:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the standing committee. Good evening—and I will be brief.
I'm honoured by the privilege of being here tonight as president for the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow.
My organization supports the general drift of Bill , and we thank the government for taking Islamism—political Islam, as we call it—as a clear and present danger in the world and specifically in Canada.
We are also grateful that the government shares our concerns, first, to rationalize the sharing of security information within government, and second, to make sure that air travel is safe for passengers and is not used for terroristic purposes. Third is that the government make an attempt to limit terrorist propaganda, which is embedded in the language of political Islam and is spread through some individuals, some Islamic organizations, and some pulpits. I'm sure you are aware that this has had an extensive impact on Canadian-Muslim communities and especially our youth. Fourth is the fact that the government recognizes the value of disruption in countering terror threats.
As an aside, let me mention that I have just flown in directly from Florida, U.S.A., where I was speaking to some very politically charged Americans about radicalization and terrorism. When I mentioned Bill and our Prime Minister's stance on recognizing the problem, I was surprised to get a standing ovation. You may know that to the south of us, they can't even use the word “Islamist” and “terrorism” in the same sentence, let alone do something about it.
This is to say that the world has its eyes on Canada, so that we don't become another Europe, where the problem of extremism has exploded in such a way that it seems practically impossible to reverse the tide. When I picked up today's National Post, I was delighted to read the quote from Stephen Harper saying, “Canadians did not invent the threat of jihadi terrorism and we certainly did not invite it, nor...can we protect [our country or] our communities by choosing to ignore it.”
I think that that says a lot for our Prime Minister.
Speaking on a personal note as an immigrant to Canada in December 1988 with my husband and two sons, the only motivation we had to face life, and of course the harsh winters that come with it in Canada, was that we were escaping from the government of General Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan, who was slowly shaping the same ideology that today has undone Pakistan. Unfortunately, now we see that same ideology being imported into Canada.
Way back in 2000, I started writing articles warning Canadian Muslims about the dangers of radicalization, especially among the youth, who were confused with nowhere to go between the mosque and the mall for answers to their questions. They had all the prerequisites of fodder for Islamic mercenaries looking for victims to brainwash.
Let me retract there for a second. The word is “Islamist”, and not “Islamic”; I want to keep a very clear distinction between the spiritual Islam and political Islam, which is “Islam” and “Islamism.”
These youth had grievances, both real and imagined, and the burgeoning number of recruiters offered an ideology they could latch on to. If needed, they would doubtless have foreign funding to support their nascent extremist viewpoints. That is when we realized that Wahhabism, Salafism—that ideology—had found its way into Canada.
You may ask, what is that ideology? We, as Muslims loyal to Canada and holding Canadian safety and security as our top priority, are not new to this game and we have been tracking the rise of extremism in Canada for a very long time. Radicalization and extremism are not always overt, and the kind of battle we are waging today is an ideological battle, which means that it can't always be fought with weapons.
It's with this reference that I have an essay that was published by the Mackenzie Institute—it's quite a coincidence that they are here—and written by me about four years ago.
It outlines the rise of Islamist terrorism in Canada as I have seen it unfold in the past 28 years. I think you will find that it covers much of what is being discussed here and our concerns about the scale of the threats—radicalism, extremism, and terrorism in Canada—and this does not even begin to address the current issues posed by ISIS and how it is recruiting our children to its own cause.
I have to apologize, as this is not in the two official languages, but at the time of publication that was not a requirement. I would humbly request that this document be tabled as part of my presentation—I have 12 copies here—because it speaks to why I am here tonight and why, along with some other organizations and individuals, we are dedicating our time and effort to support Bill .
Regarding specifically Bill , I would like to take the liberty of offering that we also see some weaknesses as well as its overarching strengths. I am not a legal expert by a long shot, but my work as a community activist and a basic understanding of the bill suggest this.
The proposed granting to CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, of the power to disrupt is a challenging thing. In defence of the government, it can be said that where such powers would otherwise breach law, CSIS would first have to seek a warrant authorizing the disruption operation. However, I might suggest that the approach to gaining authority to do this might not be sufficient to guarantee appropriate limits on this technique. Therefore, it might be useful to expand the mandate of SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, in order to make sure that any new departmental or agency powers have suitable review.
I would also like to point out that all government activity taking place in Canada is subject to the Canadian Constitution, notably including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Therefore, we look to the government to tailor review and other mechanisms appropriately, as all government activity will in the end be subject to the ultimate test, which is the Constitution.
Let me also add that we would like to consider Bill to be a work-in-progress, and that we are therefore confident that appropriate adjustment will be made in the legislation before it eventually becomes law. There is no doubt that our organization and the individuals involved would like to see this bill become the law. I fully understand and appreciate that in the western world, where our democracy is based on civil liberties, such an act may be perceived as encroaching on personal freedoms and values. However, we want to keep away threats to Canada, threats we are all familiar with as we see trial after trial unfolding and look at incidents where loyalty to the land in which we live was never made a priority.
Thank you very much for your time.
My name is Hassan Yussuff, and that is just one of the reasons I'm opposed to this bill. The other 3.3 million reasons are those unionized workers across this country whose rights are also under threat.
Let me begin by saying that the Canadian Labour Congress understands very well that the government has a responsibility to safeguard our public safety. Many of the workers we represent, those working at borders, for example, do that exactly every day across this country.
This bill is reckless. Its implementation will undermine the very freedom that the government claims it wants to protect. We stand with many Canadians who have concluded that the bill is more about posturing ahead of an election than it is about better protecting our public safety. We stand with those who say that this bill and the rhetoric being used to promote it targets and encourages the targeting of Muslim, Arab, and other racialized communities. For evidence of that, we can only remember how Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, was treated when he testified before this very committee just days ago.
We also agree with the many organizations and experts who worry that the bill does nothing to address the urgent need for oversight and review of the many agencies engaged in national security work. We simply can't understand why this government continues to ignore the findings and recommendations that were the result of the painstaking work of so many at the Arar commission, a process that was demanded and paid for by Canadians.
We are also especially concerned that if this bill becomes law it will limit free speech and dissent and advocacy. It is simply too far-reaching to define a threat to national security as “interference”, with, for example, the “economic or financial stability of Canada” or “critical infrastructure”, especially as the bill does not qualify what it means by “interference”. By saying, for example, “attacks” or “disruptions” or “damage”, or even “serious interference”, this bill may exclude lawful advocacy, protest, and dissent.
The term “lawful” is very narrow, as far as we're concerned. It will change the existing Criminal Code, which exempts all advocacy, protest, dissent, or stoppages of work not intended to endanger life or health. That means that labour demonstrations, marches, or rallies without permits would be deemed a threat to national security. Our work stoppages, while peaceful, might be deemed unlawful. If these actions are deemed to be a threat to national security, our members will be subjected to information sharing among the 17 government agencies engaged in national security work and could be subjected to disruption under the new police power granted to CSIS.
Canada has seen, through the case of Maher Arar and many others, how much harm can result from that.
We're also very concerned that this bill will introduce a new criminal offence for advocating or promoting the commission of terrorism acts in general. We think that many individuals who have no connection to terrorism and no intention of fomenting political violence will be caught up in the sweeping nature of this offence. This would impact freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, and academic freedom. The government has failed to justify why these changes are necessary, especially while so many highly publicized, terrorism-related arrests and convictions are proceeding very well under the existing Criminal Code.
I'd like to conclude by saying that it is very troubling that the members of Parliament seated here today are actively working to block the testimony of so many. I urge the committee members to reconsider.
Canadians do not want this bill to be rushed through without adequate and informed debate. I'm very certain that Canadians do want and expect their elected representative to benefit from the expertise of the Privacy Commissioner, special advocates, and others who have asked but been blocked from testifying to date before this committee.
On behalf of the CLC, thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As chair of the Mackenzie Institute's board of governors, I am going to deliver the presentation, but our general manager, Andrew Majoran, will be able to respond to questions as well.
The board thanks the chair and the committee for the opportunity to make comments on Bill . As you may know, the Mackenzie Institute is a not-for-profit organization and has worked for more than two decades to make Canadian leaders and the public more aware of the importance of security. For us, truly, security matters.
I am going to skip over our commercial parts as to our background, what we've done, where we've spoken, and in which articles we've appeared. Let me just say that our board of governors is entirely Canadian, with members who have lengthy careers in senior positions in the police, military, corrections, academia, and business. Our advisory board, which is chaired by the recently retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, currently has members with senior experience in the security and military sectors in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and India. We tend to be very focused nationally, but our view is also international.
Before commenting directly on Bill , we would like to make several key observations.
First, like many western societies, Canada faces historically unparalleled threats to its physical and social security from economic, ideological, and perhaps perverted religious forces. Strong challenges from any one of these sectors would be sufficient for concern and for policy action. Simultaneous challenges, even if uncoordinated, could be extremely taxing, requiring substantial, integrated, and well-coordinated government action, but as with any government action, care must be taken to ensure that the result of the action is as intended and not just an exercise in job creation or building bureaucracy.
Second, many point to a concern about the impact of governments' actions, and in particular this bill, on the rights of the citizens. This is a valid concern. As a friend of mine likes to say, rights are much like employee benefits; they are much more difficult to reduce and take away than they are to give.
Third, to those who express sincere concern about what appears to be a government invasion of citizens' privacy, one can remark that perhaps that invasion is now about to become at least more transparent. We should all remember that Echelon, an international communications and information sharing protocol and program among Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, has been used by the respective governments to review the communication of the citizens of the other participants and then share it with the government of those citizens. This system actually allowed, for many years, plausible deniability for governments to claim that they did not spy on their own citizens.
Private business and personal communications have been given increasing scrutiny by governments over several decades. Fortunately, much of this scrutiny has prompted greater transparency in business reporting. However, the growth of the Internet and numerous commercially available apps have also allowed greater access to and intrusion upon what was once private information. The basic issue is perhaps not the intrusion on privacy, or the degree thereof, in an information age. Perhaps the greater issue is, as so well stated by others, why the intrusion is made, by whom, and on what authority. How is it done and what recourse does the individual have?
Some may question the need for more and new laws when current laws, well applied, seem to work. Those who would assault our society are being apprehended, such as the Toronto 18 or the more recent train attackers. Yet a member of the Canadian Forces was run down in a parking lot and another was shot and killed on Parliament Hill by lone-wolf attackers. New laws would not have prevented those events from happening. Both individuals who committed these heinous crimes were on one or more watch-lists and had been visited by authorities. The key point, however, is that there was little coordination between these authorities.
When Parliament was assaulted, there appears to have been no coordinated preplanning to deal with such a situation. My goodness, why should Canadian security officials consider Canada an exception to attacks when Canada has been identified as a target by overseas terror organizations?
Perhaps the greater problem is not the lack of law or the need for more laws, but the lack of integrated planning and coordination of enforcement agencies as they have applied the existing law.
For example, I know personally that several years ago a municipal jurisdiction in the Ottawa region issued an RFP for new police radio systems. One of the criteria for the bid was that the system should not use or even carry the same frequencies as those in adjacent or nearby jurisdictions. You might ask why that was. The given rationale—and it was stated to me personally—was that one jurisdiction did not want the other to eavesdrop on their communications or conversations.
Crime and terrorism, like weather, respect no borders and no jurisdictions.
Perhaps it's time to look at developing a coordination mechanism like the fusion centres that have been established by our friends to the south. Government needs to enable the effective and responsible sharing of relevant, national, and local security information across departments and agencies at the operational level and not just at the executive level. Information is still at the discretion of each department, but there need to be strict regulations on information sharing to better identify and address threats.
No system will be perfect, but a system that has various security organizations working together and sharing information on a daily basis might utilize existing capabilities rather than simply adding more laws.
The Mackenzie Institute applauds those provisions of Bill that promote and fund enhanced coordination and information sharing under appropriate guidelines, but we also share concerns relating to the possible outcomes of other aspects of the bill.
For starters, we believe that even more clarity regarding the differences between the terms “dissent” and “terrorism” should also be sought. Bill will criminalize the advocacy or promotion of terrorism offences. The government's position is that lawful advocacy, protest, dissent, and artistic expression are fine, but how is “lawful” defined and by who? The language must be clear. Reasonable opposition, even to the point of demonstration, should not be considered terrorism unless and until the demonstration becomes destructive. Even then, one needs to distinguish between a riot, which is handled by conventional means, and a terrorist attack, which requires an unconventional response.
Changes in existing legislation may be needed, but the implications of those changes must be fully thought through.
For example, the CSIS Act as it stands is a good piece of legislation, but as it now stands, it provides CSIS with little authority for direct action. With the current security environment it may be desirable to give CSIS a little more power to act in low-level interventions and threat diminishment activities, for example, to reach out and prevent someone from going down the path of radicalization. Today CSIS isn't even allowed to tell a parent that their child is about to engage in violent jihad activity or to travel offshore.
In the past, the Security Intelligence Review Committee has actually criticized CSIS for taking these steps to diminish threats, partly because doing so is not in their mandate.
This act anticipates that with judicial warrants CSIS could break the law and contravene the charter, according to one commentator who has testified before you. This latter aspect may certainly represent overreaching by both the authorizing judge and CSIS itself in terms of the charter. More balance is needed between desired action and legal reach to get it.
Others have commented on the need for greater independent non-political oversight of how the law is applied. We believe that independent expert non-partisan oversight of our national security agencies is a better model than is political intervention in the process. Australia's inspector-general represents an independent example of how this can be done.
Further, the key powers of the new legislation must be clearly subject to judicial review and legal authorization.
Another area of concern is the potential for misuse of the powers granted on a day-to-day basis under current or new laws. In examples raised in the media and heard recently and known to me personally, existing laws and the powers they convey have been misused through either sloth or poor judgment or even deliberate actions.
Those charged with the responsibility of upholding the law are hopefully not automatons, but every human has weak points, which is at least good reason why there must be a well-defined and accountable approval process for any intrusion on privacy. Even thereafter, there must be an independent, transparent, fair, and expeditious appeal procedure. Thus, while the Mackenzie Institute applauds those provisions of Bill that promote and fund enhanced coordination and information sharing under appropriate guidelines, we share the concerns of possible outcomes of other aspects of the bill.
To search personal files at home or in the office requires a valid search warrant. To demand a password for a computer at a border crossing seems to be quite a reach of the law. Suspicion is no replacement for probable cause. Curiosity is no substitute for evidence. Permitting a judge to break a law, or to ignore the charter to uphold the law or protect a society that is to be based on law, seems at best contradictory.
Any legislation will be imperfect regardless of its—
:
Mr. Chairman, honourable members, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your invitation for my being here this evening.
I'll talk a little less about terrorism and perhaps a little more about political violence and extremism, and less about over there and more about over here. Public discussions recently have focused on ISIS-inspired attacks in Canada, France, Tunisia, Australia, and Denmark. However, this is not a new phenomenon. Starting in the early 1980s, Canada has produced a steady stream of individuals dedicated to Islamicist causes, and I use that term in the Raheel Raza sense of the term.
Ahmed Said Khadr, for instance, was radicalized in the early 1980s while a part of the Muslim Students Association at the University of Ottawa. He became a major financial and operational figure in al Qaeda, using taxpayers' money funnelled through the Human Concern International charity.
As noted by Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, and by the Muslim Brotherhood itself, the Muslim Students Association was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Qutbi al-Mahdi was a part of the Muslim Students Association at McGill University before becoming head of the foreign intelligence services of Sudan in 1989, when a Muslim Brotherhood-inspired government was running that country. Salman Ashrafi was president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of Lethbridge before he became a suicide bomber in Iraq, killing some 20 to 40 people, depending on which report you believe.
This recruiting, this extremism, does not occur in isolation. Canada has a deep series of networks that have the money, ideology, and infrastructure to encourage this activity. The intent of these organizations is to create a political, social, and cultural space where issues of extremism and political violence could be advanced, while opposition is silenced through claims of Islamophobia and racism. These extremist networks are created by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and those loyal to Iran's Khomeinist movement. Information also suggests that in Canada right now Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation are making a comeback—separate and distinct, of course, from the Islamicist groups.
Given the limited time this evening, I'll focus only on the brotherhood. According to the Quilliam Foundation, perhaps the world's leading institute on extremism, the Muslim Brotherhood is the intellectual inspiration behind virtually all of the Islamicist groups in operation today. This view is also held by a number of Middle Eastern scholars and by President el-Sisi of Egypt, who recently just made this rather clear in Egypt.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, has an objective of creating a global Islamicist state governed by their highly politicized interpretation of Islam. According to the Quilliam Foundation and the Muslim Brotherhood itself, they operate through a series of front organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood stated in the mid-1970s that they had walked away from violence, albeit their spinoff groups, such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, maintained their violent tendencies.
In January of this year, however, the Muslim Brotherhood officially announced through Ikhwanweb, their website, that they would return to a new path. They would seek out violence. They said, “a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom”.
In addition to being anti-democratic, anti-secular, and anti-pluralist, the Muslim Brotherhood is also anti-female. I think it's reasonably fair to say they're flat-out misogynistic. For instance, the Muslim Students' Association of York University handed out free books for its annual Islam awareness week in February of this year. One of the books has a section on wife disciplining. It advises that wives should only be beaten as part of a three-part correction and educational process.
It also notes that there are different kinds of women in the world, and I quote, “Submissive or subdued women. These women may even enjoy being beaten at times as a sign of love and concern.” The name of the book, ironically, is Women in Islam & Refutation of some Common Misconceptions. Let me just say that again, “These women may even enjoy being beaten at times as a sign of love and concern.”
Hello, Margaret Atwood. Hello, feminists. Where are they on this sort of situation?
Also, last year Le Journal de Montréal raised the possibility that Mr. Chiheb Battikh, who had attempted to kidnap a Montreal billionaire's grandson for ransom, may have been a Muslim Brotherhood adherent and the kidnapping was to profit them. The five-page story was written by Andrew McIntosh in June 2014.
What about the view from the Middle East? In 2014 the United Arab Emirates produced a list of 86 organizations that are terrorist entities, front groups, proxy groups, finance providers, and/or weapons providers. The list was welcomed and approved by the Arab League. Among the global list of front organizations, two have their headquarters in the United States, with offices and personnel in Canada. These are CAIR-USA and the Muslim American Society. It is worth noting that there are more than 20 statements that have been made by CAIR-USA, CAIR-CAN, or NCCM, and the United States State Department. Among them, first, the United States State Department has identified that CAIR-CAN, now NCCM, is the Canadian chapter of CAIR-USA. CAIR-USA repeatedly claims that it has a Canadian chapter, which it calls CAIR-CAN. CAIR-CAN, NCCM itself, has repeatedly claimed in its own legal documents that it was formed to support CAIR-USA.
Quickly take a look at the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood. In their own words, in a 1991 document, after a 10-year review, they came out with this statement as part of a larger document:
The [Brothers] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands.
We see similar statements being made here in Canada. As of last week, Young Muslims in Canada still had their website up and we find a Dr. Fahmy quoting Hassan al-Banna, the founder the Muslim Brotherhood. What does he say? “Therefore prepare for jihad and be the lovers of death. Life itself shall come searching after you.”
If you wonder where the radicalization and extremism comes from, if you wonder why young people sometimes go off and do crazy things, you may want to start looking at some of this.
What are the effects of these networks? What's been happening? In October of 2014 the Ottawa-based president of the Assalam Mosque Association, a gentleman by the name of Abdulhakim Moalimishak, said that mainstream mosques in Canada are being challenged by extremists.
He says:
I would not say this is an isolated incident. I would say there are groups out there that are trying to have a foothold in Islamic centres.
In February of this year, a Calgary man testified to the senate, which I believe I'm supposed to call “the other place” when I'm here, that terrorist ideology is being preached in Canadian mosques and universities and that Ottawa—I presume he means the government—is slow to stop the “brainwashing”.
The CBC sent an undercover reporter into Montreal's Al Sunnah mosque. The video revealed a number of interesting statements, including the idea that they should, “kill all the enemies of Islam to the last.”
An Environics poll concerning the Toronto 18 arrests said that 12% of Canadian Muslims believe that the Toronto 18 attacks would have been justified and 5% of them said that they would welcome a terrorist attack in Canada.
My suggestion, Mr. Chair, and honourable members, is the denialists who say this sort of thing is not happening in mosques, it's not happening in our schools, it's not happening in our universities, are incorrect because we see a series of Canadian imams raising the issue, we see physical evidence coming out of the universities, and we see a variety of media examples.
With respect to Bill , non-violent extremism can shroud itself in legitimacy. As far as Canadian values, the Constitution, and the Charter of Rights are concerned, I believe they're every bit as dangerous as those groups that are overtly dangerous and overtly violent. To face this, we need to change the definition and practices of security, including terms such as “deradicalization”. The bill does not address entryism in Canada or how the political process, charities, schools, and universities may be used to advance the cause of extremism. The honourable members may wish to follow the governments of the United Kingdom and France right now as they tackle these issues. You will see words such as “disrupt”, “entryism”, and “challenging the discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood” used in that context.
In closing, Mr. Chair, as in intelligence analyst—and I've been in that racket since 1986—I believe we're facing a rapidly evolving world where Canadian values and Canadians are now in the crosshairs of those who would undermine us from within, attack us from within, and attack us from without. As a former soldier deployed overseas, I have seen the results of what happens when extremists get in control. Bosnia and Croatia are good examples. People in Canada are currently shocked by the pictures of heads being cut off and held aloft as trophies. For those of us who served on the ground in Bosnia and Croatia, we saw pictures of severed heads being held aloft by foreign mujahedeen and by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. These were depressingly common sites and they showed up again when we were working at the war crimes tribunal.
As a citizen I have a slight different direction on this.
My belief is that we must keep the Immigration and Refugee Board, the Federal Court, and the criminal courts as open as possible. As a court expert on terrorism and as an individual who has expertise on the reliability of intelligence as evidence in the Federal Court, I helped train special advocates and judges. I believe they provided a valuable service to the country and to the intelligence community. The courts, admittedly, may be slow, awkward and on occasion, painful, but they are the key partners in the defence against extremism. I believe they are the ultimate form of oversight for the intelligence community and the law enforcement community. If we keep the courts open, if we keep them functioning, and if citizens and those charged have access to a court system, I believe we're good.
Mr. Chairman and honourable members, thank you.
:
Good evening, Mr. Chair, Mr. Clerk, and committee members.
We are grateful for the opportunity to appear before this committee this evening. As you know, the CBA is a national association of over 36,000 lawyers, law students, notaries, and academics. I am pleased that our president, Michele Hollins could join us here tonight.
An important aspect of CBA's mandate is seeking improvements in the law and the administration of justice. That is the perspective that brings us here before you today. Personally, I am chair of the national criminal justice section, a section that is represented equally by defence lawyers and crown prosecutors. With me is Peter Edelmann, an executive member of the immigration law section. With over 36,000 members, we can offer legal expertise in many areas of law relevant to your study of Bill . In fact, experts in criminal, privacy, charities, immigration, aboriginal, and environmental law all contributed to the CBA written brief that you should have before you today.
We offer this range of legal advice to the committee because we want to help improve the bill. It is difficult to overstate how important this bill is, and we believe the committee should take the time required for careful, not cursory, study, hearing from all groups with a serious interest in the legislation. We've taken a common-sense approach to our review of Bill . Creating new laws of questionable constitutionality, laws that outlaw acts already caught under existing laws, or laws that overlap with existing laws only leads to uncertainty in the law, more court cases, and costs to the taxpayers.
Let me be equally clear about something else. Keeping Canadians safe is something that the CBA supports without reservation. As such, we support the stated objective of Bill , and we have offered 23 specific recommendations in our written submission in order to help fix this bill. As I said, I don't have time to cover all those recommendations. I only wish to focus on two points in my opening remarks, before handing it over to Mr. Edelmann.
The first has to do with the creation of the promotion offence. The CBA opposes the creation of an advocating or promoting terrorism offence in the Criminal Code. This provision is largely redundant. It is illegal to counsel anyone to commit a terrorist offence or engage in hate speech. The definition of terrorism is broad and covers preparatory acts or supporting activity. This offence may, as others have already testified to, be counterproductive and self-defeating by driving discussion of terrorism and radicalization further underground, making it harder for the police to detect. Finally, this provision is corrosive of our concept of free expression in a democratic society. Let's be clear; it makes thoughts given expression in words illegal. Freedom of expression protects even those thoughts and opinions that might be repulsive to the majority of Canadians. Is our Canadian democracy really so fragile that we must outlaw recklessly made statements? I think Canadians are made of sterner stuff.
The most concerning aspect of the bill that I want to touch on is the proposed transformation of CSIS from a simple intelligence-gathering agency to essentially a law enforcement body. CSIS operates in the shadows, with much of its work kept highly confidential for national security reasons. Its activities are generally not revealed publicly or subject to judicial review. In these circumstances, expanding the CSIS mandate to include policing powers raises the risk of state abuses of that power. Indeed, this has happened before. These powers are not, as one witness said, ahistorical. Prior to the 1980s, both security intelligence and law enforcement were handled by the RCMP. Eventually it came to light that throughout the 1970s the RCMP engaged in what was colloquially known as “dirty tricks”, illegal activities in the name of protecting Canada from subversive groups such as the FLQ in Quebec.. Unchecked, the RCMP used radical means to acquire security intelligence and promote national security, including burglary, arson, and kidnapping.
The McDonald commission was established in 1977 to look into RCMP abuses. The result of the McDonald commission was the dissolution of the RCMP Security Service and the creation of CSIS, a new civil intelligence service with a limited mandate to engage in intelligence gathering and analysis. A careful line was then drawn between national security activities and activities that cross the line into operational policing. The idea was that abuses of state power are less likely to occur if the two roles are separated.
Bill threatens to disrupt this balance and blur the lines by essentially giving CSIS operational powers, many of which will overlap with RCMP powers. As the saying goes, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
As counsel who was involved on one of the teams working on the Air India trial, we saw first-hand some of the problems that arose when you didn't have complete cooperation between CSIS and the RCMP. Imagine now in light of the solid verdict in the Via Rail trial, if CSIS hadn't handed over the information they had to the RCMP so that could be operationalized. If they had wanted to keep their hands on it and not share it, we might not have a prosecution in that case.
These are the kinds of concerns that we have about CSIS and the operation of their mandate. It's covered in detail in our recommendations in our written submission.
:
Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee.
I am going to echo the sentiments of my colleague, in that the security of Canadians is extremely important to us. At the same time, it's important to acknowledge that we can never be 100% safe.
[English]
The balance between fundamental rights and security at times requires compromise, but the two are far from mutually exclusive. There's no question that fundamental rights rely on security. One cannot enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms in a climate of fear and insecurity. At the same time, security is enhanced by respect for fundamental rights. One of the most powerful tools that our national security agencies have is to be able to engage with communities that have trust and are willing to cooperate with them. Unfortunately, the agencies have to act in ways that are not conducive to transparency and openness with those communities, so we must look to other mechanisms to give confidence that this balance is being struck.
We would suggest two things that would assist in that respect. The first is precise drafting of legislative restrictions, and although not everyone can be privy to the detailed functioning of the national security apparatus, we can at least understand the law that structures them. Second is comprehensive and effective oversight of the national security apparatus as a whole. A number of individuals have commented on that. We would point out that oversight is not something to be feared by the intelligence services; it's something to be welcomed.
[Translation]
The proposed information sharing act is a good example of those problems. On multiple occasions during these hearings, the committee has been read passages on the definition of an activity that undermines the security of Canada. But we have yet to hear a single explanation as to why the definition is so much broader than the definition of what constitutes a threat to the security of Canada, as set out in the CSIS Act, a definition that is already very broad.
[English]
Make no mistake that the definition is much broader than the CSIS definition. For example, it's difficult to imagine any activity of the Canada Border Services Agency that would not be covered by the language of the definition. We're talking about a definition that talks about border operations. Any interference with those operations, everything the CBSA does, is covered by these information-sharing provisions, and the CBSA is an agency that has no independent civilian oversight, zero. It answers to the minister; that's it.
The fact that indigenous people, Muslims, activists, and others are coming before you with fears they will be targeted should be deeply disconcerting, precisely because the stated intention of the promoters of this bill is that it's not to target those individuals and communities. In the national security context, imprecise drafting and lack of oversight are fatal to the trust and cooperation that are by far the most valuable tools our national security agencies have.
We welcome the opportunity to work with you to assist in crafting effective legislation.
Thank you, Chairman Kramp and honourable committee members. My name is Zuhdi Jasser. I am president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix. Thank you for the opportunity to lend our perspective to your committee as you consider diverse points of view both from inside and outside Muslim communities, and also regarding especially the merits and concerns of Canadians to this very important counterterrorism legislation, Bill .
While our nations may have had varied trajectories on our homeland security post-9/11, it is imperative that we learn from one another so that we may learn from each other's successes and failures.
Let me first begin by expressing my heartfelt prayers and sympathies for the family of the fallen hero Corporal Cirillo and your Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers who heroically stopped the savage attacks on Parliament Hill by the Islamist terrorist Michael Zehaf-Bibeau on October 22nd, as well as the victims of the ramming terror attack which killed Officer Patrice Vincent and injured another in Quebec.
As a former U.S. navy lieutenant commander, a dedicated American citizen, a devout Muslim, and a Syrian American with deep roots in Syria and its revolution—I'm the son of Syrian political refugees from the 1960s—I've taken every opportunity and ounce of time, as you've seen from other witnesses like Raheel Raza, Salim Mansur, and others since 9/11, to work towards the changes and the reforms that we need to see enacted for our communities both from within and outside Muslim communities to protect our nation from the scourge of Islamist terrorism.
One of the gravest errors we can make in the west is to compartmentalize efforts at home from those abroad, or even abroad between nations, as we ignore common themes and common challenges assuming only that battles fall conveniently along countries' borders. I've testified to Congress before on Muslim radicalization here in the U.S. in 2011 and 2013, and also on counterterrorism in 2012. I've testified a number of times on religious liberty issues regarding the Arab awakening in Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
Our organization—just to let you know about it—is a think tank, an activist American Muslim organization dedicated to the mission that we believe the protection of liberty and freedom and the future of Islam will come through the separation of mosque and state. Terrorism is simply a tactic or a symptom of an underlying more pervasive ideology of which the militancy and violence are only one means by which they can achieve their goals of a form of an Islamic state. We believe that the underlying root cause is that Islamic state, Islamo-patriotism, or Islamism—a supremacist ideology held by those who seek the advancement of political Islam over all other forms of governance.
No. The repugnancy of the ideology of Islamism should not be made illegal, nor can it be defeated by being made illegal, but having said that, the single end point of militants' radical Islamism, among many end points of Islamism, cannot be defeated or cornered by your security apparatuses unless you understand the greater ideology of Islamism and you begin to focus on it and give your officers the ability to see Islamism and its attendant Islamo-patriotism and ideology as the core threat source across the world, despite its far-reaching and less relevant ethnic nuances. Ultimately that commonality is what makes movements like Boko Haram and the Nigerian Islamic supremacist movement ally with caliphists of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, as we just saw a few weeks ago.
As we saw with Zehaf-Bibeau's recent pre-terror video that was released, he was driven by that similar Islamo-patriotism that both demonizes Canada, Canadians, and the west, and also blames us all for the ills of Muslim communities. We need our security operations to be able to broaden their net from those who they know will commit an act of violence or terror to those like Zehaf-Bibeau, or Vincent's killer, or Nidal Hasan in Fort Hood here in 2009, who for much longer we likely could have known that they may commit, and that's such an important distinction. For then your security apparatus will have the ability to disrupt threats, which is oddly prohibited now, and also block speech which openly and clearly advocates violence and acts of terror against all citizens, which should never be protected speech, nor be protected groups, for our liberty is not a suicide pact.
As an American Muslim I'm reminded of Nidal Hasan who, long before ISIS was on the radar, plotted in 2009 his attacks emanating from the same stream of Islamist jihadi suprematism, which led him to assassinate 13 of our fellow soldiers and injure over 30. The relevance here between Bibeau and Hasan is that they were both Islamo-patriots, traitors to our nations who swore allegiance to the global Islamic cause.
For Hasan, it was Imam al-Awlaki and his caliphism. For Bibeau it was ISIS and its caliphism. These are not two different unrelated cases since one was ISIS and the other was al Qaeda. Six years later, multiple reports later, sadly, we are still tiptoeing around naming the ideology that drove them both and drove so many other radicals across the world.
It is unfathomable that, 14 years post-9/11, our nations cannot line up experts on Islamist ideology, state craft of Islamists, legalism of their sharia of our enemies, or my sharia, which I believe is the faith that I love. But there's a difference between the sharia of the Islamic State and our personal pietistic sharia. We need to have experts about that, who can talk about it. So far, political correctness has prevented that.
Once you understand these elements—the process of radicalization or what I call “Islamo-patriotization” and jihadization toward groups like ISIS—you'll be better able to legislate good police and homeland security work. The seminal work on this was published by the NYPD here in America, called “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat”.
With political correctness and the pressure of Islamist groups in America bent on suppressing the real reform that we reformists are trying to do, that report is on its way to being removed from the website. I'd ask you to download it before they do. It's been up there since 2007. It is because the analysts at the NYPD intelligence division committed the crime of educating their forces on this association, granted not the rule but the association between militant Islamism, jihadism, Salafism, and those imams who are spiritual sanctioners, like Imam al-Awlaki, and various other so-called benign Islamic faith practices that are exploited by Islamist movements.
While certainly not all Muslims are Islamists, all radical Islamists are Muslims. Ultimately they travel down very common benchmarks of radicalization, which only we Muslims can address but to which our security and intelligence apparatuses should not and cannot be blind.
I believe the only rational reason that various Muslim groups and other legal groups may, on behalf of our community, voice concern about a very appropriate criminalization of the advocacy and promotion of terrorism offences in general, as Bill states, is that it will eventually obligate them to take a position on the ideologies that fuel and feed militant Islamism, or specifically stake out a position on Islamism itself.
If the militancy is not criminalized, they will continue to claim ignorance of the fuel and ultimately not be put under the antiseptic of sunlight. There are many fronts in this battle, and ultimately, I believe this is a very western battle, between theocracy and liberalism. But we need the tools to confront that. It should not be about if they will commit, but if they may commit. With speech advocating terror, just because it doesn't advocate for a specific person to be attacked, or a group, does not mean that's speech that should be protected.
Ultimately, if it's advocating violence, it should be stopped. I can tell you from where I sit, ultimately, that these tools will be very helpful in shining this antiseptic of sunlight on it. You don't have to make all this type of speech illegal, not the violent part, just especially the Islamist part. Actually, if you make it illegal, it will drive it underground. But the violent speech that advocates violence and terror should be exposed and rooted out.
I think if Muslims are going to do that and be held accountable, our faith community ultimately needs to be engaged in that. Reformists should have a seat at the table.
I think ultimately explicit calls for terrorism or violence or the endorsement and promotion of groups and individuals on the terror list should not be protected speech. One example I want to give you is that a website, ummah.com, said just last month that Muslims like Canadian Tarek Fatah and American Zuhdi Jasser are 100,000 times more dangerous to the Muslim community than infidels or kuffar in the west.
The implications here are obvious. Now, I'm not saying that speech should be made illegal, but certainly I hope your security forces are looking at websites like ummah.com as organizations with individuals who may commit acts of terror. Right now, we can't do that.
The people who you would protect first with Bill would be Muslims, our faith community, that is in fear and silence because of radicals that suppress reform and suppress dissidence.
I want to end with some final thoughts. One is that the mantra of violent extremism needs to end. I think Canada is a little ahead of us on that. Second, the lone-wolf theory is nonsense. These are not lone wolves any more than the Ebola virus in Dallas was lone wolf, with the Liberia source of the Ebola virus. Broader approaches against terror advocacy and with destruction are very important. We need to take the side of reformers within the Muslim community against political Islam and ally with groups and platforms that allow us to have that debate.
I look forward to our conversation. Thank you.
:
Thank you very much for that question. I can't tell you how important that is.
I'll just tell you right off that not being up front, open, and honest with Muslims actually creates more of this—I don't even like the term but—Islamophobia. Phobia is a fear of the unknown. If you don't articulate the problem and address it, you actually fuel a phobia because nobody is addressing it. Furthermore, not addressing it directly is the theocracy and the theocratic movement of the supremacy of Islamic states, not just ISIS or the Islamic State, but all Islamic states of the OIC.
ISIS didn't come out of thin air. It was created in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabi thinking led them to behead 60 people in the last three months. They enact this type of movement and sharia law in Saudi Arabia through Wahhabism.
Muslims have to be held accountable as adults. Otherwise, you're infantilising Muslims and treating us like children. Somehow you don't want to offend us so you enable us and keep us in denial. I find that to be almost a bigotry of low expectations. “Oh, Muslims must be led by the misogynist, by the oppressive theocratic movements because they can't understand modern thinking and we don't even want to offend them. If we do...”. So you see, it's a vicious cycle in the sense that as someone who loves Muslim communities, and I love my family, I love my faith, it's from tough love that I address these things, because I want us to come to terms with modernity. Christians who formed America and rejected the theocrats of the Church of England loved their faith. It is amazing to me that when I've testified on these issues before, people have asked me what my qualifications are, and have said that I don't have the right to talk about these things. I say there's nothing more American, more Canadian, than rejecting theocrats.
Ultimately, I think Muslims are being given a pass. We need to apply tough love and allow them to have a diverse set of opinions, rather than the one monolithic movement that speaks for our community right now, and which is dominated by Islamists who are fed by the Saudi money petro-machine, the Qatar Foundation, the Islamist apologist who want to keep us under their thumb and boots and prevent us from reforming.
The only things which could give us the opportunity to reform are platforms like yours and modern universities in the west that aren't beholden to the petrodollars and ultimately realize that the Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood movement that Tom described are not the only voices. In fact, we need to marginalize them because there is a connection between political Islam and radical Islam, which is on the same continuum or conveyor belt. They don't want you to see that conveyor belt so they stop you in your tracks by accusing you of Islamophobia. I think it's bigotry not to give us the platform to debate these things.
:
Thank you. I'm no longer a professor. I don't teach anymore although I held that profession in a couple of different countries.
First, I'd just like to wholeheartedly endorse Dr. Jasser's comments. What he just said is exactly the truth. I'd also like to add that his comments on the lone wolf earlier were correct. The concept of a lone wolf in terrorism exists; it happens. It's one of the rarest species on the planet. Anders Breivik comes to mind as a guy who operated totally as a lone wolf. Outside of that, there are very few examples.
In terms of who speaks for Muslims, I think this is perhaps the biggest issue we have in Canada right now. We have a whole series of problems on Muslims. There is no such thing as a Muslim community in Canada. There are multiple communities, be they Shia, Sunni, dervish, Sufi, etc., whatever. We hear a number of Canadian organizations say that they speak on behalf of all Canadian Muslims, when in fact they don't. They speak perhaps for 15% or 20% of Canadian Muslims. I think the government in particular needs to start focusing past those groups that claim they speak for Muslims, and start looking at the grassroots organizations that speak for the other 80%.
I'm also aware, having dealt extensively with the Islamic and Muslim community, that a number of them would speak out, but they won't. Why not? Fear. Fear of lawsuits, fear of abuse, fear of job loss, etc. I would put this back on the government as well. The government needs to start engaging and protecting those people more often. The most deadly thing I think we have in Canada right now is political correctness. Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Sweden, etc., have been so heavily infested, so infected, by political correctness that it robs the country of the ability to speak openly and intelligently on problems.
We have problems. You cannot look at the stream of youth—just the ones from the Muslim students' associations—leaving this country to go and kill themselves, to kill others, and not come to the conclusion that something may be wrong.