Well, certainly I can go back to when I first came to intelligence, the Toronto police intelligence unit, in 1993, which was when our hate crime unit was established. The issue of that day was a domestic concern, a national one: white supremacy. A group in this country was very involved with its ideological beliefs, and it was growing within a very short period of time. By 1995, it had peaked and was falling off.
Up until 2001, as we look at terrorism and why Toronto put an anti-terrorist section in place, it was because of the first attacks on the World Trade Center. One of my former superiors recognized that that was an issue that we would have to deal with. We worked very hard differentiating between criminal extremism and terrorism. The events of September 11, 2001, certainly changed. I believe the shock that we all experienced from that event in North America ultimately impacted on us, looking in North America to preserve our own safety. Our concern at that time was the threat towards us.
As we're now 11 years beyond, we're seeing—and certainly the trends are such—that there are a number of individuals and communities that are affected in Canada, that have members who are with terrorist entities or terrorist groups going elsewhere to join in conflicts in other parts of the world. That is not to say that we are not aware of those who are here and a threat to us. They do not get the same publicity and there are not a lot of statistics about them. Certainly we do have incidents where we are seeing, in my experience, an increase in those who are targeting and looking at where Canada has a presence in other parts of the world, our political position, and looking to harm us, and those who are going elsewhere to support other terrorist groups.
It is growing. There are certainly greater incidents. We are seeing more extremist behaviours and activities. As we see them and identify them to be an issue of national security, they are passed to the RCMP for criminal investigation, when a criminal threshold is met, or information is passed to CSIS, as it is an intelligence issue.