Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, members of the committee.
As I haven't addressed this committee before, I will begin by mentioning briefly my interest in Bill C-51 and my background on the subject of terrorist threats.
In my career with the Department of Foreign Affairs, I served as high commissioner or ambassador to a number of countries with terrorist problems or incipient problems. These included Sri Lanka, Syria, Lebanon, and Cambodia. In the latter part of my career, I held a position at Foreign Affairs headquarters in Ottawa, where I was responsible for among other things the coordination of counterterrorism and counter-intelligence policy. Since retiring from the public service, I've had articles published in a number of newspapers, as well as a fairly lengthy paper published on the topic of terrorism in Canada.
With regard to Bill C-51, let me start by saying that there is a serious threat from terrorism in Canada, and we don't have the resources to deal with it. In addition to lone wolf attacks such as the two in October, there have been plots aimed at killing much larger numbers of people. In terms of specifically Islamic-inspired terrorism, we can go back to the plot by the so-called millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, in 1999; the plan by the Toronto 18 to storm the Parliament Buildings and behead the Prime Minister, which was more recent; the VIA Rail bombers, whose trial has just been concluded; and the charges against Jahanzeb Malik, accused of elaborate plans to bomb the U.S. Consulate and financial buildings in Toronto. I think Mr. Benlolo mentioned both of those.
Except for that of Ahmed Ressam, the other plots were thwarted because our security and intelligence authorities applied major resources to identifying and keeping track of them. Ressam, by the way, entered Canada illegally on an altered French passport in 1994. While he was known to the authorities, he fell off their radar and was able to move freely around until he was finally arrested when trying to enter the United States with explosives, which he planned to detonate in the Los Angeles airport.
Our security and intelligence authorities are now doing a far better job of keeping track of terrorist suspects. I expect that one of the reasons some Canadians believe the threat from terrorism in Canada is exaggerated is that our security and intelligence people have been doing such a great job. Their success, however, comes at a price. Keeping track of such individuals, of terrorist threats, is very labour intensive, so intensive, in fact, that RCMP Commissioner Paulson acknowledged to this committee on March 6 that he had to transfer 600 full-time positions from other areas of federal responsibility to counterterrorism activities. These other areas include organized crime, drug cases, financial integrity cases, and I suspect also espionage activities by foreign governments.
Canada isn't unique in the difficulty it faces in monitoring a large number of potential threats from terrorists. In Britain, for example, the two Islamic terrorists who hacked to death a British soldier on the streets of London in May 2013 were on the watch list, but with an estimated 2,000 suspects to keep track of, the two could not be monitored closely enough to prevent the murder. The same applied in the United States in the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is currently on trial for the Boston bombing and who had been on the FBI's terrorist watch list.
Not only do we face a significant range of threats at the present time, but it is likely that the number will increase in the future. Making an accurate estimate of just how widespread the threat may be isn't easy since there are a number of factors involved, from what role the Internet plays in the radicalization process to what extent local recruiters are involved, etc. We may also have to expect some trouble from Canadians who have joined the ranks of ISIS in Syria and have managed to return to Canada and bring their extremist views with them. I think someone estimated there are now 130 of them.
In addition, we will have to deal with an increasing number from the Muslim community as it grows rapidly in size. An Environics poll taken in 2007, probably the most comprehensive poll taken of the attitudes of Muslims in Canada, showed that a very large percentage reject violence. Only one in eight of those polled believed, for example, that the Toronto 18 plot was justified.
However, Statistics Canada population projections to 2031 indicate that there will be a very substantial increase in the Muslim population, from just over a million now to two and a half times as many in 2031. If the proportion who thinks that attempts such as the Toronto 18 plot could be justified remains at around one-eighth, this would provide a much larger pool from which violent jihadis could emerge than is the case at present.
Not all terrorists come from the Muslim community. There have indeed been quite a number of notable cases who were converts. Just how many violent jihadists are converts is not too clear. Studies in other countries show that it's a majority—up to 90% in Australia. I would guess, but it's a just a guess, that probably between 70% and 90% come from the Muslim community.
Given these various considerations, it is likely that in the future our security and intelligence authorities will have considerably more suspects to keep track of than they do now, and well beyond their capacity to monitor without transferring even more resources from other important tasks. In the circumstances, it makes sense to give the authorities increased powers to deal with the threat, and while this may require some rebalancing of civil liberties and security, I have every confidence that it will not place us on a slippery slope toward a police state, as some suggest. Canadian democracy and civil society are far too strong for this to happen, and I believe that if any of the proposed legislation is found to be excessive and a threat to our democratic traditions and civil rights, the institutions and mechanisms are in place to make the necessary corrections.
In the meantime, I think a good case can be made for having robust oversight and review mechanisms in place. This may require additional resources if present arrangements remain in place.
Before I conclude my comments, I'd like to mention one other issue that's relevant to this discussion. It is in the interests of Muslim and non-Muslim Canadians alike to see that our Muslim fellow citizens are fully welcomed and integrated into Canadian society. To this end, the RCMP has been engaging in community outreach programs to establish closer relations with members of the Muslim community and other minorities and build a relationship of trust.
Such programs are not without their pitfalls, however, and considerable care has to be taken in establishing the motives of the groups involved. As some of you may recall, the RCMP learned last September that some of the organizations it had reached out to were not exactly what they made themselves out to be.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims, the NCCM, whose executive director appeared before this committee on March 12, had reportedly spent 14 months along with another Muslim organization producing a handbook titled “United Against Terrorism”. The RCMP agreed to contribute a section to this booklet. Indeed, the RCMP's name and logo appeared on the handbook's cover.
Shortly before its release, however, and with the book already in print, the RCMP decided not to proceed with the project and according to media reports withdrew its support because of the adversarial tone of parts of the publication. Some accounts reported that one of the concerns was that the handbook counselled Muslims to limit the extent of their cooperation with Canadian security and intelligence agencies.
Had the RCMP investigated the background of the NCCM more closely, they would have realized that there was reason to be cautious about becoming involved with it in the first place. Back in 2007, for example, the director general of communications at CSIS stated that the organization, under the name it used until 2013, the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, or CAIR-CAN, seemed to be advising Muslim Canadians not to help CSIS discharge its duties, while at the same time it was making vague accusations to the media about inappropriate behaviour by CSIS staff and yet never making use of the opportunities available to them, of which they were aware, to alert CSIS management of the allegedly unacceptable behaviour.
I have in fact myself been tracking the activities of the NCCM through its various name changes over the past 15 years and am therefore familiar with its objectives and modus operandi. I devoted five pages to describing these in a 2006 study published by the Fraser Institute. The National Council of Canadian Muslims clearly states that it rejects terrorism, and in its earlier guise, CAIR-CAN went to great if not altogether successful efforts to dissociate itself from its sister organization, CAIR in the United States, after senior figures in the latter had been convicted on terrorism charges.
Nonetheless, NCCM uses a divisive and exaggerated victimology narrative, not unlike that used by terrorist organizations such as ISIS, to the effect that Muslims are constantly being subject to discrimination. I might mention one of their arguments was there was a spike in anti-Muslim acts after 9/11. In fact, there was for two or three months, but since then there have been three times as many anti-Jewish acts, even though there are far fewer Jewish people in Canada than Muslims.
Some are of the view that the—
