave Canada to support ISIS. These people are under surveillance or have had their passports seized. There are 80 Canadians and dual nationals who have returned to Canada after providing material support for ISIS. This includes two young sisters who were in high school in Brampton, Ontario, and were intercepted in Turkey en route to join ISIS and who have been returned to Canada.
We know that there are 145 Canadians currently abroad with ISIS. Together, with an official list, 318 Canadians pose a threat. This list may be much higher when one considers the fact that we do not know all the radicalized individuals in our communities.
Last week, Canadians learned about a 15-year-old in Montreal who was arrested for robberies for the purpose of supporting terrorism. We also learned last week from Marc Parent, Director of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, that they do not have a dedicated team tracking terrorism financing or monitoring radicalization in schools or religious institutions. In Canada, we are learning that the threat is significant.
FINTRAC, the agency that tracks terrorist funding and organized crime, made 1,143 disclosures to law enforcement agencies in 2013-14, up from 919 the previous year. Of that, 234 were related to terrorist financing or threats to the security of Canada. This is almost a doubling of cases reported from previous years and represents over 600 incidents.
Colleagues, to begin our look at threats faced by Canada and Canadians, we're joined by Jocelyn Bélanger, Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal. Professor Bélanger is an assistant professor of psychology and has focused on the psychology of radicalization and deradicalization.
Professor, welcome to the committee. I understand you have an opening statement. Please begin.
Jocelyn Bélanger, Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, as an individual: Mr. Chairman, thank you for extending an invitation to me in order to present my views on the threat of radicalization and terrorism before this committee.
This is a complicated issue and given the time constraints of this hearing today, my remarks may sound too simplistic. This is why I believe that addressing from the get-go several misconceptions associated with terrorism is much needed in order to clarify what the psychology of terrorism is and is not based on actual evidence.
One spontaneous reaction that comes to mind with tragedies such as those we've seen in Quebec and Ottawa this year is that this is madness and these people are completely out of their minds. Indeed, the very concept of killing and ultimately sacrificing one's life for a cause is perplexing.
Our reactions to these violent behaviours are normal, however, because we usually conceive of individuals as hedonistic beings seeking pleasure, avoiding pain and motivated to survive above all. Although this is true on a mundane level, the motivation that propels individuals to radicalize is much different. To believe that radicalized individuals are crazy or are not playing with a full deck would be our first mistake in developing effective counter- terrorism strategies.
The mental instability hypothesis rather reflects our profound misunderstanding of the process of radicalization. And because of our human propensity to demonize that which we do not understand, we often assume too rapidly that something wrong is going on in their minds. If anything, unstable individuals are weeded out of these organizations because they are security liabilities.
A second misconception is that radicalized individuals can be profiled. Unfortunately, profiling predicated on demographics, level of education and socio-economic status has been scientifically discredited. Radicalized individuals come from many different walks of life and do not fit any specific mould, at least from the data that scholars currently have.
Rather than proposing that radicalized individuals are mentally ill or endowed with specific personality traits, my colleagues and I examine issues of radicalization with the assumption that radicalization can be explained in terms of sweeping social forces, which create a cognitive opening for radical ideologies. In other words, we assume that anybody could become radical under the right set of circumstances.
To uncover the circumstances under which individuals come to harbour radical beliefs, we have undertaken several research projects with collaborators in Canada, the U.S., Morocco, Spain, the Philippines, Palestine and Sri Lanka — a journey through the hearts and minds of radicals, as it were.
We have had the privilege of being granted access to locations around the world where few social scientists were given the opportunity of going. In particular, we have been to prisons in Sri Lanka to meet over 10,000 terrorists that were part of the Tamil Tigers, an organization credited with the invention of the suicide belt. We've also been to prisons in the Philippines where we examined the psyche of jihadists who fought for a radical version of Islam.
Note that all these different groups of individuals were fighting for very different ideologies. Yet, despite these ideological differences, we found striking similarities between extremists around the globe. Today I'd like to share with you some of our findings.
We found that across these different groups of people, the need to hold radical attitudes is typically based on the need to be someone, to matter, to be respected, a phenomenon which my dear colleague Dr. Arie Kruglanski at the University of Maryland coined as the ''quest for personal significance.'' This is a universal human motive that is well documented in psychological science. When significance is lost, individuals are propelled to retrieve it. Why? Because significance is the ingredient that binds our psychological life together. Without it, our own existence feels meaningless.
Far from it being an airy-fairy concept, we know that the loss of significance has profound psychological implications for individuals. For instance, neuroscientific evidence published in the prestigious Science magazine has evinced that the brain regions associated with physical pain are the same as those with social pain, which can be, for example, triggered by social ostracism. In other words, the loss of significance deeply hurts.
The question you may be asking is, why does it matter for radicalization? There are multiple ways of regaining significance. For example, one can be a role model, have a successful career, and be dedicated to pro-social pursuits. The problem with these means to significance is that they are very slow and necessitate resolve and persistence, while providing little encouragement. A much faster route, the highway to significance, if you wish, is fighting for radical ideology that provides significance through the demonstration of power, harming victims and inducing fear in others. This is exactly why ISIS propaganda has been strikingly effective. Their ideology dictates the actions required to become a hero, a martyr, a rock star. Case in point: One of the Tsarnaev brothers responsible for the 2013 Boston bombing was put on the front page of Rolling Stone magazine.
The urgency of fixing the loss of significance makes these militants leave their own culture and go off to embrace some ideology about which they know very little. For instance, we learned this year that Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed, two British jihadis who went to fight in Syria last year, ordered The Koran for Dummies from Amazon before they departed. This, or course, does not suggest they're dummies. Rather, it suggests that radicalized individuals are rarely ideologues; they're meaning-seekers. They seek an ideology that's predigested, easy to assimilate, black and white, but, above all, significance-providing.
So what are the implications for counter-terrorism? The first implication is that if we are to stop the ever-growing number of westerners joining the ranks of terrorist organizations, we need to devise a counter-narrative to reduce the appeal of terrorism. Efforts in that sense have begun with 100 U.K. imams that have signed a letter urging British Muslims not to travel to Syria or Iraq. This is a reasonable approach because defeating these organizations on theological grounds will reduce the perception that these organizations can bestow significance. But this is only the tip of the iceberg and the beginning, and further effort needs to be expanded to social media, where most of ISIS propaganda is located.
For those already involved in radical organizations, those who will come back from Iraq and Syria to Canada and those flagged as potential recruits right now, there is a silver lining. There exists de-radicalization programs in the U.S., the U.K., the Middle East and Asia that have been developed to change the hearts and minds of radicals. Strangely enough, Canada doesn't have such programs, despite there being very effective counter-terrorism strategies. For example, recidivism rates reported from Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Sri Lanka usually oscillate between zero and 10 per cent, which is fantastic.
In Sri Lanka, where we gathered experimental evidence, we have found that the recipe for success involves two things: one, treating the beneficiaries with respect and dignity; and, two, offering them vocational education so they can return as meaningful members of society. In other words, by fulfilling their quest for personal significance, the beneficiaries of these programs are capable of disengaging from political violence, reintegrating into society and in fact becoming beacons of hope, peace and positive change for others.
Thank you for listening. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bélanger.
Senator Mitchell: That was very interesting. The nature of your analysis is unique and we haven't heard it before. You're saying that they're looking for purpose and there are many ways to find it. I think you've probably answered this question, but why is it that so many are attracted at this particular time to jihadist purposes? Is it just because it has got such a profile in the press?
Mr. Bélanger: I believe it's part of the zeitgeist, meaning that it's everywhere in the media. The ideology is very accessible to people seeking significance.
Senator Mitchell: So there's nothing particularly significant about a given religion. It's about this particular war. It might be the same parallel from the 1930s of going to Spain to fight a war.
Mr. Bélanger: Exactly.
Senator Mitchell: Somehow in your own mind you create this idea that you're a hero by doing this.
Mr. Bélanger: As I said, compared to alternative means to reach significance, this is the one that's being perceived as the fastest. We saw some interviews with failed suicide bombers, and they said that pressing the button was one click away from paradise, the quickest way to significance.
Senator Mitchell: It was counterintuitive to some extent, your latter remark about your experience with Sri Lankan and Saudi Arabian recidivism, how they deal with people when they come back. I've heard that the European Union has similar practices where they actually weed out and analyze each individual to see what exactly might be their problem and how to solve it. You said that they show them respect and give them employment training; the gut reaction is to put them in jail and throw away the key. Could you square that circle, as it were?
Mr. Bélanger: Sure. These individuals have blood on their hands and need to be punished according to the laws we have in our societies. That's a given. They are not all killers, by the way. Some of them play different roles in the terrorist organization, for example, providing finances, or they had a supportive role in the organization. Those people who do not have blood on their hands, what we show is that, compared to a control group, those treated with respect and dignity and given vocational reintegration into society are able to be part of society without committing further acts of terrorism.
What's very interesting about this is that if you compare the recidivism rate with Guantanamo, for example, individuals tortured in those prisons, when shipped back to Saudi Arabia their recidivism was 20 per cent. In Sri Lanka, where there was no sign of torture whatsoever, their recidivism rate right now is zero per cent. It's very inchoate in nature. It's a very young program. It's the 2.0 version of the Saudi Arabian program, the Singapore program, but it's phenomenal to see the striking difference between the two rates.
Senator Mitchell: You mentioned the importance of counter-narrative. Who determines that? Where do we find people who can determine that and how do we communicate it? If someone chooses not to click on that particular website because they're inclined to click on the other website, how do you get that message to them?
Mr. Bélanger: That's a very good question indeed. We're walking this fine line between civil liberties and free speech. It's very difficult to remove this type of propaganda from the Internet, like anything. I believe this would be a strong counter-narrative that's being sent out by religious figures to have authority upon those matters, one that tells a message that's very different, that tells, for example, that Islam doesn't condone the killing of innocents, that it's sinful. That's why I said earlier with regard to the letter signed by 100 imams in the U.K. that it is a step in the right direction.
I think much more effort in the same sense needs to be done. One letter won't be enough. We need this message to be hammered over and over again so it becomes as accessible as ISIS propaganda, for example.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you, professor. This is very interesting. Are there other studies available, especially about radicalization in Canada, about how and where people become radicalized?
Mr. Bélanger: Usually in the literature, people would suggest that mosques or madrasas, which are religious schools, would be places where people would become radicalized.
With regard to the madrasas in Pakistan, there is some evidence that shows that it's more about social networks. That's one of the main predictors of radicalization, whether the social networks are online with Twitter, Facebook and so forth, or people attending the same mosque or school that might have radical beliefs.
Scholars that looked at the Red Brigades in Italy during the 1970s or al Qaeda in the early 2000s showed that 67 per cent of the people that joined radical organizations had someone in their social network who was radical. That is the key factor here.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I see an enormous difficulty. I certainly know everyone needs to matter. Everyone needs to feel that they are an important person. Many of these people are young people, many of them university students. You expect all of these people to feel that they matter.
I know what you're saying. In Sri Lanka probably many of them were not, but here they are. So where are they getting radicalized? Are groups tending to be in universities?
That's what I can't understand. You look at people who seem to have everything, all the benefits of a middle-class upbringing, yet based on your theory — and I certainly agree that that's probably why — I don't understand where that disconnect comes, that they don't feel that they matter.
Mr. Bélanger: Thank you for the question. It's very interesting.
I believe that significance is in the eye of the beholder, meaning that significance is not the amount of money you have in your pocket; it's your perception of how rich you are relative to other people. Individuals who might be middle class or upper middle class and have all the benefits of our rich societies might be seen as having a silver spoon. Why are they feeling insignificant? We can't understand this, but yet it's in the perception of these individuals. It's a psychological phenomenon rather than an objective reality.
In schools, for example, people can be bullied. Like I said earlier, social ostracism creates social pain, feeling rejected. For example, if you are Muslim in Canada and you are rejected for employment or housing, this affects your sense of significance. Even though you may have money in the bank, it doesn't matter. It's how people treat you in society. That's where this disconnect might be created.
Senator Stewart Olsen: It seems that the trend is upward now, that we have more people, at least that we know about. I don't know if this is correct or not, but I think after 9/11, people started to look at Muslims as —
Mr. Bélanger: Absolutely.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Do you think that may be part of the problem, that the rest of society is maybe looking a bit askance?
Mr. Bélanger: Absolutely. That's actually the goal of terrorist organizations. It's something called jiu-jitsu politics. If you know martial arts a little bit, jiu-jitsu is using your opponent's strength in order to win the fight. What they do is create terrorist attacks, instill fear in society in order for us to retaliate against certain groups or communities. By alienating these communities in our society, it provides tools to those terrorist organizations to offer a narrative of oppression, an ideology which suggests the means to alleviate the grievance.
This is exactly what you're talking about. By looking down at some communities, by reacting out of prejudice or fear, we actually create even more momentum for those radical organizations to recruit more people.
Senator Beyak: You already alluded to this in your presentation, and I wondered if you could elaborate more on how the de-radicalization process is working in other countries. You say we don't have a way yet.
Mr. Bélanger: Absolutely. There have been some horror stories and success stories. I will talk about the success stories.
What seems to be common in these successful de-radicalization programs is, first of all, they operate on a voluntary basis. People join because they want to. If they don't want to, they can face justice.
Once they're in their de-radicalization program, these beneficiaries — that is the term being used in those centres, not ''terrorists'' but ''beneficiaries,'' not to put a label on those individuals — will be offered training to reintegrate into society. There is also psychological counselling with psychiatrists and psychologists.
We need to make sure that when these people get out of the programs, usually between 6 and 12 months, sometimes up to 18 months, after the program they're released into a social network, their families and communities, and make sure they have a job. So they are fully integrated in society. Sometimes we make their family accountable for that family member, meaning that if that family member is involved in other actions of terrorism, the family will be held accountable. Those social mechanisms prevent the person from re-engaging in terrorism.
What's very striking is they need to be fully integrated in the community, and the family needs to play a role in that success. They need to have a job and feel like a successful member of society. That's very important.
To prevent the stigma that's associated with having committed terrorist acts, they have to be called beneficiaries. If you look at the literature in criminology, the fact of having a label on you is terrible, because you feel ostracized from society from the get-go, and then you tend to join groups of the same label so as not to feel the same oppression. Criminals will stick with criminals because they feel equal. Those are the principles we've discovered.
Senator Beyak: In that same vein, you mentioned not the ones with blood on their hands already. They are probably past this.
Mr. Bélanger: Unfortunately, if people have committed acts of terrorism or they kill people, to de-radicalize them will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. As I said, this research is very inchoate in nature, so we don't know if they can actually de-radicalize. One thing for sure, people who have killed other people need to be prosecuted by the laws we have in place in our society.
Senator White: Thank you very much for being here, Mr. Bélanger.
Mr. Bélanger: My pleasure.
Senator White: Some of the terminology you use is similar to what experts in gang recruitment use in Los Angeles, for example. They talk about finding people with no reason to live, and you can give them a reason to die. They also talk about the manner in which they recruit them, focusing on their families as much as the individual and, in particular, the psychology around if you can recruit the family to a better place, you can often recruit the derivative, the child, to a better place. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about here as well, focusing not just on the individual and radicalization but turning the family into a part of this success?
Mr. Bélanger: Yes. I think individuals on their own can radicalize with all the information available online. Terrorist organizations are almost de facto interested in recruiting more members of the family, because these people have more bonds of trust in each other.
However, when secret services pick one individual, they know what the social network is, so it's a security liability for the whole organization. But you're right in the sense that they're interested in recruiting family members and friends because it creates strong links. It's more difficult for an individual to leave the organization because they're embedded in the organization. They have social links among those people and perhaps depend economically on those people.
Senator White: I am speaking from a de-radicalization perspective. Those who are trying to de-radicalize an individual or we see who is being targeted often and in particular when we look at the gang mentality, which I will use as my example, you know they're going to be targeted, to get their family around them and have them moving it forward, not just an outside group or even people within the mosque, for example.
Mr. Bélanger: In the realm of de-radicalization you're right; it is very important to get the family on board to make sure there is a new social network. The person, for example, is not released into a social vacuum after the program. They are well supported by family and friends. If family and friends are radicals, we need to remove them from their social networks as well.
Senator White: You talked about success stories. My understanding is that in Australia it has not been a success story, and I have looked at a large amount of the work. In fact I think they cancelled their most recent program around de-radicalization. They've moved it out into the communities, contracted it out pretty well when it comes to the de- radicalization, funded organizations to deliver what many of the countries you call success stories have kept in-house. Have you done any work on the Australian model?
Mr. Bélanger: No, I haven't read anything on that particular model. I have been mainly focused on the Middle East model, including the Saudi Arabian case and also Southeast Asia — Singapore and the Philippines.
The Chair: Perhaps I could follow up on Senator White's question because I think it's important for the record here. All my readings have led me to believe that the de-radicalization program in Saudi Arabia has not been that successful. In fact, a number of individuals have gone into the program and then left the program and become involved further with the fighting going on in the Middle East.
Where do you get your statistics and why do you think they are more valid than other reports that we read?
Mr. Bélanger: Because we're talking about different groups. Like I said earlier, people from Guantanamo were released back into Saudi Arabia. Those are individuals who committed acts of terrorism. People who were de- radicalized in Saudi Arabia show very low rates of recidivism. This means that we have the same numbers, but we have to distinguish between the two groups: people who came from Guantanamo or people who came only from Saudi Arabia.
The Chair: When you talk about de-radicalization, what are we talking about in numbers? Is it 100 people or 200 people?
Mr. Bélanger: I believe the Saudi program has released approximately 1,500 to 2,000 detainees back into society. That is from what I recall; I don't have the specific numbers.
The Chair: I just wanted to get a sense of the magnitude.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Bélanger. You and I have both noticed how a kind of radicalization is taking hold in Quebec, such as with the events at Saint-Jean-sir-Richelieu, or, just recently, with the young 15-year-old man who was turned into the police by his father. What do you recommend that we do, especially in Quebec, in the face of recent events, and, more specifically, in the case of the young 15-year-old who was using social media to fuel his radicalization?
Mr. Bélanger: That is an excellent question. My opinion is that it is really important to work closely with the community and the families of people like that. In the case of the 15-year-old Maghrebian, he was reported by his father, as I understand it. We see that also in Great Britain where family members play an important role in being the first to raise the red flag and to say, ''Let us be careful: my son is becoming alienated and radicalized.'' We have to find a way of being able to communicate and, perhaps, for the police, to find a way to reach out to those families in order to work with them, as well as with members of the religious community. As a suggestion, it is not specific, but, in my view, the work has to be done at community level, and the police are already well equipped to do it.
Senator Dagenais: I have another question. We currently have laws that prohibit the glorification of terrorism, especially of terrorist organizations. I would like to hear your opinion about them. What is your position on that kind of legislation?
Mr. Bélanger: That is an excellent question too. As I said earlier, the Tsarnaev brother's photo appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine was taken up by social media and used as an example of success by radical groups. So a law prohibiting the glorification of terrorist acts against our society is a good thing because it prevents the message getting out that fighting for this ideology makes one a hero or a rock star. In that sense, it is an excellent law, in my opinion.
[English]
Senator Enverga: You mentioned that the cause of radicalization is self-significance, but do you also think that radicalized individuals act out as a result of politically motivated religious doctrine? If so, what is the doctrine or ideology that is guiding the 318 known radicals we have right now?
Mr. Bélanger: Like I said earlier, I believe these people are not ideologues; they don't fully understand what they're fighting for.
It's funny in a way; people arrested for acts of terror in Ireland, for example, were put into prison. While they were behind bars, they had plenty of time to read about their ideology, and they realized, ''Oops, perhaps I should get myself into politics instead of the IRA,'' and that's surprisingly the case.
I believe most of these individuals are indeed fighting for political ideologies. Instead of just talking about Islam or a Sri Lankan case which is a case of ethno-nationalism, we also have cases with environmentalists, for example. They are willing to commit acts of sabotage under certain circumstances. This means that the entire gamut of ideology is out there and people can cling to those different ideologies to assuage their feelings of significance.
Does that answer your question?
Senator Enverga: Yes, in some ways, but you have dealt with different countries. Are other countries the same as they are radicalized the here in Canada? Are there no ideologies over there, no religious doctrine; is that what you're saying?
Mr. Bélanger: I think there is an entire gamut of ideologies. For example, in the Sri Lankan community there were ethno-nationalists who wanted a separate country, and the same thing in Ireland. In Spain it was a case of Islam. There is no specific ideology that people cling to in general. It can be any one, as long as it provides significance.
I'm not sure I'm getting to the heart of your question.
Senator Enverga: It has more to do with religious doctrines. Are they at all part of the reason why they're radicalized?
Mr. Bélanger: It could be, but not necessarily. Like I said earlier, there are cases of environmentalists who commit arson. They set a slaughterhouse on fire, for example, and they commit acts of terrorism abroad and also locally. It's not necessarily a case of religious doctrine; it can be anything, but it is always politically motivated.
The Chair: I want to follow up on the political/religious doctrine that Senator Enverga referred to. I think it's important that we centre on this. We read that there are finances coming into Canada, which I'm sure you've read about because of your knowledge of Saudi Arabia and de-radicalization. There is money coming into not only Canada, but the United States, France, United Kingdom, from certain sects within the Saudi Arabian community to finance this very extreme religious ideology being preached in some institutions in this country. Would that be of concern to you? Is that an area that the community, those involved directly with it and society as a whole, should be taking a serious look at and seeing how we can address it?
Mr. Bélanger: Absolutely. Financing is vital to those enterprises. There are several connections between terrorist organizations and also criminal organizations involved in drugs and weapons smuggling and so on. The two are intertwined intimately and they collaborate together.
There is a scholar in Italy — I forget her name — who has written extensive books on this, talking about the underground economic system of terrorist organizations, and she says also it's intertwined with criminal organizations.
With regard to Canada, I am not an expert on those issues of financing — I'm a psychologist, not an economist — but of course this is very important to look at. We have seen, for example, the case with the Tamil community in the west part of Canada that was financing Tamil Tigers abroad by sending money to those organizations. So, yes, it is vital for our institutions to look at these monetary transactions and stop them because they are fuelling those terrorist organizations.
Senator Mitchell: The question of getting people into programs, you mentioned that there are successes in some places. Are those programs delivered to these people while they're in prison, generally? Is that an integral component of making the program successful?
Mr. Bélanger: It's interesting. So it's not necessarily a prison, per se. They can't really leave, but they're not behind bars. It's more like an open space area, more like a school, if you wish. Their freedom of movement is less limited than in prison, but they can't leave the compound, if you wish.
Senator Mitchell: In a society like Canada, there is the example of the fellow in Quebec who killed the soldier, and we took his passport away. I know you're a psychologist, not a lawyer, but what's your assessment of how you get that person to a program where he can be worked on and potentially ''fixed''?
Mr. Bélanger: I think what happens worldwide is that we offer the choice to those people either to face the law essentially for the crimes they committed or to go into rehab. I think that's the deal that's being proposed.
In the case of Sri Lanka, there was a deal that was given by the government to the whole group. We're talking about 10,000 people, a huge number. It's a collective de-radicalization program. We said to them, ''You can run away — we're going to prosecute you with our laws — or you can join the program. It's up to you.''
So those people really have to make the choice of joining these programs, because it needs to be intrinsically motivated. If this is being forced upon them, like in the case of Guantanamo, this will lead to horror stories; people will not be committed to changing.
Senator Mitchell: Is there a conundrum here that if you focus on community outreach efforts — which many, and I, would subscribe to — focus in a given community, in a sense aren't you saying that there is something intrinsically wrong with that given community and you defeat the purpose of the outreach there? Is that a legitimate concern? If so, how do you overcome it?
Mr. Bélanger: Absolutely. These are very delicate actions that need to be taken. Of course, like I was saying earlier to Senator Stewart Olsen, we risk alienating those communities even more by fuelling them or opening them to the narrative of oppression from terrorist organizations.
This is very delicate. I think the people engaging in those community outreach efforts are good at creating solid bonds made out of trust instead of just imposing their views on to them. I think those people are doing a proper job. But yes, it is a concern, of course. We have to be careful in the way we approach these communities.
Senator Mitchell: This may be superficial in one sense, but I'm intrigued by the idea that we call them terrorists. ''Terrorist'' has a glorification of its own right now. Why don't we just call them ''criminals''?
Mr. Bélanger: It's a good point. It's like the question from Senator Dagenais. If we glorify them, and if ''terrorist'' is a word that glorifies them, perhaps we should change our lingo. Again, I'm not sure which word I would use, but that's an excellent comment.
Senator Stewart Olsen: One of the things that I think we in Canada have difficulty getting our minds around is that, for instance, in the most recent terrorism, they killed one person, or two. In Moncton we had three RCMP officers killed. But the magnitude of their actions seems to be getting greater.
Most Canadians can't understand: How you can grow up in a country like Canada and yet do these things with impunity? We can't seem to get from A to B in that thinking, and that will hinder us when we try to help or try to prevent these things from happening. We can't understand how someone can go from the kind of country we live in — and have even still, I would say — where an entire city comes to a standstill because we're shocked at the violence, to people who — it's a day-to-day existence. They didn't grow up in that, and that's what I have such a hard time grasping.
Mr. Bélanger: Indeed, these questions are perplexing and enigmatic in a way, and you raise a very good point.
We can start to understand why those people engage in those actions by linking the neuroscientific evidence. The brain areas that display social pain are the same for physical pain, meaning that over time when you feel ostracized, bullied and excluded, you feel extreme pain. Of course, people don't necessarily see it, but you feel it, and it's like being stabbed by a knife; it's very painful. Therefore, any means to alleviate that pain are perceived as adequate. That's how I see the problem here.
I cannot help but make a link with, for example, shootings in schools in the United States, where those kids have been bullied and alienated, and then they take a weapon from home, go to school and act out of vengeance. I think it's very similar. The only difference is that those kids don't necessarily have a political ideology; they are purely fuelled by vengeance. But I think the same thing is occurring. There is a social pain present in both cases.
The Chair: Let's get a little closer to home, the University of Ottawa. We have a video. Did you see that video over the weekend?
Mr. Bélanger: Yes.
The Chair: And you listened to that video?
Mr. Bélanger: Absolutely.
The Chair: I listened to that video, and quite frankly that wasn't an individual who I could see had any mental disabilities. He was very well spoken, extremely well spoken. He came from a background where he played hockey in the rink next door, as he said. He obviously had a social background because he played the guitar and had a social circle that he obviously travelled in. Yet we have a situation where he has turned on his country. He has obviously been indoctrinated at least from a political/religious point of view. Perhaps you could give us your take. In respect to your field of study, why would an individual do what he's doing?
Mr. Bélanger: I believe this person might have been well integrated. Actually, I don't know the biographical notes of that person, but I assume at one point that he was fed up, perhaps bored of our society, and felt that he perhaps didn't fit in with other people in society — that would be my hypothesis — and that led to a quest for personal significance.
That's my theoretical take on this, and it's backed up by hard evidence in the labs, for example, in all the countries I have mentioned earlier. That would be my take on this: someone who doesn't fit in. Despite being well integrated, perhaps he has a psychological perception that he is not one of those members of society.
Senator Enverga: You mentioned that there seems to be no politically motivated religious doctrine, but in our recent news we have been hearing that there is a tendency for these individuals to move to another religion, and then they commit those activities. Can you comment on that? What kind of doctrines are there?
Mr. Bélanger: In the case of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, if I'm not mistaken the young person converted to Islam very rapidly, in the sense that all of a sudden he became a fanatic, a very zealous person about this religious doctrine.
Like I said earlier, those people are looking for a pre-digested type of ideology. They are not scholars of Islam. As a case in point, they bought The Koran for Dummies. They are looking for a bullet point presentation on how to be a good Muslim. I think that is what's happening. They have a quest for personal significance that is being awakened and aroused. They look at the ideologies available in the cafeteria, and they take the one that provides significance in the quickest way. They are not ideologues; they're meaning seekers and cling to an ideology that provides significance.
Senator Enverga: You mentioned that they are seeking bullet points. Are there bullet points in the readings that are causing this? Is there any particular reading that we should be concerned about?
Mr. Bélanger: In the case of Islam, if you become a martyr, you apparently have access to 72 virgins; you will meet Allah and all the other martyrs in heaven, and you are promised amazing rewards. That speaks to the idea that clicking the button and blowing yourself up is the quickest way to significance.
Senator Mitchell: Maybe it's obvious, but is one of the issues with these people sometimes a history of family abuse? There was a suggestion this fellow over the weekend had experienced abuse in the family, violence in the family.
Mr. Bélanger: It could be, but I don't think that's necessarily a common trait among all those people. It would be a mistake to say it's because of abuse at home, but certainly abuse at home denigrates the person and perhaps even creates an identity crisis and a lot of traumatic experiences.
It's not necessarily mental illness, but from my perspective it speaks to the lack of personal significance to that person. Your family isn't taking care of you, so how much are you worth?
Senator Mitchell: This again may be obvious, but I would like to get your thoughts on it. When you talk of these de- radicalization programs that you say have been successful in certain cases and not in others, would it be useful to use already de-radicalized people to assist officials? And is it possible that regarding the success in Singapore and the case in Saudi Arabia, versus the apparent lack of success that Senator White is suggesting is the case in Australia, they have come back to Muslim communities, so if they were radicalized by a perversion of that religion, at least they are surrounded in the process of rehabilitation by people of that community?
Mr. Bélanger: Sure. That community is moderate, though, so it moderates their zealousness.
You said perhaps de-radicalized individuals could help other people to de-radicalize. That is a bit like what I said earlier; they can be the beacons of change. When you have people being de-radicalized, they reintegrate into society, and those who are radicalized see these individuals as former colleagues, perhaps. That triggers doubt in their minds. If they see someone who was de-radicalized and they were friends with them and all of a sudden the person is very different, it creates uncertainty about their own beliefs and that perhaps stimulates the possibility of change.
Senator Beyak: Some of the points you made are very interesting.
I met a psychologist last spring at a breakfast for mental illness, and she said basically the same thing. We are putting too much on to mental illness in these cases. She said that often she's called to the emergency room at four or five in the morning to talk to young people who are just lonely. They have no family, no one in the community, and it spoke to me because of what you said on the de-radicalization issue, getting people involved again. Are we breaking down society too much so that people have no hope?
Mr. Bélanger: It's a very good comment. Thank you for mentioning this because we know that people with mental illness are stigmatized in our society, and now on top of that to say they may be terrorists or future radicals, imagine the label we are putting on those people trying to change their lives.
The evidence is very clear about mental illness and terrorism. There is actually no link. They are weeded out of these organizations because they are a liability for the organization.
Also, if you look at terrorist attacks, they always occur in waves. They have some sort of synchronicity between these actions. If you are mentally unstable, you would be erratic, random and chaotic. It's very organized. It is always on political targets as well, so it's not random necessarily. There have been extensive interviews with the families, with would-be suicide bombers, and they are media reports. These things have been analyzed deeply and suggest almost the absence of mental illness, quite to the contrary.
Senator Beyak: Thank you very much. It's an excellent point.
The Chair: We have almost come to the end and we could go on for another hour with questions in respect to the issues that you speak of. However, in respect to this case, we have a number of areas where we have extremists, but obviously within the radical ideology of the Islamic faith, on the extreme side of it, this is an area causing the most concern.
I have a question for you: It is one thing to speak about treating radicalization, but how do you prevent radicalization? That's probably more important. From your perspective regarding the question of the Internet or the teachings that are perhaps taking place in some of these institutions, what would you recommend government or governments do to try and minimize the risk we're presently facing?
Mr. Bélanger: This is a very complex question. Of course Islam is a concern because it's everywhere in the media. I agree with you in the sense that we need to be more preventive rather than reactive to prevent radicalization versus engaging only in de-radicalization.
The first thing to do is fight on theological grounds, to fight fire with fire. That has been used in Saudi Arabia, as you know. Imams, for example, would be using the Quran to look at the verses in the Quran, showing the radical person evidence in the scriptures that the Quran doesn't support the killing of innocents.
In other words, we need to get out there and send the message that Islam doesn't support this. On the contrary, it's sinful. That would be a way to attack the ideology that people cling to in order to gain significance. I think that's something which needs to be out there more.
Like I said earlier, there have been some steps in that direction with imams signing a letter jointly saying that Muslims should not go abroad and fight for jihad, and so on. This needs to be put on steroids and publicized everywhere, as much as possible. This letter will be lost at sea at some point, so we need to reinforce this message.
The Chair: Time has passed us by, colleagues, so I would like to thank Professor Bélanger. It has been a very interesting hour.
Mr. Bélanger: Thank you very much.
The Chair: I appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise and thoughts with us. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you.
Joining us on the second panel are two experts in the field of terrorism and law: Jeremy Littlewood, Assistant Professor, who leads the Intelligence of National Security concentration of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. He is also a senior research affiliate with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security & Society. While his previous Kanishka-funded work concerned weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, Dr. Littlewood's most recent work has shifted to a focus on radicalization, the foreign fighter phenomenon and how these will affect Canada's national security in future years.
Seated next to him is Craig Forcese, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, University of Ottawa. Dr. Forcese teaches public international law, national security law, administrative law and public law and legislation at the University of Ottawa. Much of his present research and writing relates to national security, human rights and democratic accountability. Recently he has focused on law and national security surveillance, especially intelligence sharing between security services and cybersurveillance.
Professor Littlewood and Professor Forcese, welcome to the committee. I understand each of you have an opening statement.
Jeremy Littlewood, Assistant Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, as an individual: Let me thank the committee for allowing me to provide evidence today. It is an honour to do so. I was asked to consider three issues for the committee. I will concentrate my opening remarks on one of those issues, namely ''How do you see the problem of terrorism and radicalization in Canada?'' I will respond to questions on the other issues as best as I am able.
Canada faces a persistent, low-level threat from terrorism. It is not an existential threat: neither Canada as a state nor Canadian democracy will cease to exist as a result of terrorism. Nevertheless, terrorism does post a national security threat to Canada, and terrorism takes many forms.
I use the term ''persistent'' to mean that the problem of terrorism has a long history in Canada, and the indications from the last five years demonstrate a continuing problem in national security terms. There are no indications for the near term to suggest that terrorism will cease to be a threat to Canada.
I use ''low level'' to underline that there are no indications in the public domain of any group or entity actively targeting Canada in a coordinated campaign that is akin to the experience of the United Kingdom vis-à-vis the Irish Republican Army, or similar to the FLQ campaign in Canada's own history. Nor has Canada experienced recently mass casualty attacks similar to the London bombings of July 2005 or the Madrid bombings of March 2004 or, indeed, the mass casualty lone actor attack such as that by Anders Breivik in Norway in July 2011.
Within Canada, terrorist attacks and thwarted plots since September 11, 2001, have involved lone actors, small, self- forming cells or those inspired by certain ideologies or beliefs, rather than cells within a formal, structured group.
Post 9/11 attacks in Canada represent a mix of predominantly domestic actors. For example, we can see domestic attacks related to the bombings of gas pipelines in Alberta and British Columbia between 2008 and 2009. We see activity by the Earth Liberation Front, for example, in Guelph in 2006. The publically released, through access to information, CSIS intelligence assessment on the domestic threat environment for 2012 noted nine left-wing politically motivated bombings between 2004 and 2011. We've also seen the firebombing of the Royal Bank of Canada branch in Ottawa by an anarchist collective in 2010. This underscores the diversity and the ideological basis of the perpetrators — environmental, left-wing anarchist.
On right-wing violence in 2012, the CSIS report noted that right-wing extremism remains on the fringe of Canadian society and overt violence is rare. The heterogeneity of right-wing extremist groups has also been underlined by two reports this year by my colleagues in the TSAS network, one focusing on Quebec and the other on Canada in comparison to other states. This is an area where continued vigilance will be required.
Of course what is absent from the above is the predominant terrorist threat to Canada and other Western democracies since the late 1990s, terrorism perpetrated by al Qaeda or those inspired by its narrative. More recently, as we are all aware, acts inspired by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have also occurred and resulted in the death of two soldiers as well as the perpetrators of those acts.
Pre-October 2014, the list of thwarted attacks and arrests in Canada tied to the groups and cells linked to al Qaeda, or inspired by it, paint a picture of the ongoing threats. We are familiar with many of these: The Toronto 18 cases, with 11 convictions or guilty pleas; the convictions earlier this year of two individuals under the Project Samosa arrests, from August 2010; as well as the pending trials related to the VIA Rail plot and the Canada Day plot in 2013.
Individuals have also facilitated terrorism abroad. The cases of Momin Khawaja, convicted in 2008 and the conviction in 2009 of Said Namouh for terrorism-related offences illustrate this angle of the problem.
Evident from this is the predominance of self-starter, inspired by, or the so-called ''bunch of guys'' aspect of terrorism as it relates to attacks and thwarted attacks. Today, such entities represent a threat but a lower level threat than active, organized groups. Nevertheless, we should remain cautious. Let us not forget that terrorism does not follow linear trends. Our own experience with the human costs of the Air India attack in 1985 make this very plain. Low levels of terrorism or low death or casualty rates resulting from attacks are neither a guarantee nor an indicator that other groups or other ideologies will not emerge and strike and cause mass casualties.
As we're also aware, Canadians are involved with terrorist groups abroad, whether in acts of violence, training or in facilitation roles. This is the ''foreign fighter'' problem or the ''high-risk travellers'' as they are referred to in recent government literature and reports. A number of Canadians are reported to be dead and others are strongly suspected to be active in a number of states or regions. Some individuals have been prevented from travelling abroad, with the case of Mohamed Hersi serving as an example in this latter regard. And, as we have seen over the weekend, Canadians are part of ISIL's sophisticated communication strategy.
I also note for the committee that while the questions in today's session relates to ''in Canada,'' the problem of terrorism poses security issues outside of Canada in terms of threats to Canadians, such as death, injury, kidnapping and hostage-taking, and such actions are also threats to Canadian interests, be they economic or related to values. In fact, it's increasingly difficult to draw clear lines between the ''home'' and the ''abroad'' in terrorism cases.
Finally, some concluding observations: It's important I think to realize that not all terrorism in Canada is inspired by al Qaeda or its offshoots, although a significant proportion of it remains driven by that narrative. If we look at terrorism overall in 2013, 72 incidents were reported in the police reported crime statistics in Canada; in 2012, 114 incidents were reported, whereas in 2011, it was 59.
Events in 2014, including the attacks in October, the appearance of Canadians in propaganda videos and reports the committee has also heard from in terms of, for example, FINTRAC, note a rise in terrorism-related financial crime and other issues. These represent a diverse national security problem. The threat can also change rapidly.
In short, I think terrorism is a fact of life for Canada and, as a leading British scholar has remarked, it's something we have to learn to live with and it's something that we increasingly will have to learn to manage.
Thank you.
Craig Forcese, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), University of Ottawa, as an individual: Thanks to the committee for your invitation. Professor Littlewood and I informally coordinated, so I will be focusing on the third question that was posed to us, which is on the threat reduction tools. I wish first to provide some context using a diagram that I've circulated and I think may be in front of you.
The diagram contains several circles. The most important of those are foreign fighting, radicalization and terrorist activity. The first point is that there is sometimes a conflation in the public mind among these three phenomena. In at least some popular discourse, these three circles are not so much overlapping as identical. That is not true as an empirical matter.
Not all radicals are foreign fighters. Not all foreign fighters are radicalized. Finally, not every foreign fighter, not every radicalized individual and not even every radicalized foreign fighter is bound to commit a terrorist activity. Some do, but based on a data set spanning 1990 to 2010, we're talking about one in every nine foreign fighters returning to commit a domestic act of terror.
These are, of course, data that predate the implosion of Syria and Iraq and the ISIS phenomenon, and I suspect this ratio will change in the next decade. But the fact remains that these three categories of radicalization, foreign fighting and terrorist activity do not overlap in full, and that complicates life. If some but not all radicalized individuals or foreign fighters may commit a terrorist activity, pre-empting terrorist activity becomes more difficult.
My diagram presents this dilemma most starkly if you juxtapose what I've labelled zones 1, 2, and 3 with zones 4, 5 and 6. Zones 1, 2 and 3 represent the vast majority of foreign fighters or radicals who do not then involve themselves in terrorism. Zones 4, 5 and 6 represent those relatively few who do gravitate to terrorist activity and especially domestic terrorist activity. How, then, to stop those in zones 1, 2 and 3 from moving into zones 4, 5 and 6? The reality is that we are talking act some sort of pre-emptive approach; that is, stopping conduct before it reaches the point of actual terrorist activity.
In zones 7, 8 and 9, we have what I'll call ''criminal pre-emption.'' These are all the terrorism offences that are basically about conduct that has not yet reached the usually kinetic acts of violence associated with terrorist activity: facilitation, participation, instruction, the new rules on terrorist travel; also the general incitement rules in the Criminal Code, that is counselling an offence, aiding and abetting, conspiracy, et cetera.
All of these offences have one thing in common. Parliament has concluded that this conduct is sufficiently proximate to terrorist activity that it attracts criminal sanction. The issue after the Ottawa attacks is whether the criminal pre-emption circle is big enough. Should it reach even further into zones 1, 2 and 3? Personally, I think we need to be very careful in making an already vast circle even bigger. I'll return to this in a moment.
Criminal pre-emption is not perfect. Substantively there are limits to the crimes. Procedurally, they need to be proven in open court with real evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. For these reasons and others, criminal tools may not be used.
Instead, the government may resort to a buffet of other mechanisms represented by the circle marked ''administrative pre-emption'' and creating zones 10, 11 and 12. What are these? Passport revocation, no-fly lists — more efficiently known as passenger protect — citizenship revocation when it comes into force, recognizance with conditions — better known as peace bonds — immigration security certificates and regular immigration inadmissibility proceedings. These tools are a mixed bag. They each have pros and cons, which we can discuss if of interest.
I will say this, however: Peace bonds are mostly unexplored and probably should be explored more. I'm not personally persuaded that their non-use to date is a problem with burdens of proof.
Nothing in the circle is perfect, but collectively these measures amount to a fairly impressive arsenal.
My last tool circle focuses on what I'll call ''investigative pre-emption.'' This seems a contradiction in terms. An investigation is supposed to lead to something like a prosecution, not itself pre-empt. But of course the real world is more complicated. The most graphic use of investigative pre-emption would be an investigative hearing under the Criminal Code's anti-terrorism rules. Other investigative techniques include overt surveillance, covert wiretaps that reveal other, more easily prosecutable crimes, and even traffic stops. All these can provoke conduct that police can then act on.
Investigative pre-emption of this sort has obvious merits, but it is also potentially the most lawless form of counter- terrorism. Using police or security intelligence powers not to pursue criminal prosecutions or collect intelligence but instead to provoke and disrupt people who to that point were acting lawfully is a dangerous practice. Investigative pre- emption is an area calling out for careful policy guidance, possible legislative action and lots and lots of review by review bodies much more robust than those we have at present.
So where to now? Let me end with a few brief observations.
First, we need to solve the intelligence/evidence problem. I suspect that many potential prosecutions or peace bond processes lie in limbo because of this issue. The government needs to sit down with the Air India inquiry report and take its many recommendations on this issue seriously — something, I would add, it has not done with Bill C-44, amending the CSIS Act.
Second, we need to be wary about thinking that more criminal offences will solve our problems. Like Australia, I would like to see a robust foreign enlistment law to deal with the foreign fighters issue, but I think U.K., Spanish or French-style glorification offences are both unnecessary, constitutionally doubtful and, ironically, would shut down some of the very online speech that law enforcement and intelligence services turn to in order to unravel conspiracies. We need to be very nuanced in this area.
Third, giving the RCMP new criminal law without asking why they aren't using all the tools presently places the cart before the horse. This whole issue may be about resources, not so much law.
I would add this: I think we should be throwing money hand over fist at the RCMP's nascent Countering Violent Extremism program. We deceive ourselves in presenting this as a problem to be solved by prosecutions and penitentiaries. Law is a partial and imperfect strategy, and empirical studies of past de-radicalization efforts suggest that too much coercive law can precipitate exactly the consequences it is supposed to deter.
Last, if you keep pressing the thumb on more powers for the police and for the intelligence services and keep ignoring the fact that our review system is broken, you are queuing up another legitimacy crisis. The CSIS Act lasted 30 years more or less unamended because it was enacted with deliberation and balancing power with accountability. In comparison, the post-9/11 measures have lurched from controversy to challenge to new controversy. Policy and lawmakers need to sit down with the Arar commission policy report and take it seriously. Anti-terrorism law cannot be all sails and no anchor.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask one question, since both of you are from universities, and I will start out with Mr. Forcese.
Given of what we heard over the weekend with respect to an individual who had attended, in this case, the University of Ottawa, and was obviously active to some degree at the university for a period of time, my question would be this, to both of you: During the course of radicalization, is there some radicalization going on at the university level there that you may be knowledgeable about because that's where you work?
Mr. Forcese: I'm not familiar with the actual factual record here. I will say this: In my view, the university should be at the table with the RCMP and the countering violent extremism all-of-government, all-of-civil-society round-table approach that they've employed.
I'm not sure, as a factual matter, whether universities are involved. Universities are a sensitive sector for the purposes of police investigation. As you know, there's a ministerial directive in relation to investigations that take place in universities, so I think there would need to be a lot of cooperation and coordination between universities and police authorities.
On the particulars of your question, I don't know the factual scope of how much radicalization takes place on the average campus.
Mr. Littlewood: I think I'd also be somewhat blind and certainly lacking any hard evidence or reports that would indicate the scale or the potential scale of the threat coming from universities, either in Ottawa or Canada writ large. In one sense, we can see, if we look at past cases or individuals who have had some level of university education, I think it's broadly correct to presume, therefore, that universities probably play some role or some potential role within this countering violent extremism environment. I think what role that is, as my colleague mentioned, given that universities are a sensitive area for the police and the intelligence community, would require sitting down and thinking through quite carefully what realistically can be done as opposed to what would be wishful thinking.
At the end of the day, universities have a specific role here and it's not, in one sense, being at the forefront of policing Canadian society, in my view. A role, yes; pushing down responsibilities for which they don't have the powers to bear, I think we have to be very careful about thinking in that way.
The Chair: I want to follow this up because I think it is a general question for people with your background and expertise. Obviously a balance needs to be struck, but it would seem to me that if a radicalization or a radical type of teaching is going on in some quarters, then there should be some way to at least monitor it by university officials or whomever so that we're not propagating, say, hate propaganda, that type of thing, inadvertently, because nobody wants that to happen. But you do read about it. When you say to be very careful, what would you support, then? Would you support an open, cross-cultural committee at the university level to discuss this as an issue to ensure that we're trying to cover all the bases and trying to prevent radicalization from taking place?
Mr. Forcese: Again, I think there's a role for universities. Universities, of course, are not immunized from the criminal law, and so if there's hate speech on campus, it's prosecutable there as it is everywhere else.
There is an issue about expertise and about the mandate and purpose of universities. Universities are supposed to foster open debate and dialogue, and so anything that would trench on open debate and dialogue obviously raises sensitivities. So it's a question about cooperating with other interested parties to ensure that there's an adequate balance struck between potentially invasive investigations and the mandate of the university. That's why it's a sensitive sector for the RCMP.
I would not disclaim responsibility for universities in this area. As a former university administrator, I would not rush to assume that universities are equipped at present with the expertise and the resources to put in place an anti- radicalization agenda. Like I said, I think there's a role for the universities to participate with the RCMP as it stands up its nascent Countering Violent Extremism program.
Mr. Littlewood: I think I would very much broadly agree with that. My caution would be to think through carefully: Are universities really equipped to do this? If they have a place, then we would need to think about what role they have and how we support that effort, if that is the wish of Parliament or other sectors of society.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you, gentlemen.
There is a sense of frustration on this committee. We're having a tough time getting a straight answer on why there are 318 people in various stages, either having left and come back or suspicious within Canada, and very few get charged. The municipal police will tell you that they do a lot of the work and then it gets handed off to the RCMP, which raises your point, Mr. Forcese, about the RCMP not necessarily having enough resources. I wonder if you can go further into that. There are some who would argue that there are not enough laws, and yet you're arguing that there are not enough resources. Can you elaborate on that?
Mr. Forcese: I think that we could have gone much further than we have at present. There are a number of things that have happened which could, under the very broad anti-terrorism provisions enacted in 2001, apply. Even prior to the enactment, for example, of the terrorist travel provisions from two years ago, those more or less amplify existing criminal provisions. The older provisions were actually used in the Hersi case to bring prosecutions against an individual.
So I'm not sure that acting on this front requires new laws. I'm not sure that we've pushed the agenda quite as far as the current laws allow, which then raises the operational questions that you've posed. I'm not in a position because, obviously, as an academic, I'm fairly far removed from the operational considerations, but I have my suspicions. That's why I raised the concern about the intelligence/evidence divide. It may well be that we have actionable information but not information that can be tossed over the fence for use as evidence in an open court proceeding.
The Air India inquiry spent a lot of time looking at how to slay that particular problem, and I haven't seen much evidence that its recommendations have been pursued by the government.
I also think that may be one of the considerations behind the use of peace bonds, or non-use of peace bonds. Peace bonds are deployed on a very tender standard of proof right now. Under section 810.01, you just have to have a reasonable fear on a civil standard. So you have to go to court. You need a reasonable fear on a civil standard that a person may commit a terrorism offence. So it's not a very demanding threshold.
The issue may well be that you still need evidence, and that evidence has to be presented in open court. If the evidence comes from a CSIS surveillance operation, it may well be that the service isn't inclined to see that evidence then deployed in open court. This is one of these issues that we really have to get our minds around and also our operational tools in line.
The final observation I'll make about why we aren't doing more is that, on foreign fighters specifically, we don't actually have a law that says you can't go to Syria and fight for whomever. Right now we have a law that says you can't go and fight for a terrorist group, but that's predicated on it being a terrorist group or that you're engaged in terrorist activity, which is a page and a half in the Criminal Code of elements.
Australia has a law that says you can't go and fight; you cannot engage in hostile activities in a foreign state. Their view, as distilled by their independent review of terrorism law, is that we are not too concerned as intelligence services about who you're fighting for in the complicated brew that is Syria. It may well be that the aptitude you gain and the radicalization that may occur overseas, no matter what group you're working for, will then drift into anti-social and potentially terroristic activities upon your return. So they have a much more absolute bar than we have.
Senator Mitchell: Is that the neutrality law that you're speaking of?
Mr. Forcese: It has been re-codified into their Criminal Code.
Senator Mitchell: I think it was you who alluded to the issue of oversight. Now with these complex questions, resource issues, coordination amongst and between these various national security groups — CSIS, CSEC, CBSA, the RCMP — have you given some thought to what kind of an oversight structure might be reasonable? For example, would a national security legislation monitor, that is used elsewhere, be reasonable? What about the four of the Five Eyes model of an all-party parliamentary oversight group that has security clearance?
Mr. Forcese: I would do two things if I had discretion of the matter. I would like to see a legislated committee of parliamentarians. There are three models in private members' bills, as you know, which are before Parliament right now, including one from Senator Segal. All of them would be an improvement over the status quo. I'm happy to say more about that.
The other thing I would do is for the existing review bodies. We have SIRC for CSIS, the commissioner for CSE, and the new review and complaints body for the RCMP. Those bodies are, as the term goes, stovepiped; that is, they are focused strictly on their own agencies. Meanwhile, their agencies are collaborating fairly closely. So the concern is that the review bodies are not competent to review outside of the narrow portfolio of their agency.
The Arar commission said there should be statutory gateways that allow the review bodies to coordinate with one another and to pass information that may have been obtained in one of their reviews to a fellow review body for pursuit of investigation insofar as that matter also involved that agency. That hasn't happened. In fact, we've gone backwards. There was reporting in The Globe and Mail suggesting that when informal efforts were made by the commissioner of the CSE to coordinate with the CSIS review body, SIRC, the government took the view that that might violate the security of information obligations of the commissioner. Those were official secrets, in essence. I can't comment on how valid those reports are, but they were reported in The Globe and Mail.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you both for this. It's very interesting.
Professor Littlewood, you mentioned that we can't eradicate terrorism, but we can manage the problem. I believe that is Richard English's quote that you mentioned. We are tasked in this committee to figure out best practices for preventing terrorism and radicalization here. You have mentioned a few, but what steps would you recommend the government take to prevent radicalization and stop the radicals from carrying out terrorist activities?
Mr. Littlewood: It's actually quite difficult in an operational sense for the government to do this. At one level, we ultimately see following any incident the calls for why this was not prevented. In some ways, it is a push for a greater willingness to think about surveillance of a society or potentially worrying individuals, writ large.
Once that issue is over or we've moved on other issues, there are inevitably concerns in legitimately thinking about privacy and notions about civil liberties, et cetera.
If we look at Canada's record, the security community — whether it is intelligence or the RCMP — has done a good job overall. We see that through arrests, which would suggest to me that at least, certainly up until this year, the balance in terms of powers, resources and the operational tempo or requirements are essentially in place. I think our record speaks to that.
The challenge at this point in 2014 is the sheer number of Canadians abroad and the fact that those numbers are much greater than anything we've experienced before or that other Western democracies have experienced before. We simply don't know what's going to happen. There are greater calls for thinking about our 80-plus returnees, as we have the public figure, for people to be concerned about what we're doing about them and why we are not doing it. Whether or not these individuals have committed crimes, we don't know.
In terms of preventing violent extremism, we are stepping up to that plate now, but we have to accept that that will be months come years-long effort. It involves outreach to communities and a substantial element of trust between communities and authorities for it to work. This brings into play those kinds of things, as my colleague said, about striking both the tone and balance between a case for quite intrusive or invasive powers with an equal balancing aspect on accountability, oversight and public communication about how these things are used and what they're for.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Professor Forcese, you mentioned collecting enough evidence so that CSIS may have suspicions or whatever, but when it comes over to the local municipal police force, pressing or laying charges is very difficult. Do we have the laws in place to produce this evidence? What exactly do you mean when you say they don't have the evidence or it's difficult to get the evidence for open court?
Mr. Forcese: I think it's not so much that they don't have the information. Again I'm going to generalize. I don't have operational experience; I'm just extrapolating from past conversations.
There may be instances where there is enough information, for example, to revoke someone's passport. Presumably that's not done arbitrarily. Why can't that evidence then be spun over for the purposes of imposing a peace bond where there is a very low threshold?
The difference is that revoking a passport is entirely an executive decision that doesn't have to be authorized in a court process. There might be a challenge in court, but presumably few of these people will challenge the revocation, whereas for a peace bond, you need to adjudicate the matter in front of a judge in open court.
Once you do that, it means the information you've used is subject to disclosure, and that might potentially involve the identity of an informant. It might involve information that was acquired from a foreign intelligence service, which is one of these things that is given cardinal secrecy treatment in our practice, and it may suggest means and methods of intelligence-gathering you've used in relation to this individual that then impairs future investigations. All that may be a deterrent in terms of deploying the information you have as evidence against a given individual in an open-court proceeding.
My understanding of the Air India report was that this is going to be a perennial problem and will always be a problem, but we need someone above the agencies, above CSIS, above the RCMP, who will split the difference. They would say, ''Well in this particular case, I understand your concerns, CSIS, but the balance really militates in favour of using this information for evidentiary purposes to bring a prosecution.'' In the Air India context, Justice Major proposed that it be the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister who would have this beefed up mandate.
You weren't then dependent on the agencies themselves trying to hash this out with their potentially different mandates and ending up with an uncomfortable compromise.
Senator Stewart Olsen: If we don't do something, if we don't try to make this work, then we take quite a risk. If you know a terrorist is running around and yet you don't want to expose that because you're probably monitoring a bunch of other people, the risk is that one person may commit a terrorist act that could have been prevented. Is that not correct?
Mr. Forcese: Absolutely. That's always the risk, especially if you want to follow an investigation through to a more developed phase. If you don't want to move precipitously, you want to see if there is a conspiracy, you wait and surveil the individual. Obviously there is a concern that surveillance is not perfect, it's very expensive and there are just not enough members of the RCMP who could possibly do surveillance on the number of individuals who may be of concern.
In terms of cost, my understanding is that for every individual subjected to a security certificate, the government was bearing a $5 million cost per year. Some of that presumably are legal costs, but operationally it will be a huge expense and there is the risk that surveillance isn't perfect.
Even in the U.K. context, where persons were subjected to so-called control orders and therefore were equipped with electronic monitoring bracelets, some of those individuals skipped out and disappeared.
Yes, it will always be a balance: Do you move precipitously and risk going too early and perhaps not having your charges stick, or do you wait until the conspiracy is more developed? I imagine that's a constant source of conversation inside police and security services.
The Chair: I want to follow here because I don't want to lose this. I think you've raised a very good point in respect to the question of charges or the lack of charges. That's the one area that is coming across here in our hearings. Very few if any charges are laid, whether they are administrative or criminal. Yet we know that there are substantial numbers of individuals out there who one way or the other are identified with terrorism or would like to commit a terrorism act.
The question, following up on Senator Stewart Olsen is this: Is the threshold too high such that it is stopping some charges from being laid?
Mr. Forcese: I don't think it is too high. I would have to know more about the facts in relation to the individuals who may of concern who haven't been charged.
I note, for example, when the director of CSIS testified a year ago in relation to the number of persons who have gone overseas, not everyone that he listed as having gone overseas was engaged in foreign fighting. He also indicated that some persons had gone overseas and were involved in affiliating with radical religious institutions and therefore triggering concern. They hadn't actually crossed any kind of criminal barrier yet. I'm not sure that the 130, or whatever the number is now, individuals who have been listed in the press are always persons who have transgressed the criminal/non-criminal barrier yet, in which case they haven't crossed a trip-wire, if you will.
The Chair: To conclude this, it would seem is to me that when looking at the number of convictions or prosecutions over the course of the last number of years, they're minimal compared to the number of individuals involved. If you compare Canada to the United States or compare Canada on a percentage basis, we are at 2 per cent or 3 per cent, maybe.
Mr. Forcese: Yes, 17 prosecutions.
The Chair: Yes, 17 prosecutions and how many cases, 4 or 5?
Mr. Forcese: About 6, I think.
The Chair: That does cause concern that perhaps we're not enforcing the laws that we have. Is that not what you're telling us?
Mr. Forcese: Before I agree that the laws are inadequate, I'd have to see a cogent explanation as to why there have been so few prosecutions. In other words, is this a resource issue? Is this an operational choice by the police to let a conspiracy unroll so they have better goods to bring a prosecution later done the path? Is this just a difference in our threat environment vis-à-vis the United Kingdom or the United States? I'd have to see some empirical evidence before I conclude that it's a deficiency on the law side.
Senator Dagenais: Professor Forcese, do you agree that we should be using section 83 of the Criminal Code, including peace bonds and electronic monitoring, for those 80-plus radicalized individuals who have returned from providing material support to ISIS?
Mr. Forcese: As you know, there are two peace bond provisions in the Criminal Code. There is 83.3, which some people call preventive detention, and then there's a regular peace bond process in 810.01 at the back of the Criminal Code.
I don't really see there being any value in 83.3 as a reactive measure as compared to using 810.01. In fact, 810.01, as I mentioned, all they need is reasonable grounds to fear that a terrorism offence may be committed by an individual. That's a very generous standard of proof for the government. I would imagine that those would be available, subject to the comments I've already made about the concern about evidence and intelligence.
The real distinguishing aspect is 83.3 is it allows, in exigent circumstances, the police to pick someone up pending adjudication of a peace bond and hold them for up to 24 hours before bringing them before a judge and then the judge can defer the proceeding for another 48 hours. It's 72 hours of so-called preventive detention, assuming everything lines up for the law enforcement.
That's the kind of thing that you might use in circumstances where the wheels have fallen off your investigation and you feel the need to move because you're in the fog of war, and you don't have the goods to arrest on a regular criminal charge but you need to disrupt a plot that now seems to be unfolding. That is more a pre-emptive tool.
Are there circumstances where that should be used? It hasn't been used, so that would be an operational question for the RCMP. Should it have been used in relation to the October events, for example, in advance of them? I don't know because I don't really have a clear idea yet as to the factual matrix. I see them as two different tools.
Senator Dagenais: Five months ago we had 415 radicalized individuals in Canada. Today we hear that number is at least 173 plus 145 who have left to support ISIS. Why do you think the number of known radicalized individuals has grown so rapidly?
Mr. Littlewood: I would be cautious about assuming that a range of 130 to 145 who are known to have gone abroad have all joined either ISIS — ISIL, if we want to call it. The strong suspicions are that they are with different kinds of groups. Some of them will be with ISIS, absolutely, some with Jabhat al-Nusra and some could be with other groups in the region or, indeed, further abroad.
Why have we suddenly had this huge peak of travelling for foreign fighting? Predominantly I think it comes down to the nature of the Syrian conflict and the narrative which has been in one sense successful in speaking to those communities or speaking to individuals. It's a narrative driven on the sense of come and defend your compatriot Muslims against a brutal dictatorship, which is the Assad dictatorship, essentially the West is not doing anything or has not been doing anything, and it's incumbent upon you as an individual Muslim to come and support your Muslim brothers and sisters.
That narrative has been accompanied by sophisticated propaganda and communication tools, including social media, visceral pictures, and it has appealed to a number of individuals. That much is clear across Western democracies.
A significant number of these individuals, if open sources are correct, are young males. I don't think we can entirely discount the sense of adventure here, the sense of going abroad to do something that they believe at this point in time is correct. When they get there, they may be radicalized, but the nature and dynamics of the Syrian conflict probably account for why we get this almost zero to 100 plus in what appears to be a very short time frame.
Senator White: Mr. Forcese, you referred to the hate law. Do you believe our hate law goes far enough? It was drafted in a time when hate legislation focused on one or two issues in Canada, and I think today some of the things being espoused would certainly cross the public's mind of being hatred. Do you think there needs to be a shift? I know you focused some energy on not needing more laws, but I would like to discuss that if you don't mind.
Mr. Forcese: The hate propaganda provisions in the Criminal Code, which, as you know, were upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court decision in Keegstra, focus on hate directed at identifiable groups and there is an enumerated category of identifiable groups. They are largely drawn from standard concerns about genocide and anti- discrimination provisions. The question you're asking is whether there should be an equivalent provision concerning terrorist propaganda or hate propaganda more generally.
As I have indicated in my brief and mentioned at the outset, I'm not keen on glorification provisions. To be clear, right now in the Criminal Code we've got counselling, instructing a terrorism offence, and hate crime. That's already covering off a substantial amount of the discourse. There is also uttering threats in the Criminal Code.
To go beyond that and pursue what the U.K. has done, which is celebrating or endorsing a terrorist activity in circumstances where there is some prospect it might be emulated, trenches more deeply into free speech. I'm not sure the hate crime concept translates nicely into terrorist propaganda because hate crime, as you've mentioned, is fairly confined in terms of its scope in advocating or generating and propagating hate in relation to a specific, enumerated group. If you talk about terrorist propaganda, the concept and the definition of terrorist activity is so sweeping in the Criminal Code that the universe of discourse is potentially swept up by putting in place provisions that talk about glorification of terrorist activity, I would find it more troubling constitutionally. I would be concerned that trying to stave off this kind of speech would have a second order of impact that we don't necessarily foresee.
Professor Littlewood and I were just at a conference where open-source researchers were able to paint a dramatic portrait of terrorist networks using Twitter and Facebook. That is speech. If you were to deter that speech, then that source of potentially actionable intelligence would dry up and the police would be obliged to rely on more covert mechanisms, which compound expense and difficulty. There is some virtue in having people speak.
Senator White: Thank you for that response.
My second point will surround the video I saw yesterday, and I think everybody in this room saw the video. It was an individual from the Ottawa area overseas calling people to arms, I would argue. Are we doing enough in Canada to counter that type of rhetoric, whether it is that clear or even less clear when people — to be fair, from European countries — talk about supporting some of those same actions? Are we doing enough in this country now, whether mainstream through government or non-mainstream through some organizations where fingers are being pointed and speaking publicly about the fact that doesn't represent what they represent? Are we seeing enough in this country, or are people sitting back, afraid to offend?
Mr. Littlewood: I think it's quite hard to know what the scope and scale of activity going on in Canada is in this area. My suspicion is that a lot going on at a local level is not being reported or considered newsworthy. Quite often over the last 12 months we've seen groups, whether Muslim communities or not, saying clearly, ''This does not represent our community; we are against this.'' But often, if it's even reported, it will be in a very small section in a newspaper. There's a lot of activity we're probably ignorant of by virtue that it's not being brought to our attention.
The question is: Are we doing enough? That is something we would need to think through. What would be enough? What would be the different roles for society?
It's clear in one sense there is a counter-narrative approach happening across Western democracies. It's clear that it's happening within communities. I can't honestly say I could identify a Government of Canada approach, but I could point to a few things.
Equally, we have to accept for narrative approaches that they are difficult to do in practice and you need sophisticated, multi-level strategies in place to target different kinds of audiences with different kinds of messages over a longer period of time.
In trying to respond to the latest video, we need to think of who the video is aimed at and what traction might it get. I not saying to ignore it in its entirety, but not necessarily propagating and doing the work of these organizations for them by getting ourselves into a little tizzy can be a thoughtful response.
As you know, like many things in counter-terrorism, sometimes a measured response is as good if not better than a rushed response saying, ''We must do something.'' Very few people will potentially remember this video unless events bring it back to us at a later point in time. With activities going on, the scope and scale of it, we're a little blind there at this point in time.
Senator Beyak: Thank you, gentlemen. There have been many studies, including by Freedom House, on the international financing of radical Islam in Canada. Has your research given you any insight into that? Do we have enough laws on the books now to trace money coming from Libya, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, or do we need new laws? I agree with you; we should use the ones we have first before making new ones, but do you think the current laws are sufficient?
Mr. Forcese: Again, I would say if there is an argument that they aren't sufficient, I would need to be persuaded of that fact. They are very sweeping right now, so why is it that these sweeping powers aren't being used? What is the explanation? Is it a problem with substantive law or an operational issue? I'm not in a position to answer that.
There is a long history in Canada as a fundraising destination for radical terrorist causes. Human Rights Watch put out a report 10 years ago about fundraising by the Tamil Tigers in Toronto. It's not just a question of terrorism financing law. It can also be as simple as extortion, where regular Criminal Code provisions might be applicable.
I think the situation has improved relative to 10 years ago, but because I'm not in operations, I can't answer that definitively.
Senator Beyak: That's a good answer.
Mr. Littlewood: Anecdotally, I would also be inclined to think that the situation has improved of late. There is a greater attention and focus. My research is not in this area, so I can't speak to whether we need new laws, but I will inject an element of caution. We need to be clear about closing down terrorism financing. We have the legislation in place to do that, even though it's difficult to make a clear link between a dollar here going there to buy AK-47s or whatever it is.
We need to be careful or clear if we're beginning to close down funding for what we may feel are extremist beliefs, because ultimately we are in a democracy and extremist beliefs are part and parcel of it. There are certain lines in law that clearly can't be crossed, or if they are, you are going into the Criminal Code. I would have an inherent default position of caution on automatically thinking let's close down or potentially close down certain avenues of thought, belief or of voicing beliefs that are not, for lack of a better term, our Canadian democracy values. Our democracy does defend that ability to have those kinds of beliefs.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for the presentation. The question I had was actually discussed earlier with the other witness and maybe you have touched on it a little bit, Mr. Forcese. If I could ask again, do you still believe that we need laws against glorification of terrorists and terrorist organizations? I want to expand on that.
Those videos are basically like glorification. You hear the ones on YouTube and the ones that they tried to release or not release. Those are sort of glorifications. Do we need laws to protect us or the community against this kind of propaganda?
Mr. Forcese: I don't think so. As I mentioned to Senator White, the combined scope of the existing law — hate speech, counselling an offence, uttering a threat, instruction, even the facilitation provisions in relation to terrorist activity and groups — is already quite sweeping. You have to ask yourself, what is the gap that is not currently criminalized? In my view, it's quite a small gap. It's the equivalent of someone going to a protest with a banner that says ''Hooray, the Magnificent 19,'' which is one of the images that was broadcast after 9/11. That is celebrating a terrorist act. That's obviously unpalatable. It's not the kind of conduct we like to see, but it is the sort of thing in our democracy that should be shouted down rather than criminalized.
In partial response to the question about where we might go with this area of the law, I am of the view that we enjoy a marketplace of ideas, and in that marketplace, the good ideas prevail and the bad ideas deserve the condemnation that they attract by virtue of their nature.
I'm a great believer in the counter-narrative strategy that Professor Littlewood mentioned. So if we're discomforted by these videos, the response is not to ban them and therefore sort of martyr them and suppress them in a way that creates perhaps street credibility they wouldn't otherwise have, but to very vocally denounce them in civil society and elsewhere. Maybe there's a role for the university sector in terms of these sorts of voices.
I think we have to be very wary about going one step further from where we are currently with our criminal law and try to squash pernicious ideologies that are quite far removed from actual acts of violence.
The last point I'll make is that the empirical literature on the role of the Internet in terms of radicalization, the literature that I've seen — and perhaps Professor Littlewood can amplify — suggests that it may be a facilitator, but it's not a cause. Radicalization to violence depends on close personal contact and the presence of a charismatic leader figure at the core of a radicalizing movement, and so it's not Internet as cause. I think we have to be wary about trying to regulate the Internet with the thought that that somehow will resolve our radicalization to violence problems.
Mr. Littlewood: I'll simply echo that. Of course, we're always complaining about a dearth of credible data in the public domain, but what data we do have in terms of radicalization to violence does indicate quite clearly that in the vast majority of cases, social networks are as important, if not more important, than the virtual world. The virtual world, the Internet, can be a catalyst; it can lead people to seek. But the pool of extremist believers is a larger pool than those who will cross over into extremist action and violence. That much we know from the data. That crossing over into violence and action very often involves some other form of person-to-person contact, peer group pressure and those kinds of things. Regulating the Internet and regulating images, those kinds of things, are not going to make our problem go away, senator.
Senator Enverga: Yes, but one of the measures that we need to counteract these things, I think you mentioned that we should denounce it. But who should denounce it? Is it the government or individuals? For a private citizen to denounce it, they might be scared because they will be a target eventually. Is there another way to do it? Who should denounce these acts?
Mr. Littlewood: It falls on many levels, senator. We see this writ large across counterterrorism. A government alone cannot produce, or even operationalize, credible counterterrorism. It involves societal buy-in; it involves civil society groups; it involves action at the international level.
To pick up my colleague's phrase, we're in a marketplace of ideas. Individual communities condemning and speaking out against those ideas is an important component in pushing back against them, in shining a light on whether it's misinterpretation of religious text, whether it's simply activities that are not considered to be Canadian or democratic, et cetera.
The government, of course, has a role to play here. Going back to an earlier question in terms of what we should do, the broader lesson from counterterrorism in other democracies is very clear. We need to play to our existing values and uphold our own values. In one sense, we need to do what we say. If we are talking about freedom of speech, if we are talking about democracy, we need to uphold that, even though we can recognize it can pose very real risks and, indeed, potential dangers for ourselves.
Senator Mitchell: Mr. Forcese, you mentioned the Countering Violent Extremism program. You're thinking it may be underfunded, under-resourced. Could you give us an idea of your understanding of that program? Have you studied it or are you just aware of it?
Mr. Forcese: No, I've been party to an official description of it, if you will, so I know probably only what you've heard from RCMP officials. I don't pretend to have any privileged information. I know it's a new program and I know it's probably very expensive. As a new program and a very expensive program, in the current fiscal environment it's also a program that I imagine is potentially always at risk. Since it's a long-term project, I'd hate to see it undermined by short-term fiscal preoccupations. In other words, I think we need to have the long game in mind in the way we approach it.
What struck me about that project, which I very much admire, is the idea that it's a consortium of not just police but social services and education and health care. It's an all-of-society approach, if you will, involving the sharing of information and discourse on this issue, which I think is very helpful.
If you will excuse a personal anecdote, in the public schools right now, where my daughter attends, they are given substantial education on Internet safety, hinging on this bullying preoccupation. The culture around bullying, of course, has changed dramatically since I was in school. It doesn't seem implausible to me that a counter-radicalization strategy couldn't involve the same sorts of tactics and techniques that are deployed in the public schools for the purposes of educating children as to how to use the Internet safely — inoculating them. Rather than trying to suppress the speech, inoculate them against the detrimental speech. That's just one example of the things that might come from an all-of-society countering violent extremism approach.
Senator Mitchell: Earlier you answered my question about oversight with respect to the parliamentary group, and you're positive about that possibility. I also asked about the role of a national security legislation monitor. Have you given that any thought or is that something that's on your screen?
Mr. Forcese: Certainly I would endorse the model that's been employed by the United Kingdom originally and, more recently, Australia. One of the problems with the area of national security law is it tends to be quite complex and dynamic. It's often the case that no one person is looking at it from a forest as opposed to individual trees perspective. So what's happened in the United Kingdom is there's an independent arm's-length individual who, wherever the government posits or floats a new law project, will assess it in context and then offer up an independent assessment that parliamentary committees have in front of them. In other words, it's a form of arm's-length expert view that's not tied to any particular perspective, that's deployable for the purposes of understanding context by parliamentary hearings. I think in the U.K. context, that's been a very valuable experience. One of the former independent reviewers told me that he knew he was doing his job when both the civil society and the law-and-order types were both angry with him.
Senator Mitchell: Don't we know that.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I just need a quick explanation of acts preparatory and how that could be used in counterterrorism.
Mr. Forcese: We've already criminalized acts that fall substantially short of what we call ''terrorist activity'' in the Criminal Code. Mere preparation, to use the parlance, is now criminalized in terrorism to a much greater degree than in relation to conventional crimes. That whole circle that I've circumscribed in my diagram that talks about criminal pre-emption very much is criminal pre-emption because what's at issue is facilitation and instruction and participation that has not yet then manifested itself in the sort of acts of violence associated with terrorist activity. We made that choice in 2001. At the time it was quite controversial, but with hindsight it probably was the right choice.
The question that you've been posing to me, Mr. Chairman, is whether we have not fully explored the scope of those existing laws. Have they been deployed to the extent that they really could and can be? I think that's an important question.
The Chair: Thank you very much for attending. You certainly have provided us with a great deal of information and some new ideas that I think we have to give some scrutiny.
I just want to say that, speaking about the counter-narrative that both of you have referred to, I would say that this particular forum that we've created here with the committee and starting to pursue a national debate is a start in the right direction, so that we fully understand the implications to Canadians, the magnitude of the threat that we face, and how we can deal with that threat in a manner that preserves the values that we all share.
Thank you very much for coming.
We are continuing our look at threats to Canada, specifically terrorism. I would like to now welcome Dr. Salim Mansur, Assistant Professor from the University of Western Ontario and a prolific writer and commentator. He is the author of Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism and Islam's Predicament: Perspective of a Dissident Muslim and co-editor of The Indira-Rajiv Years: the Indian Economy and Polity, 1966-1991.
He has published widely in academic journals, such as the Jerusalem Quarterly, the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Arab Studies Quarterly, and Middle East Quarterly. In 2006, he was presented with the American Jewish Congress's Stephen S. Wise Profiles in Courage Award.
Dr. Mansur, welcome to the committee. We're pleased to have you here today. I understand that you have an opening statement. Please begin.
Salim Mansur, Professor, University of Western Ontario, as an individual: Mr. Chair, honourable senators, I'm here to help you, to assist you in my capacity as best I may, in a very important task your committee is responsible for in terms of national security and defence.
I want to thank you for inviting me to speak to you as a Canadian who happens to be a Muslim. My experience in terms of my study and vocation as a student of Islam and Muslim history, as a witness and survivor of a near genocidal war in 1971 in former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, of Muslim-on-Muslim violence, and as someone who has had the opportunity to travel around much of the Muslim world, provides me with some insight and perspective to the problems at hand, arising from the immensity of violence within the world of Islam, and how this affects us in Canada and the West in general.
Also, I might add that I have remained involved in the public sphere, both at the local community and national levels, when it comes to the subject of Islam, Islamism and Muslim politics, and because of the nature of my work, I am often in touch with Muslim youth and drawn into conversations with them about difficulties that many of them are loathe to discuss at home or in mosques.
The problem with respect to the radicalization of Muslim youth is serious given the environment in which they are raised. There is the problem of identity politics, of who they are and where they belong. The case of Aqsa Parvez, the young Canadian Muslim girl killed in December 2007 by her father and brother on the grounds of family honour, is the sort of problem I have heard from students who at times of distress have no one to turn to for counsel and assistance. The assumption of the past decades, or at least before 9/11, was that children of immigrants born and raised here will identify naturally with the country of their residence and citizenship. This assumption has been severely undermined given what we have been witnessing, as Muslim youth, in numbers that are alarming, have shown their inclination towards extremist, even violent, politics of jihad.
This development has also been compounded by entrance into Canada of immigrants from the wider Muslim world, from among whom there have come forward those willing to engage in terrorism, as was the case of Ahmed Ressam, of Algerian origin, trained in Afghanistan, who set out from Montreal in November 1999 with the intent to bomb Los Angeles airport.
In our age of instant global communication, television and World Wide Web, Muslim youth are readily exposed to violence and jihadi politics, to online debates, sermonizing and preaching by Islamists. At homes and around family gatherings, political discussions abound, as families remain tied to their native lands and cultures, despite having settled in Canada. Then there is the exposure of Muslims on Fridays, during communal prayers, to sermonizing from pulpits by imams of political situations in Muslim lands and of Muslims as victims of U.S. foreign policy, of Jews and Zionism and of Hindus in India. This is a combustible atmosphere, and Muslim youth are no less impressionable to such discourse as would be their peer group subject to relentless pressure of identity politics within their communities, as has been the case of Afro-American youth in the United States.
Besides what I have described, there is also on college campuses in my community, as elsewhere in Canada, annual rounds of student-faculty discussions over the past decade and more of the various movements directed against Israel as an occupying power over Palestinian lands, such as the campaign against Israel as an apartheid state and the campaign as part of a global movement to boycott divestment and sanctions against Israel. The rhetoric that flows out of such anti-Israeli, anti-Jew and, frankly, anti-Semitic campaigns on our college campuses adds legitimacy to the Islamist politics within the Muslim communities, as in my city, with predictable results.
In London, where I come from, we have witnessed members of the mosque and members responsible for running the affairs of the mosque implicated in court cases due to violation of our Criminal Code. The charitable status of the World Islamic Call Society, managed out of London by members of the mosque community, some of whom I know and knew, was revoked by the CRA for violation of terrorism financing laws, as was the charitable status of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, with their activities in London, among other communities, for similar reasons.
Radicalization occurs among Muslim youth when identity politics facilitates their indoctrination into jihadi politics by Islamist preachers and activists in the community. In April 2013, London was in the national and international news when two young Londoners, one Muslim by birth and the other a convert, took part in a terrorist attack on a gas plant in eastern Algeria and, as a result, were killed. There were fast and furious denials from the leaders of the London Muslim community, but unanswered questions remain as to how these two indoctrinated young men got to travel to North Africa. Who arranged their travels? Who recruited them into the terrorist organization linked to al Qaeda in North Africa? Who arranged for their visas and funds to get there, and are there others who might do something similar abroad or right here at home?
For counter-radicalization to be effective, there must be trust built by those engaged in the effort and the community at large. There are doubts about this, especially when one encounters names of individuals such as Hussein Hamdani or Dr. Jamal Badawi, entrusted with such efforts by Public Safety or our security agencies such as the RCMP. Among Muslims, who will have nothing to do with Islamists or Islamism given their knowledge or experience of what ruins Islamists have brought to their native lands, alarm bells ring inside their heads when they encounter those they recognize or are suspicious of as purveyors of Islamism.
The vast majority of Muslim immigrants into Canada come from places that might best be described as a ''fear society,'' and they cannot be reached through the portals of mosques and mosque-related institutions. The reason is simple. Most mosques here, as in the Muslim world, are incubators of Islamism. This might shock you, but this is where the problem is, and I can speak from my own experience, and any legitimacy given to them as a matter of community or political outreach only further entrenches the practitioners of Islamism disguised as religion in spreading their ideology through mosques.
Let me make a few suggestions for you to consider in terms of counter-radicalization.
First, strengthen existing legislation regarding terrorism financing and further broaden the existing legislation to revoke charitable status of any organizations that finance or provide material support in organizing meetings, conferences and conventions where known Islamist preachers are invited in the annual gathering known as, for instance, ''Reviving the Islamic Spirit.'' Take away the charitable status of mosques if it is found they have violated legislation in terms of terrorism financing by provision of any material support for those linked with terrorist activity in Canada or abroad.
Second, remove from federal boards and commissions from Public Safety's round table on security, and any other agency of the federal government, individuals known to be connected with the Muslim Brotherhood or Jamaat-e- Islami and the network of organizations these have spawned over the decades to further their Islamist agenda.
Third, restrict or make it out of bounds for any activity related to politics in general, particularly during the period when an election occurs, taking place in mosques and mosque-related forums. Such activity plays right into the playbook of the Islamist organizations.
Fourth in my short list, traditional policing, which is about crime control and maintaining public order and safety, should be greatly supported at a time when budgetary constraints have put pressures on police forces around the country. Instead of pouring money into counter-radicalization programs that then become attractive to lure any number of players with spurious expertise into such programs seeking funds, traditional policing should be supported to monitor, pre-empt, interdict, indict or arrest those individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities in our communities, preferably before anything ever happens. We need to stamp out the predictable effects of radicalization before these occur, instead of engaging in counter-radicalization with mounting expenses after the terrorists have done us much damage.
In conclusion, if you are not prepared to tackle radicalization and those who radicalize our youth, we will always be playing catch-up and will never be advancing our efforts to defeat Islamism, whether here or abroad. I urge you to consider prioritizing efforts to countering radicalization, as this will reduce the need for spending time writing new laws, doing more sociology studies, de-radicalization and spending billions of dollars trying to catch radicalized individuals. It would also reduce the risk to society if you address those who are pushing political Islam and the victimhood narrative to radicalize Canadians.
Thank you, senators. I am at your disposal.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mansur. Perhaps to start out the discussion, I noticed your book that you published is entitled, Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim. Perhaps you could tell us why you call yourself a Muslim dissident.
Mr. Mansur: I call myself a dissident Muslim because I reject the mainstream or official Islam interpretation and views. I also call myself a dissident Muslim, senator, because I believe, and my writings have been in that direction, that Muslims have not gone forward. I'm now talking collectively. As a culture and civilization, they have not gone forward to take up self-criticism and self-examination — examining their own history. My small effort has been in that direction. We need to be responsible for our situation.
Finally, senator, without elaborating too much, it's my experience as a young adult — the very people whom we are talking about, the most impressionable — I, as a young adult in my teenage years, faced a genocidal war, faced the challenge of being put against the wall to be shot by not only people in uniform, but by people who were aiding and abetting them who came from the mosques.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you, Professor Mansur. You make a very provocative statement. It's not consistent with my experience, although I'm not Muslim and I haven't been to mosques in the way you have. But I know many wonderful, amazing and remarkable Muslim people, Canadians and otherwise, who, as I have said before here, are just like us. They love their kids, they want a future for them and they want to build this country. So when you say that mosques are the incubators of Islamism, surely you're not saying that they all are.
Mr. Mansur: Well, senator, your impressions are all genuine, and you're meeting people there and elsewhere. I hope you will say the same thing about me, that we are nice people.
I'm talking about a specific problem that happened that you might not be aware of when you went to the mosque and when you were associating with people. I don't want to say that you're entering a Potemkin village, but there's a lot of play going on when people come to visit these places. The hard reality is not shown.
The mosques, over the last half a century or more, right across the Muslim world, senator, and I gave you my experience, have become the centres from where politics have emanated. That's the fusion of religion and politics.
Senator, we don't have the time for me to elaborate, and there is a vast literature out there, but let me point out to you that the great North African writer Albert Camus pointed out that when religion and politics mix, there is inquisition. This is what Muslims are living through. They're living through inquisition.
Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, said this about mosques:
Islamic prayer is nothing but a daily training in practical and social organization uniting the features of the Communist regime with those of the dictatorial and democratic regimes. When the muezzin calls —
— that's the prayer call —
— now is the hour of prayer, they form an equal mass, a compact block behind them. That is the principal merit of the dictatorial regime, unity and order in the will under the appearance of equality.
If you do the hermeneutics of this, that's what I'm talking about, and the young people are the most impressionable.
Senator Mitchell: The person you're quoting doesn't live in Canada and is talking about mosques all over the world, I would assume, but there are billions of non-radicalized Muslims who go to mosques frequently and pray five times a day.
It's also true that in Canada it's not just Muslim youth who have been radicalized. In fact, the Quebec case, and I think the fellow who shot up Parliament, were not originally Muslims, so it's got to be more complicated than that.
We have also heard witnesses here saying that 85 per cent of Muslims in Canada don't even go to mosques.
Mr. Mansur: Senator, you're right; it's very complicated and we have so little time. It is very complicated, but we cannot walk away from the ugly reality that I, as a Muslim, have been confronting all my life, not only out in the Muslim world, the Arab Muslim world, but it is replicated right here.
Studies have been done. I'm carrying in my binder studies, but I won't bore you with studies. I have a very interesting story here from the month after the events of October 22 in the Ottawa Citizen. It's a mother.
Senator Mitchell: We had her here.
Mr. Mansur: You saw this. You all have seen it. She's talking about her son who was arrested:
I have been on an almost two-decade-long fight against the extremists that are here in Ottawa because they influenced my son and set him on a trajectory of radical views.
The young people and others are not breathing in the bacteria of radicalization in the air. They get that bacteria virus somewhere, and one of the areas is the mosque. Because the mosque has that symbol of sacredness to it, no one wants to question it — that is, no one from the outside wants to question it.
If you'll permit me, let me shift the example. The worst terrorist attack before 9/11 was planned, organized, arranged and executed from the soil of Canada. That was done by the Sikh Khalistanis. They operated out of their temple, senator — you remember that — many of them. And, senator, we didn't pay attention.
Senator Mitchell: There was just a handful. I know many Sikhs as well, and to extrapolate from an anecdote and somehow cast an aspersion across all Sikh gurdwaras and all Sikh organizations and all mosques I think is really stretching a point.
Mr. Mansur: Well, senator, I defer to your sensibility. I respect that and I take heart at what you say. The goodness of our country is immense, and I understand where you're coming from.
Here is the President of Turkey speaking, senator, one of the largest Muslim countries in the world:
The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.
Senator, I am not speaking that. I am a student of politics, history and culture who has looked at this issue. Yes, senator, 90 per cent of people are good, but we are talking about that 10 to 20 per cent that has brought ruin to a civilization from North Africa to Indonesia, from Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa.
Senator Mitchell: But you can argue that people — I mean, that's the history of the world. It takes a handful of people, and they certainly have brought ruin frequently, and they certainly haven't been Muslims in every case.
My final point is: What you seem to be implying is that we should restrict religious freedom in Canada, and wouldn't that be exactly what they want us to do? The Muslim religion is intrinsically a good religion; it's intrinsically a fine, principled theology. People warp it. People warp all theologies.
Mr. Mansur: Senator, this is the paradox. I have travelled very often. I have family back in South Asia and in North Africa. One of the things I confirmed in family discussion — recently I was with friends in England. I will give you an example that I confront, which is the accusation: What are you Canadians doing sending us the imams and radical preachers and saving them and cultivating them? The story was about that preacher from Pakistan, Tahir-ul-Qadri, who we gave in Canada a refugee status and a permanent residence status. He claimed that he was driven out of Pakistan, and he was back in Pakistan, and he's there in Pakistan running vast demonstrations with Imran Khan and others. So I sit there with my friends in London — they are all Pakistanis — accusing me, jokingly but also seriously, ''What are you guys doing?''
This is a common story. When governments took action against the Islamists right across North Africa or Central Asia, where did they go to? Where were they nurtured? Shall I run the names for you, senator? Rashid al-Ghannushi, the leader of the En-Nahda party in Tunisia. The leaders from North Africa who went to France. Finally, we sent back one person accused of the bombing in France — senator, you would know the name — who went back.
Our society, our generosity, our openness, our liberal democratic values — that's why I wrote a book called Delectable Lie — has been turned against us.
It's the old thing, senator: Is the doughnut a hole or a bread? Is the whole question: Is the glass half full or half empty? When you step in, senator, you're meeting the warmth that has been my tradition, growing up as a child in a Muslim home — my parents, my grandparents. But my family, and tens of thousands if not millions of families have been made victims by the circumstances of history of political leaders who made the choice: the break-up of India and then, in my lifetime, the break-up of Pakistan. These were ugly affairs. Three million people were killed.
Sorry, senator. I don't want to take time.
The Chair: I would like to follow up on this general discussion because I think it's important. There is a philosophical and obviously an ideological question being raised here.
The question that I think we're all challenged with around this table, and Canadian society as a whole, is how we help and aid those who, in this particular case, are the vast majority of the Muslim faith who are moderate; and yet you have a few who obviously have, for whatever reasons, managed to, in some cases, take charge and subsequently be the spokespersons; and then, quite frankly, everybody within the community is branded. The question then comes to us: What can the law enforcement agencies do? What can the Canadian community as a whole do? What should we expect of the Muslim community itself? They're here enjoying the values we all share, and they see better than anyone else. You've expressed some of it. What do you expect from your Muslim counterparts to be able to stand up to this?
Mr. Mansur: Senator, first, very quickly, the Muslim community is not a monolithic community any more than any other community is monolithic. The Muslim world is vast and big and ethnically divided. Immigration from the Muslim world means that the Muslim community over here also reflects the diversity. Somali Canadians, for instance, have very little to do in connection, say, with Indonesian Canadians or have very little to do with Afghan Canadians.
If you're talking about radicalization, what brings the youth together is identity politics. The challenging question is why this had happened with second- and third-generation Canadians of immigrant parents. We're talking here about the small portion that moves from identity politics into radicalization, going all the way to jihadism. But the pool is very large. Why are second and third generation Canadians not adapting, taking pride in what we call our Canadian identity, even though that itself is multicultural and so on and so forth.
My sense of that, speaking to my students, is as follows: Parents for the first time, as immigrants, really feel secure, especially the women. They feel secure. Their children, in schools and colleges for the first time, are also being challenged without having had the experience. Their parents had the experience of what happened in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Algeria. For the first time, the children growing up are being exposed to the study of the world. And suddenly, through their multicultural training, they are identifying that they're Indo-Canadian, Pakistani-Canadian or Afghan-Canadian, and then they start emoting with the issues of the countries that the parents left behind. It's a very interesting sociological phenomenon, senator, and we don't have the time to get into it. Why do they do that?
Part of the quick answer is the search for meaning. They identify with the problems over there. They feel that they can do something about it, that they should try to do something about it. It is a slippery slope that leads to that small element, and we are now faced with the problem.
Senator Stewart Olsen: What you said about identity is very interesting. I guess we all have that experience. We all look at our roots. You will always say, my roots are, say, Scotland and they were cleared off the land and we all feel badly; we all resettled. I understand what you're saying.
When you discuss all of this and speak out about radicalization, do you ever feel threatened?
Mr. Mansur: Yes, it has happened. It happened again. I go back to the good Senator Mitchell's remarks. It happened within the mosque environment. I was declared a heretic by the imams of my mosque. I cannot go to the mosque in London and I don't go because if I do, it might be violent. It might be verbal violence, which could escalate into physical violence. I don't feel safe and secure at all. The people who are involved in saying and doing these things are very serious and senior people.
Senator Stewart Olsen: What about your family?
Mr. Mansur: My family is concerned about me because I've been a public person, writing and talking since 9/11. I could have remained silent and walked away from all of this, but I felt it was my obligation to defend my country and speak out and explain the problems to the people. So my family feels concerned about me and they have come to accept the situation. I feel concerned about my family, that somebody might try to hurt them because of me.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Do you feel that if you needed help you could get it from our Canadian laws, with how our society is?
Mr. Mansur: I haven't gone out searching for help, but I know the agencies are there and they know who I am in my city. I would reach out to them if I felt threatened. But if you asked me, in the back of my mind, especially with what has happened in recent years, do I personally feel some concern? Yes, I do, but then one cannot allow that to dictate one's life.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you.
Senator Dagenais: Given your knowledge of your community, do you see foreign funding from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Qatar coming into Canada to finance radicalization or radical preachers?
Mr. Mansur: Yes, this is a huge concern. I can tell you the story about one instance in the city of London. This is the financing of a chair for Islamic studies at Huron College in my university. The funding of that chair that came from an organization that had been named as unindicted co-conspirators in important trials in the United States, that they are connected with the Muslim Brotherhood organization. One particular source of funding, which I mentioned in my opening remarks, was the World Islamic Call Society. This was an organization founded by the Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the 1970s. The World Islamic Call Society's funding came from Libya, and it was being managed out of London. Finally, the CRA shut it down.
They were the ones providing funds for the chair of this program. The people responsible for doing the due diligence did not work. The question hangs: How could organizations' offshore money come into a country and do such a thing, establish a chair? This is clearly an activity where black money is being circulated and made legitimate. Who will be hurt by this? Who will be exposed to this? It is a vulnerable part of our population, the young people.
Senator Dagenais: What should government do with regard to individuals who are known to carry views that are out of step with Canadians, especially if it leads to radicalization and other threats?
Mr. Mansur: Senator, I couldn't understand the last part of it. Could you repeat it for me?
Senator Dagenais: I apologize for my English. I have a special accent, too, my French accent.
Mr. Mansur: It's a lovely accent.
Senator Dagenais: What should the government do with regard to individuals who are known to carry views that are out of step with Canadians, especially if it leads to radicalization and other threats?
Mr. Mansur: This has been taken advantage of. We know about that; we've seen it happen. With the part of the world that you have told me about, they have easy access to our country for all sorts of reasons, and they have circulated their money generously to our institutions. One of the institutions is the mosque institution.
On the discussions that take place in the mosque, senator, I brought something along with me to show you physically. I don't know how many of you have seen this book. This is not the Quran. This is the sharia. This is the standard sharia book from which discussions take place. In English it's called the Reliance of the Traveller, and Umdat al-Salik in Arabic. There's a whole list of texts I can point out to you that are freely circulated. I brought these along. I'm not sure if you know this particular book or have come across it. It's called Milestones by Sayyid Qutb, one of the founding heads of Islamism, a Muslim brother. This book, senator, is the What is To Be Done of the Muslim world, the Mein Kampf of Islamism.
A whole list of books, senators, are pushed through the mosque and through mosque-related organizations into the community. This is what young people are reading. This is why I am a dissident Muslim. I have mixed feelings about this, but if the government is serious about doing something serious about it, then it has to empower Muslim organizations that are trying to find a footing in Canada that don't have the funding support, that can't get the funding support, that are under constant pressure and attack to provide the critical understanding of our tradition to the young people, to vaccinate them against this stuff.
I read the same stuff. I read the same Quran, but I don't come to this conclusion, the Mein Kampf conclusion, that Sayyid Qutb has come to and that has infested our youth, particularly those who are converts because they have no background of the context in which the Quran or the Khadisse was written. They get it through Mein Kampf.
Senator White: I want to thank you very much for being here today. I've listened to a number of witnesses and some have spoken, as you have, around the concerns about the mosques and some of the teaching going on there. I've heard others tell us that it isn't the mainstream Muslim community that we are hearing this from; it is instead from a fringe of that community. I have to be honest; I don't know who to believe. When I was the police chief in Ottawa, I met with and dealt with many imams regularly and talked a lot about the challenges we had as we dismantled and, in a couple of cases, arrested terrorists in this community who were bent on killing or at least causing a change in our own society.
I'm trying to be fair, if I may, sir. I'm not saying that I don't believe you; I'm trying to figure out why it is that we should believe what you're saying to us because I have others telling me the opposite of what you're saying.
Mr. Mansur: The simple and quick answer is there are many faces of Islam, and you have to become a student of the subject matter to understand the many faces of Islam and be able to discern them.
I didn't want to be stuck on it, but since we are talking about it, the mosque around the world, particularly in Muslim countries and then outside Muslim countries, is the embodiment of what I would call ''official Islam.'' We have deep problems with official Islam. Official Islam is the Islam that perpetrates these arguments. You might be shocked about that, but Pakistan, a country that I know very well — I speak the language — began Islamization in the 1970s under General Zia-ul-Haq, who hanged the former President of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The process of Islamization, which is official Islam, was to establish the sharia code. This is the sharia code. The debate within the Muslim community is who is, then, an authentic Muslim? Is he an authentic Muslim who follows the sharia code? Is he an authentic Muslim, or has he become a heretic or, worse, an apostate who rejects the sharia code. If you look at the polling data of Pakistan, the country is divided. More than 50 per cent of the people would like to be living in a country that is democratic and not ruled by the sharia code, but the other half of the people are making a decision.
Without taking too much time, senator, I'll give you a very quick example. Pakistan and India are cut from the same cloth. The world's second largest Muslim country is India. It's not official Islam over there, and Islam and Muslims in India are not running around blowing up people and shooting people. There are all sorts of other problems. About 180 million Muslims in India are not involved with the problems that are the case in Pakistan.
Senator White: Thank you very much for that. I teach in India, actually, and I know from teaching at the national police academy that they do have a problem with extremists within the Muslim community as well. But I appreciate that lesson.
What would the polling in Canada tell us from the Muslim community? What is it that the Muslim community is telling us here? I appreciate what you told me about Pakistan, but what are we seeing in Canada?
Mr. Mansur: I might refer you to the polling that was done a couple of years ago for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. It's very positive polling data. Upwards of 75, 80 per cent of Muslims in Canada are very positively disposed to Canada, but again it comes back to that core group, between 10 and 20 per cent, 15 per cent. This has been provided by the CBC-Environics poll and the MLI polling that was done. There is that core that tends towards extremism. Within that, there is that element that goes down the slippery slope. So we are talking about that element, around about 5, 7, 8 per cent, which is what we are concerned about.
Senator White: We just had two witnesses here talk about the three circles, and they identified the very small number who actually take it that last step. We saw an individual yesterday who is obviously radicalized in some way and finds himself in Syria now, I would suggest.
Out of that percentage, what number actually take it to action, in your mind? We've heard others say.
Mr. Mansur: In the case of London, we had this case of two youngsters that went off.
Senator White: You were clear on 15 and then maybe 5 or 7 per cent. Having investigated some terrorist cases, what percentage do you truly see, because I don't see 15 per cent. I certainly don't see 5 or 7 per cent.
Mr. Mansur: That's the pool.
Senator White: That's right, so what percentage take it to action, sir?
Mr. Mansur: A very small fraction actually takes the step and goes forward.
Senator White: So less than 1 per cent?
Mr. Mansur: Yes, less than 1 per cent.
Senator White: Thank you very much.
Senator Beyak: Thank you for an excellent presentation.
I think Senator White is speaking for many Canadians watching this broadcast who know we're welcoming and diverse. We want immigrants, all immigrants, and they know that 85 per cent of immigrants and people in general are good people. But the 15 per cent is terrifying to all of us. I think we know that if we don't learn from history, we're destined to repeat it.
I wondered if you could give us some of your ideas, after your long study on this, on the threat of Wahhabism and Salafism that we heard from the mom of the young man who came to the committee last week and testified as to why it's so appealing and what we can do about it.
Mr. Mansur: Why Salafism is appealing?
Senator Beyak: Yes. She said that it was very radical, that Salafism and Wahhabism were reaching out to her son and, she feared, to other young men.
Mr. Mansur: We are now talking about the 15 per cent that is vulnerable, and from that 15 per cent, we get a very small fraction that actually steps out and goes with it.
That 15 per cent that is very vulnerable to the ideas of Salafism and that takes it on are, again, searching for meaning to their life. At that age, they are hungry for meaning. What they have been told, what they study on their own and what they hear their elders speaking about is that to be authentic is to go as close as possible in imitating and following the life of the Prophet and the people of that generation. That's what pulls them back towards that, you see. That's what makes them then open to further ideas, those further ideas that come out of the literature of Hassan al- Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and so on and so forth.
The skepticism about whether mosques are the incubators of Islamism or not is a genuine skepticism, and it should be there. But there is the flip side of that fact. We are now talking about Canada, and it's Sunni Muslim mosques precisely. About 85 per cent of Muslims are Sunni Muslims. Most of these mosques are run by their imams and their associates who are either from the Middle East or from Pakistan and who have been educated in the madrasas, that is, the religious schools of those countries. So they bring that value. That value is alive in the mosque. People who step out of the mosque then live this contradictory life. Inside the mosque, that authentic value is seen as a value that approximates as closely as possible to the lifestyle of what the Saudis represent.
In my lifetime, senator — I don't want to take too much time, but this is the only opportunity I have, so if you'll permit me 30 seconds. In my time, I went to Western, from Ottawa, in the early 1990s, so I've been there over 20 years now. When I arrived at Western, when my hair was still black, I had a very large body of students of Middle Eastern and South Asian background. I didn't encounter students in my class — I'm talking about female students — wearing the hijab. That was not there. After 9/11, the pendulum has swung. It is rare that I find a Middle Eastern or South Asian Muslim girl, a young woman, not with a hijab. That's the indicator of where this has come from.
I go back to Pakistan, I go back to the Middle East, and I talk to the people — my wife's generation, my mother-in- law's generation. For them, getting rid of the hijab was a liberation, and now their granddaughters are all back into hijab; and then within them, there is that number that wants to be even more authentic, to put on the niqab. So the pendulum has swung.
Senator Enverga: Thank you, Mr. Mansur.
In the past, you have compared the Taliban and other Islamist organizations to communist groups in the 20th century. As part of our study, we are attempting to understand the nature of radicalization and the ideological beliefs behind it. Could you please elaborate on this comparison and the similarities you see between the motivations driving political Islam and the motivations driving other radicalized ideologies?
Mr. Mansur: To give you an historical background would take a lot of time, but I want to read to you the words, if I can find my own writing here. I brought it along with me. It is the words of the fountainheads of modern Islam — Hassan al-Banna and company. They grew up, they came of age in that very critical period, the 1930s, and they saw and they absorbed the ideas of fascism and communism. They absorbed it to turn the religion into a political enterprise. It is from their writing I'm pointing out. This is a totalitarian movement, what the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami represent. Here it is. I'll read to you the writing of Maududi, who is the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, the counterpart of the Muslim Brotherhood. What is the state that he wants a Muslim state to be? What is an Islamic state? This is what he says:
In such a state, no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect the Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states.
At the age of 17, 18, 19 and 20, undergraduate students have no experience of the world. They live in the world of ideas; and in the world of ideas, these are very appealing ideas. All of us have gone through that, if you look back to your own lifetime. We have all been in some ways infected with these ideas, and then we have outgrown them. We are therefore confronting this challenge, that is, the challenge of Islamism, Taliban, Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim Brotherhood, all the various organizations. We're confronting this challenge without any recourse within the Muslim world — this is also a challenge in the Philippines and in Indonesia — to the democratic experience of these societies.
In Canada, young people are divided between what they learn or acquire within a certain environment, and I have pinpointed the mosque environment, but that's not the only environment. There are other environments that are related. Then they come out into the general society and they confront the other thing. There's a contradiction, and they live that contradiction.
In some ways, I have been privileged to talk to these students — that is, my students, male and female — and they have had, in a sense, an opportunity to talk to me or to talk to people like me that were able to help counsel them.
The biggest problem, for instance, with the young women is arranged marriages. Therefore, the problem of the males is that the girls have been picked for them. I had a student recently, a brilliant student, coming from northwest Pakistan, a Pashtun. The Pashtuns are against people on both sides of the borders of Afghanistan. A young, brilliant, handsome man, almost depressed to a suicidal point. Why? Because his parents and his family were forcing him to marry his cousin back in Peshawar. I spent hours and hours with him to get him to finish his education and get him out of that environment, and he's now doing well. He left and has gone to Alberta. Thank goodness he's gone to Alberta, where he's now working and he's out of that family environment.
This is a regular problem. The family itself can be totalitarian. I'm not getting into sociology, but that's where it can be, the family imposing and demanding. Aqsa Parvez was killed. All she wanted to do as a Canadian girl was to be able to be free, to dress the way she wants to dress, to go out and come home. That was breaking the honour code. The rest is history.
This totalitarian movement that is legitimate is legitimated by a certain reading of the religious text. That's what we're talking about. If those young men are determined to become jihadis, we can't turn them back. They'll find a way out, unless we are determined to stop them before they become jihadis.
The Chair: Colleagues, we're at 4:30. I would like to thank our guest. Thank you for a very informative presentation.
Joining us for our final panel today, as part of our look at threats to Canada and Canadians, is Jocelyn Latulippe, Deputy Director General, Investigations and Internal Security at the Sûreté du Québec. Mr. Latulippe has over 25 years of service in the police force, having begun has career at the Sûreté du Québec in March 1988 as a patrol officer. In 2002, he became the deputy director of the support services branch of criminal investigations and later chief inspector in the directorate of the criminal investigation services. Deputy Director General Latulippe holds a master's in public administration from the National School of Public Administration.
I see you have Lieutenant Sylvain Guertin with you as well. We look forward to hearing your opening statement. Please proceed.
[Translation]
Jocelyn Latulippe, Deputy Director General, Investigations and Internal Security, Sûreté du Québec: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jocelyn Latulippe and I am Deputy Director General, Investigations and Internal Security. I am responsible for all criminal intelligence investigations, state protection and the fight against violent extremism. I am accompanied by Lieutenant Sylvain Guertin, the chief of the Division of Investigations on Extremist Threats.
First, I would like to thank the committee members for inviting us to talk about the Sûreté du Québec's efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism.
The Sûreté du Québec's counter-terrorism service was established in 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. When it was established, the service's mission was to identify and coordinate tactical and strategic activities designed to prevent and respond to terrorist acts in Quebec territory. At the time, it participated in national efforts directly related to investigations on crimes motivated by terrorist objectives.
Thereafter, the service evolved as it diversified its areas of activity, in order to combat terrorism and crime supporting terrorist activities. We expanded our activities to include hate crimes and high-risk fugitives. Recently, the service has become the Division of Investigations on Extremist Threats. This has broadened its mandate by focusing on a more generalized investigative role. For international matters, we also prefer terrorist investigations to be conducted in partnership with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams.
Lieutenant Sylvain Guertin, Chief, Division of Investigations on Extremist Threats, Sûreté du Québec: I would also like to thank the members of the committee for this invitation. My division is currently tasked with investigating, coordinating and collaborating in various police activities related to combating extremism and domestic terrorism. We also conduct investigations into activities that could threaten the integrity of state institutions, the government, and its essential infrastructures.
Our areas of activity are extremist movements, hate crimes, anti-government movements, lone violent offenders, terrorist threats and support activities, crimes against the security and integrity of the government's computer networks, and hacking. In the last five years, in addition to our training, coordination and prevention activities, the service has received more than 900 reports that have led us to open more than 275 investigation files, of which about 30 per cent were opened following the events in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. The majority of the service's active files deal with the extreme right and, for 25 per cent of the files, with hate crimes. Then we have the files on Islamic radicalism, a little under 25 per cent of the cases, lone violent offenders and anti-government movements. In total, those four areas account for about 70 per cent of our activities. The other 30 per cent is devoted to other extremist elements.
Our files have led to 144 warrants being issued and to 53 arrests, including three under section 83.231 of the Criminal Code. We have also developed some expertise with the anti-government movement known as Freemen on the Land. We have also trained more than 800 individuals in the legal system in Quebec and conducted a number of investigations all around the province.
Mr. Latulippe: For the Sûreté du Québec, the prevention of radicalization that leads to violence rests on four pillars that are defined in the police counter-terrorism management structure. This structure works in partnership with the SPVM and the RCMP and the various municipal police services. Those pillars are prevention, intelligence, investigation and response. My presentation will deal with the first three pillars.
First of all, to address prevention, it is critical for us to establish links with communities and with newcomers in the entire huge area covered by the Sûreté du Québec. Police officers have to be able to support them in resisting the attractions of radicalization. The building of mutual trust between the Sûreté du Québec and all the various cultural communities is vital in providing better communication and, eventually, better collaboration to deal with the phenomenon of radicalization to violence.
The Sûreté du Québec also seeks to prevent the radicalization of those born and bred in Quebec, who try to join radical groups to gain recognition, to find some meaning in their lives, or to fight injustice through violence. Mental health is also an issue, and it requires the assistance of health professionals.
The challenge for the SQ is to define a model that could be used in the regions that are far from the major centres. Recent arrivals to our territory may go to more closed communities, in regions where immigration is a more recent phenomenon, which may well cause a reaction in the communities. A liaison program with those communities is the best way to prevent that from happening and to prevent racial profiling.
There are other models, such as community sponsors, police officers working in schools and community relations programs. Our organization has those tools available in order that we can be in contact with the public and to identify problem situations. The base of our program is prevention.
With intelligence, we then have three major challenges, detecting and tracing information, monitoring social media, and the complex nature of combatting violent extremism and of national security.
With intelligence, detecting red flags and indicators of radicalization to violence is primarily a matter for community police and those involved on the front line. They are the closest to those who may become radicalized.
The Sûreté du Québec uses a community policing model, one of the precepts of which is that police services cannot effectively combat crime unless they establish partnerships and work in cooperation with the public in gathering information and detecting situations of risk. The community must therefore participate in its own security by assisting police services in detecting the signs of violent radicalization. So educating all those involved through training and awareness programs is critical.
We are also of the opinion that every new police officer should take a mandatory training and awareness program in national security that would cover aspects such as detecting red flags and following leads. Intelligence has to be channeled to intelligence and investigation units. In this context, the SQ believes that it is necessary to provide first responders with simple, easy-to-use tools, because national security is not a common area and can be complex. I must also add that front-line officers must give more priority to fighting hate crime.
Intelligence must also be gathered on the Internet and via social media. The web today is a major vehicle for radicalization and recruitment. But it is also a source of intelligence and a mine of information that allows crimes and suspicious behaviour to be uncovered. In fact, about 50 per cent of the leads about possible crimes are reported to us via Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or other platforms. It therefore becomes necessary for police services to invest in social media detection by developing their surveillance capabilities.
The other issue is that combatting violent extremism and national security are complex areas that do not come naturally to police officers. We are facing a new challenge in an area driven by ideology that, unlike more conventional criminal activity such as organized crime, manifests itself more clandestinely, on an individual level, on the border between criminal activity and suspicious behaviour.
Combatting radicalization and violent extremism is not possible without the participation of partners. Police forces must become involved themselves, and must also involve government departments and organizations, municipalities, the private sector and the public in the work of detecting at-risk behaviour. It is critical to share communication between all the parties, but the background of national security adds an element of complexity. We must avoid profiling and we must respect the freedoms afforded under the Canadian and Quebec charters.
Finally, we need to have a clear response to extremism that leads to violence in any form and not focus on a single sphere, which could lead to certain communities being stigmatized.
We believe that the broken windows theory must be applied by criminalizing any crime based on hate or extremist motivations. That strategy allows us to explore the processes of radicalization to violence from the outset and to preserve the public's sense of security.
For the police community in Quebec, the success of investigations depends on partnerships. The Sûreté du Québec is a participant in the police counter-terrorism management structure, with the RCMP, the SPVM and the municipal police forces involved. This structure has three levels of decision-making: a provincial strategic command, established as a partnership, unified commands for prevention, intelligence or response, and operational cells on the ground that are ready to act at all times. The partnership for investigations means that investigations into national security matters in Quebec are coordinated. The SQ attends meetings with its partners to discuss active files and to coordinate investigations. This exercise proved even more important in the light of the events in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and in Ottawa and of the extremely high number of tips that followed. If we had not had that structure during the events at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, we would not have made decisions and acted so quickly or followed the events so that we could capture all the issues and the threat we were facing.
Then, the Sûreté du Québec shares its intelligence with its partners in order to be effective in providing them with the best possible support for their investigations. Finally, like our partners, we are part of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams in order to pool our organizational expertise, to make resources and intelligence available, and to be part of the national effort against terrorism and violent extremism.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the three great priority challenges in our mission: education, partnerships and the Internet.
As Michael Moore once said, ''Ignorance leads to fear and fear leads to hate and hate leads to violence.''
So we have to try to educate people in order to reduce their ignorance in the face of differences. Preventing radicalization to violence is therefore a major challenge in education and communication for the Sûreté du Quebec, as it is for all our partners in the PCTMS. We have even established an operational cell in this area in order to coordinate the provincial effort in prevention.
In terms of education, we have to be able to reach out to the first responders and provide them with all the knowledge they need that will enable them to pick up the red flags and suspicious behaviour in the public at large in such a complex area. They must also be able to get to know the cultural communities that are increasingly settling in the regions and with whom contact may have to be different if profiling and alienation are to be avoided. Those communities must likewise get to know us more as partners in their security. Coming together with those communities is critical and must be part of our strategy, as is the collaboration of those working in mental health who are faced with this phenomenon. We must all expand and share our realities in the face of the threat posed by radicalization to violence.
With the partnerships, we need to establish permanent structures to combat extremism and terrorism in each province. The structure must rest on pillars such as those adopted in Quebec by the police counter-terrorism management structure, somewhat like the model of the mixed squads used against criminal bikers, which allowed concerns and responsibilities to be shared. They proved effective against the criminal bikers. A permanent structure of that kind in Quebec allowed barriers between organizations to be broken down. It has resulted in the Sûreté du Québec being extremely well prepared and effective when real or potential events of an extremist and terrorist nature occur.
Finally, the surveillance of social media and the Internet must be coordinated nationally and provincially, because they are fertile ground for hatred, radicalization and extremist and violent propaganda. Threats to public security are increasingly invisible because of the Internet and social media. Public safety and police forces must turn to face these invisible threats and adapt to a more complex and diffuse environment. More and more tips and criminal activities originate and will originate on the web.
To sum up, the winning tools of the Quebec police community, which includes the Sûreté du Québec are: the training of first responders, the permanent structures related to all hate and extremist crimes, including terrorism, from prevention to investigations, and lastly, a virtual presence followed by dialogue with communities and the detection of red flags at all levels.
Senator Mitchell: Thanks very much to both of you for your presentation. It was excellent and very informative. I have several questions, one of which has to do with your relationships with the communities.
[English]
It's been said by several former witnesses that somehow the mosques are these hotbeds of discontent and radicalization, that there is an education process. But it seems to me, from what you're saying, that that's not the case. You work with people in the community. You can trust that these people share our values and concerns, Canadians' concerns broadly, and it's a small minority of people who are vulnerable to radicalization.
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: That really is a good point. We can work well with people in mosques and in the Muslim community, if that is what you mean. But we also have to be very careful not to focus on one community more than another. The fight against radicalization must be carried out equally with all cultural groups, even with those born and bred in Quebec.
Basically, we must be on the lookout for red flags from everyone in Canada. The challenge is to avoid stigmatization, which ultimately leads to hate, which in turn leads to fear and violence. Stigmatizing one community more than another or targeting certain places more than others, such as mosques, creates a dangerous cycle. Police officers need to be very mindful of this challenge.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you very much for your comments.
[English]
Do you have enough resources? Do you have the money and people you need, given that you can always use more, but within reason?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: Right now, I don't think we are dealing with a financial issue as much as a complex issue and new challenges. The police community is evolving rapidly; so is crime. However, the issue of national security and radicalization is not something concrete, something tangible on a daily basis. It is new for police officers and they need to adapt.
Financially speaking, I think we will reach a certain cap as we combat radicalization on the Internet. This effort requires a lot of money, training and equipment. I also think, sooner or later, we will need to develop a national and provincial strategy to avoid overlap in spending, working in silos or redoing the same work of looking at the same Internet pool in various places in Canada, not to mention when we are going to combat the dark web.
We need to coordinate all our efforts and join forces. There is a financial principle, but we must also avoid silos in terms of information. I would say that, financially, we need to adopt good practices rather than have more money, but good investments are always useful.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you, Mr. Guertin and Mr. Latulippe. I am proud to see you here today. Clearly, after 39 years with the Sûreté du Québec, I don't forget my roots. Thank you very much for accepting our invitation.
I would like to turn to the events that took place on Parliament Hill on October 22. Have those events forced you to review the security of parliamentarians and government buildings in Quebec?
Mr. Latulippe: Yes, to a certain extent. We had to look at what happened in Ottawa to learn lessons and improve our practices. Security practices in place at the National Assembly or at other major buildings need to be constantly tailored. We have the ongoing challenge of adapting our security methods to the latest strategies of criminals, extremists and terrorists.
To an extent, we responded to what happened and learned lessons, but I would say that we had done some major work to increase security, both at the National Assembly and other government buildings.
Senator Dagenais: The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has to put forward recommendations to improve national security. Would you have any suggestions for us to assist you in your work on the ground in Quebec?
Mr. Latulippe: That is a very good question. Without talking about specific solutions, some things can be done. For instance, the government can support initiatives that bring together communities and that develop their sense of responsibility in the fight against radicalization, violence and extremist or terrorist ideas.
You could also contribute greatly by helping us obtain information from Canadian or foreign Internet service providers by supporting the work of various subcommittees, be it the work of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, of the committee on crime in cyberspace, or at FPT level. Some solutions have been brought forward and they will help us a great deal in reducing delays.
This does not mean invading the privacy of Canadians more, but reducing investigation delays as much as possible, even when we are not dealing with emergencies, because any delay can give more latitude to terrorists in committing such acts.
We must also think about criminalizing actions that promote and support extremist and terrorist activities to stop the promotion in its tracks. We need to work hard on that as well. Finally, we need to get Internet service providers to assume their responsibilities in reporting terrorist acts, just like in child pornography.
These are all ideas that are not very specific. Finally, it might also be worthwhile reflecting on our contribution to the collective support of terror, which is sought out by terrorists and is perpetuated by promoting their identity and their actions, such as video or audio threats.
We believe that we will need to reflect collectively on that, because articles, such as the one from this morning about a jihadist from Ontario, make it easier for anyone with issues to receive unexpected popularity, which is what they want and which will enable them to continue to sow terror and insecurity.
Senator Dagenais: I will continue in the second round of questions, if time permits.
[English]
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you for appearing before us. I noted that you gave us quite a few facts and figures, which is very much appreciated. Thank you.
If I could just ask you about the general trend in Quebec, do you find the trend of radicalization is going up, or is it that the public is more aware and is reporting it more?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: We think it is a bit of both. The more reports we get from people about radicalization incidents, the more investigations we have. Is the trend of radicalization going up? Perhaps, because there are also more Internet- related issues right now. There are more global issues in terms of clashes between communities.
We can't say that one is more prevalent than the other, but we feel that there is an increase on both sides. Clearly, the more we detect and identify the trend, the more we automatically realize that extremism is on the rise, particularly through the Internet, making its way into idle people's homes, people with mental health issues or thrill seekers.
[English]
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you. I also noted you made special reference — and I think you are the only police we have spoken with who have done it so far — to policing of rural areas and the importance and understanding that it's probably more difficult to spot these people in rural areas, probably because of less community police and maybe less community involvement. I thought that was very perceptive of you. I want to commend you for that.
How do you manage to stay in touch with your rural areas effectively?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: What we wanted to point out is that, in remote regions, it is always more complicated to have contact with these communities that are often more inclined to withdraw into themselves.
In those cases, we need to use our basic method: the local police. The local police help us to be in constant communication with communities so that they do not actually become isolated in their regions. We need to address that. But honestly, the people in municipalities, cities and villages across Quebec are very careful to integrate people settling in those regions and help them take advantage of Quebec's attractions. Yes, the police has work to do to help them become integrated and to allay their fears, but we also receive a lot of help from the communities. There are many programs. Last weekend, in the Sherbrooke area, many steps were taken to integrate people. People are aware of the importance of avoiding radicalization and isolation, which have negative consequences. That works well in communities.
[English]
Senator Stewart Olsen: What I've noticed as well is that you're charging a fair number of people lately in Quebec. That's not easy to do. Two of our earlier witnesses were saying there's a real difference. It's getting the evidence, which is not the easy thing to do in these cases.
How do you manage that? Is the threshold maybe too high in these cases? Also, have you used tools like peace bonds?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: For the Sûreté du Québec, the main tool to fight against extremism and terrorism is not always section 83. Mr. Guertin could elaborate on what we do in that sense.
Mr. Guertin: The Sûreté du Québec has an investigation team specialized in extremist threats, whose goal is to develop expertise and to advise other investigative units. Quebec is a large province. It is vast. People are scattered all over the province. There are investigation offices in all the regions, which makes it possible to act locally on the ground. The SQ sees itself as a team of generalists. Laying charges under section 83 is not needed in all cases, since we are looking for warning signs of radicalization to stop the trend in its tracks. They are all small signs such as assaults, mischief and arson. We act quickly and we coordinate all work and efforts from everywhere to achieve better results. The goal is always to act as quickly as possible before the situation deteriorates.
Various crimes, including hate crimes, have been added to the Criminal Code of Canada in new sections. The specific crimes of public incitement of hatred and advocacy of genocide are often warning signs that we can detect on the web or in public places where people make radical speeches. For other offences under section 718 of the Criminal Code, courts already have the discretion to consider any hate crimes against a specific group as aggravating factors for any other offence in the Criminal Code of Canada.
Those tools are already available, and they may not be applied enough, because we are working with various stakeholders to stress the elements of hate crimes. These crimes are more often because of what a person represents than who the person is. We may take precautions to protect ourselves in our homes, but when random acts occur, because of what we might represent as a person, that is when we become victims. That is the pernicious side of the crime, which targets the person in two ways: who they are and what they represent. The legislator has already set out the aggravating factor in the Criminal Code.
Mr. Latulippe: This is a strategy that involves going to the source of crimes that may be considered minor. We call it the ''broken window'' theory, which originated in New York. It involves treating every crime, no matter how small, as something that may lead to hatred and violence.
[English]
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you very much. It was very interesting information and I appreciate it.
Senator Beyak: Thank you, gentlemen. Our committee understands from public reports that prior to the attack on the two soldiers, Mr. Rouleau was interviewed and in discussion with police agencies. Was SQ part of those discussions or the de-radicalization of Mr. Rouleau?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: We were working with the RCMP on Mr. Rouleau's case. Without going into the investigation and details, because it is an RCMP investigation involving national security, the police worked on this with the Saint-Jean- sur-Richelieu police, the Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP. We were all involved in the police counter-terrorism management structure in an attempt to deradicalize Mr. Rouleau through our various efforts, yes.
[English]
Senator Beyak: In those discussion, was there any thought of using section 83 peace bonds, monitoring irons or anything to track him?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: A number of different strategies were examined, without going into detail about the investigation. Again, the optimum decisions were made taking into consideration legal requirements and the case we had to handle, but I would say, simply to confirm that, yes, we looked at all these options.
[English]
The Chair: If I could pursue this question from Senator Beyak with respect to an investigation, when do you expect that investigation to be concluded and who is the report presented to?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: For the national security component related to Mr. Rouleau, that file belongs to the ''C'' Division Integrated National Security Enforcement Team of the RCMP. I do not know when the investigation is due to be concluded, but we are contributing to the investigation. The Sûreté du Québec has conducted what we call the independent investigation into the exchange of gunfire, meaning that the investigation of the police officers who had to shoot the individual came under the Sûreté du Québec, but the start and end of that investigation had to do with the gunfire. The investigation related to overall national security does not come solely under the Sûreté du Québec. I am sorry.
[English]
The Chair: If I can just pursue this, I want to get it clear. You obviously have some responsibility and you say you're working within the integrated group. Who, at the end of the day, gets the final report? Who makes the decision whether or not that final report is made public?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: In this case, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team is continuing its investigation to determine whether there are other options that have not been studied or other ramifications, but as for the public report, that will depend on whether new charges are laid against other individuals. I cannot comment on that at present. If there are no new charges, a report will be submitted, and the RCMP may be able to make recommendations for future panels at a later date. As for the public aspect, I could not comment, because I do not have any information.
[English]
Senator White: Thank you to both of you for being here today. I really appreciate you taking the time.
We've had a number of witnesses who have talked about engagement in some of the mosques or masjids and the fact that their perspective was that a large amount of radicalization and extremism is happening from within those facilities. It hasn't been my experience, but you're engaged in those communities. Do you hear that same thing, or are these the thoughts of a few?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: Are mosques breeding grounds for radicalization? No more than any other type of community. We can look at the example of our two recent terrorists, who were pure Quebeckers, who attended mosques, basically. However, we can take the example of many other events that have taken place in Canada that did not necessarily involve individuals who attended mosques. The phenomenon of hatred that leads to radicalization and violence is international. Yes, there is a priority to have a positive dialogue with people who attend mosques and the imams, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Montreal police and the Sûreté du Québec have made significant effort in that regard.
We must do this same work with other types of communities. We need to avoid stigmatizing one community or place in particular. It is always troubling when, following an incident, certain deranged or criminalized individuals vandalize mosques or try to stigmatize the communities. I do not think the effect is all that positive.
[English]
Senator White: I thank you very much for that, because my concern is probably not much different than we have expressed.
I do have another question in relation to information sharing. We've had other police leaders in here talk about their organizations and the small numbers. I think one police service said less than 10 people in the whole organization would have top secret clearance to receive information from CSIS and maybe even in some cases from the RCMP or the SQ. I know in the Boston Marathon bombings there was real concern that the FBI had information that was not shared with local police officers, agents on the streets representing those communities.
Do you believe it's time that Canada stepped up and set a standard of security clearances so this information could be more readily available to all officers? There are 66,000 police officers and 204 agencies in this country today. Do you think it's time to step up and solidify the standard of information sharing so it can be shared more readily?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: Yes, in fact, significant importance is placed on the intelligence community and front-line officers. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, works daily to improve its process. We recently met with CSIS, the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec and the Montreal police. We try to communicate and exchange as much as possible. We think that, despite the classification of certain intelligence, there are ways to operate in order to communicate with front-line officers when necessary. That is what we are doing but, often, invalid information risks being communicated, which may create needless panic. All these aspects must be monitored when communicating. Given the potential consequences, we need to ensure the validity of the information. Currently, the challenge is to communicate from the top of the pyramid to front-line officers with respect to the police counter-terrorism management structure in Quebec. This is an issue. I can assure you. We also held meetings last week to communicate as much information as possible to the police forces involved.
Organized crime is different because we can communicate much more broadly. Fighting extremism and terrorism is based on suspicious behaviour. That is why the communication criterion is different.
[English]
Senator White: Thank you very much for that, Mr. Latulippe. Your comments echo those of other police leaders, which I'm not surprised by.
One last question surrounds the number of people we have working on these types of investigations. I'll look at post-October 22, if I may. How many police officers, without specific numbers, of course, would you suggest you have working on these types of investigations and in relation to how many individuals in the province of Quebec today?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: The Sûreté du Québec has 21 full-time employees responsible for following-up on files, investigations and coordination. However, it is important to keep in mind that these people are supported by some 560 police officers throughout Quebec. Employees have been trained or have been brought in to help when the time comes to take action in investigations, intelligence, prevention, liaison with the communities, tactical work or more technical tasks. So, yes, the core is smaller, but it is very effective because it is working with many people all over Quebec and with the municipal police forces, which have staff trained in intelligence and who work with us when we need to communicate information on extremism and terrorism. This truly is teamwork.
[English]
Senator White: How many suspects do you have in numbers, 5 or 500?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: The term ''suspect'' from a national security standpoint is very broad. Whether the intelligence we have is validated or not, we need to have a suspect, an active investigation. Unfortunately, I cannot give you any definite or valid figures. It would be dishonest if I gave you a number. Sometimes investigations end in negative files. For example, many tips received since the events in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu did not lead to charges or arrests. It is too difficult to give you a specific number today.
[English]
Senator White: It was a good try. Thank you very much.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for the presentation, gentlemen. We understand that law enforcement is being pressed to do more outreach. What triggered you to do outreach with Mr. Rouleau's family and imam? Were those triggering issues not sufficient for criminal charges under section 83?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: In terms of Mr. Rouleau's file, I want to point out that we had several contacts. The RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec and the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu police were in touch with Mr. Rouleau's entourage, and with the people in his community and at his mosque. We wanted everyone to help deradicalize Mr. Rouleau on his radical path that was becoming more radical every day.
As for section 83, I do not have any details in Mr. Rouleau's case right now to go further, given that this is an RCMP investigation.
[English]
Senator Enverga: On another topic, we have heard about financing coming from Saudi Arabia and maybe Qatar to fund radicalized organizations. Does that concern your office?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: With regard to illegal financing, we have agreements with FINTRAC for proceeds of crime. There is an exchange of information on financial movements. However, with respect to fighting radicalization and terrorism, as Mr. Guertin explained, the Sûreté du Québec focuses more on the crimes that generate radicalization. When we talk about funding terrorist activities, those are usually international in nature and are sent to the RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams. As for terrorist funding, we have no position because that is not currently our priority. We are focusing on eradicating radicalization at its source by investigating all the minor crimes committed throughout Quebec that may lead to radicalization, violence or extremism.
[English]
The Chair: I'd like to follow up on this question of financing. Last week representatives from the Montreal police testified before the committee and indicated that they do not monitor terrorist financing. That, of course, leads me to the next question: With the information that FINTRAC is providing the various provinces across the country in conjunction with the RCMP, who is monitoring the terrorist financing in the province of Quebec? Is your organization actively involved? If so, how big of a question is it? How big of a problem is it?
Perhaps you can tell us exactly what your involvement is first, and then I'll ask a follow-up question.
[Translation]
Mr. Guertin: In Quebec, the integrated national security enforcement team handles issues related to terrorism funding specifically. As for crimes with international connections, the RCMP's teams have liaison officers around the world, which facilitates their work. The Sûreté du Québec is not able to travel abroad to retrieve intelligence.
It is more difficult for us because energy is focused on the integrated national security enforcement team with the terrorist financing team, which is specifically funded in each of the integrated teams across Canada, and that includes Montreal.
[English]
The Chair: So that we can get it clarified on the record, your law enforcement agency is involved in the periphery, and the RCMP is the lead and basically does all the work with respect to the investigation for terrorist financing; is that correct?
Mr. Guertin: That's correct.
The Chair: Earlier it was stated that there were 53 charges under the Criminal Code section 83.21. Was this since post-October 22 or what period of time? Basically, how many cases are involved with respect to those charges? What charge are we talking about? Are we talking about the question of electronic monitoring? Are we talking about peace bonds?
[Translation]
Mr. Guertin: We spoke earlier about the 53 charges. That involved every other offence in the Criminal Code, but in connection with extremism. With section 83, specifically, of the Criminal Code, there have been three files, three individuals in the past five years that have been charged under section 83.231, which aims to eradicate terrorist activities. That is a specific section of the Criminal Code of Canada, but it concerns only three files.
In the case of the other files, we are talking about hate crimes, public incitement to hatred, arson, assault and other offences in the Criminal Code of Canada.
[English]
The Chair: Just to clarify for the record, the numbers we're talking about here were basically three charges under that particular section for the broad question of terrorism?
[Translation]
Mr. Guertin: Yes, that is correct for the Sûreté du Québec.
[English]
The Chair: As part of our national conversation, we're trying to get an understanding of exactly how many charges are being brought forward with respect to the question of terrorism across the country in view of the legislative base that we presently have in place. The distinct impression that's being left with the committee, I believe, is that very few charges, if any, are being put forward with respect to the various sections that Parliament passed over the last number of years, and that prompts the question, why?
With respect to Senator Beyak's question on Rouleau and the outstanding question that is under investigation, why wasn't an electronic telecommunication monitor or a peace bond requested well before we got to the situation that we experienced?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: The answer lies in the fact that, as we said earlier, our approach is to investigate radicalization at the source, when there really is an appearance of hatred or extremism or an intent to want to carry out extremist acts on the entire area. When it becomes apparent during the investigation that we are dealing with international or group terrorism, at that point we turn to our partnership within the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, which makes much more use of the electronic eavesdropping provisions in the Criminal Code for the purposes of terrorist investigations, particularly by invoking section 83.
Given our mandate, we do not use section 83 as much, and our goal is not to implement electronic eavesdropping projects for the type of files we handle, because we really seek to eradicate at the source, across the province, the people geared toward a terrorist approach by stopping them before getting into the details or requirements related to section 83, which are more serious.
At that point, we turn to the partnership. The RCMP, with our co-operation and the co-operation of the SVPM, handles larger projects over a longer period of time. That is the mandate we have given ourselves to equip ourselves with a permanent provincial response and investigative capacity.
[English]
The Chair: Colleagues, I don't want to belabour this. I just want to follow up because we are on the record here, and I don't quite understand this. We have section 83.21. We have the ability to lay certain charges. We're finding that very few charges, if any, are being laid.
I just want to explore your authority. Does your organization recommend, at times, electronic monitoring or a peace bond and maybe it doesn't go any further? Who actually decides that they're going to recommend this?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: We have an integrated investigation police management structure. All files are analyzed by an integrated team, and we work with people from the RCMP, the SPVM and the Sûreté du Québec. We examine each case and assess the best solution to use for each one, taking into account the time available, the cost, the positions available and the strategies necessary. Some cases will be referred for much quicker and much shorter investigations, where we will use other tools set out in the Criminal Code, and other cases will be referred to much larger teams. Of course, the projects that use electronic eavesdropping provisions are longer investigations that require a lot of staff and resources. Once we actively start monitoring an individual in a terrorist investigation, it becomes very demanding on resources. We have to choose the right projects in this area to make sure we maintain control over as many files as possible. Not all projects will use electronic eavesdropping, but we choose them based on the Criminal Code and on the scope of the file.
[English]
The Chair: Could you provide for the past two years the number of cases where electronic monitoring has been requested and/or implemented and/or a peace bond under that particular section so that we have an understanding?
These laws are in place. Perhaps the threshold is too high or too low. We're trying to get an understanding. Are we using these laws? Some people are saying we need more laws. Could you provide us with that information? I'm sure it's on the public record.
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how many cases have been carried out under section 810, nor how many projects using electronic eavesdropping there have been. I do not have that data. Certainly, the criteria and requirements are high, but a lot of other things can be done to bolster our fight against terrorism and extremism. This does not necessarily involve having more projects, because those projects demand a lot of resources. We currently have a good balance between the various tools set out in the Criminal Code, be they hate-related or other charges, and other sections of the Criminal Code, be it the use of tools set out in section 810 or eavesdropping programs. We want to have experienced people who can choose the right tools. However, I cannot answer your question about the number of projects that have been carried out, especially with respect to electronic eavesdropping or section 810 for Quebec. That is information I do not have.
[English]
The Chair: I guess the question is who could? Would it be the RCMP?
[Translation]
Mr. Latulippe: Yes, the RCMP could answer that question because they use that provision. We do not use that provision because our response to the extremist and terrorist threat is not frequent. I am not saying that we will not do it, but we do not need those tools, among others, that are related to more costly, long-term projects. We try to use quicker, short-term tools.
[English]
The Chair: I appreciate it.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: To come back to the regions, Said Namouh lived in Louiseville in 2007. He was a sleeping wolf. Would it be easy to say that sleeping wolves prefer to be in the regions, because they believe it is easier to play the role of the good citizen there before acting out?
Mr. Latulippe: We have no information to confirm terrorists are using that strategy. There is a lack of data on sleeper agents, but there are two important things to keep in mind. The sleeper agent strategy appears to be much less of a reality today than prior to 2001. The strategy being used today is more of a broad-based appeal to all, on the part of terrorists trying to win over Quebecers across the province, as opposed to the infiltration of communities by sleeper agents. I am familiar with most of Quebec's communities. The long-term infiltration of communities by sleeper agents is a strategy that would likely be exposed by law-abiding citizens over time. It is not a strategy we still see today. It may have been used before, but it is not a successful strategy or, at least, a necessary one. The appeal to all tactic being used right now and the media coverage it garners is all the strategy they need.
[English]
The Chair: I'd like to thank our guests for coming here at the end of the day. It's been a long day for you as well. We appreciate you being as forthright as you are capable of being in view of your responsibilities.
(The committee adjourned.)