Public Safety Committee on March 25th, 2015

[Raheel Raza]

I would clarify here that I spoke not about oversight but review. I think that's an important differentiation. If you go back, the current, more comprehensive, rights-driven Constitution was enacted in 1982, so obviously we have a level of constitutional protection today that would have been undreamt of throughout most of the period in the early 1980s. This has evolved through time and I think this is how it has evolved; it has evolved through review. I would focus more on the power of review than on oversight.

[Brian Hay]

I think there are two elements to it, sir. As I said, we believe in independent, expert, non-partisan oversight of our national security agencies as a better model than political intervention, or if you will, a sort of partial review.

Australia's inspector-general is an independent example. There are two parts. One is the oversight of the application of the law and the other part is the ability to review and appeal incidents as the law is applied.

The intent may be outstanding and the legislation may even be framed very well, but the law is applied by many other people who had no part in the drafting. You can see time and time again how those applications sometimes go awry or overreach. There needs to be a reasonable and prompt appellate process.

One thing that's a concern is, for example, a very simple case of the ability at the border. Somebody comes in and says, “What's in your bag?” We've given a relatively inexperienced, partially trained security officer the right to demand access to a computer and to hold you responsible if you do not comply. On top of that, before you can finish your appeal, they're still probing the computer to figure out what's in it. That really is not appropriate. Everything should be frozen until the appeal is dealt with. There are many instances of that nature.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Fine. Thank you very much.

We're past time, Mr. Easter.

Ms. Doré Lefebvre, you may go ahead for five minutes.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for joining us today. Their input has been very enlightening, and I have a number of questions based on their comments.

My first question is for Mr. Hay.

In your presentation, you mentioned that Bill C-51 would not have prevented last October's attacks against Canada. You also said that the current problem was the lack of integration and coordination in terms of existing legislation. First, could you tell us more about that problem?

Second, I'd like to know if you have any suggestions as to how we can keep Canada from becoming a target? And third, do you have any thoughts on radicalization?

[Brian Hay]

Indeed. If I may, I'll have to respond in English because I was educated in a different country.

Let me just say this. With respect to the Toronto 18, we at the institute started a series of inter-agency meetings just for people to get together. We had the RCMP, the OPP, and the Toronto police together once a month to talk about security issues. These were private, off-the-record meetings not open to the public, and the responsible inspector of the RCMP stood in our meeting and he said, “You know, if it wasn't for the fact that this organization”—namely the Mackenzie Institute—“brought us together at an operational level, we might never have cooperated as well as we did on the work to undertake the problem of investigation of the Toronto 18.”

This is why we talk about fusion centres. It's one thing to have chiefs of police and chiefs of agencies talking. They tend to talk policy, they tend to talk personnel, and they tend to talk terms of reference and budget. But when you're talking with people who are at the pointy end, as we say in the security business, these are the people who are dealing with it on a day-to-day basis and they need to interact on a day-to-day basis and share information on a timely basis.

In the case of the situation on Parliament Hill and in the parking lot in Quebec, agencies knew about these individuals but they weren't sharing the information on a timely basis. As I recall, one of them even had his passport lifted, but this wasn't passed on to other people, and there was no follow-up with this kind of activity.

I'm not saying it would have prevented it. Nothing can prevent isolated actions, that's the brilliance and the terror of the lone-wolf terrorist of which my colleague is an acknowledged expert, but it certainly would have reduced the probability. Today we are not taking advantage of what we already have to integrate the work better than is happening.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Might the issue also have something to do with the resources allocated to police, as far as improving coordination is concerned?

[Brian Hay]

It starts with policy. It starts with your mindset. The job of the police, historically, has been to solve crime and to prevent crime. They are not security-oriented. Security goes beyond that. Security goes into analyzing what can happen before the event occurs. In that sense, it is a different approach that's required and a different mindset that is required in terms of dealing with terrorist kinds of circumstances.

We've heard today about radicalization. I do a lot of work with first nations, for example, and there's the very same problem that Ms. Raza reported. When you send somebody in uniform to talk to these young folks, they have blocks in their minds as to what those uniforms mean. You have to reduce the visibility, work on a more informed basis and a more anticipatory basis to interact with them, to gain their trust, and to gain their respect. Today we're not doing that.

It is not a question purely of resources. Some of it is—yes, we need to expand some of the staffing capability and some of the training—but some of it is how we do it and how we approach these organizations.

I have one quick story. I was a military officer and I worked with General MacKenzie when he was in the service. One of the things we did was bring together 71 different cultural communities in Toronto whose members were from different organizations within the military, but they represented 71 different communities. We brought their parents and their grandparents together for dinner. After it was all over, I saw two important things happen. One lady walked up and she said, “This is amazing. I am so proud that my daughter is involved with the forces because in the country I come from, we're afraid of them. This is so different.”

Another person said to us—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You'll have to wrap up. We are over time.

[Brian Hay]

I'm sorry.

The bottom line is that we need much more interaction on a casual, informal, non-official basis and the resources imply it that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Madam Doré Lefebvre. On behalf of the committee, I would like to extend our appreciation to the witnesses not only for their time, but for their commitment to come here today, their presentations, and their dialogue.

Thank you very much. We will suspend for a couple of minutes while we change witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Okay, colleagues, we're back in session for our second hour of testimony and Qs and As today.

We have a different group of witnesses with us now whom we welcome, and I will state them, of course.

As an individual, we have with us Thomas Quiggin. From the Canadian Bar Association, we have Peter Edelmann, executive member, immigration law section; and Eric Gottardi, chair, criminal justice section. By way of video conference from Phoenix, Arizona, we welcome, from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Mr. Zuhdi Jasser, president. Welcome to one and all.

Gentlemen, we'll allow up to 10 minutes for introduction and or a comment. We would ask, if at all possible, to make that even more brief, so that we have more time for Q and A. But you have that allowance of up to 10 minutes.

We will start off with Mr. Quiggin. You're up, sir.

[Thomas Quiggin, As an Individual]

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 C-51, 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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Quiggin.

Now, from the Canadian Bar Association, we have Mr. Gottardi. Carry on, sir.

[Eric Gottardi, Chair, Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association]

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 C-51. 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 C-51. 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 C-51, 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 C-51 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.

[Peter Edelmann, Executive Member, Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Edelmann.

We will now go for up to 10 minutes to the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

We welcome from Phoenix the president, Mr. Jasser.

You have the floor, sir.

[Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy]

Thank you.

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 C-51.

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 C-51 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 C-51 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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Jasser.

We will now go to our rounds of questioning. The first round will be for seven minutes.

We will go to Mr. Payne. You have the floor, sir.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for attending. It's a very important bill that we have before us that we're studying and all your comments are very interesting and certainly pertinent to this discussion that we're having.

I want to start my questioning with Dr. Jasser. I'm wondering if you could give us your thoughts and share your perspective on the threats that western nations face from the jihadi terrorists.

[Dr. Zuhdi Jasser]

Thank you for the question.

At some point we have to realize that this whack-a-mole program we have right now, which is just to get them before they commit an act of violence, is not only failing but at some point we're not going to be able to keep up because it's increasing. The arrests in terrorism in the U.S. and in the west have increased exponentially in just the last two years, with the United States, Canada, Australia, and others being at the front line. We've seen not only our businesses attacked and 9/11, we've now seen the media in Paris; our government, as in Ottawa; and our military are now on the front lines. There is a kill list of 100 American military members. Their addresses were found off Facebook and social media and they are posted by ISIS as being on a kill list for acts of terror.

At some point we're not going to be able to keep up with that. So what's our long-term strategy? As countries in the Middle East, by the way, start to fuel this Islamo-patriotism in this Sunni versus Shia radicalism, we're going to find ourselves not being able to keep up because our lack of foreign policy strategy is coming to roost at home. If they can't get a passport to go to Syria, they are going to commit an act of terror in Toronto, Montreal, or in the United States. Ultimately, the threat is increasing. Why? The war of ideas is being filled in by social media radicals, from Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, Sunni radicals, Shia radicals, or the Khomeinists with Assad in Syria, in Iran and Hezbollah. That vacuum is being filled by radical Islamism. The counter to that is not countering the militancy but filling it with ideas of liberty.

I think the greatest story in the last few months was Tunisia. You saw a secular anti-Islamist party replace democratically an Islamist party—Ennahda. That was undercover. They did it on their own without western help, and ultimately the greatest anti-terror movement was the secular party that took over in Tunisia. That's why ISIS wanted to break their economy a few weeks ago with an attack on their museum. They want the west out so that they can put the Islamists back into power and fuel that. It's growing exponentially. We need a strategy for the short term like Bill C-51, and for the long-term, that engages reformers like our organization, Raheel's organization, and others.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you.

We've had a number of witnesses before the committee who have talked about the evolving process and how quickly the Islamist jihadist movement is evolving and where it's much more difficult to keep up and to catch up to them. I'm wondering if you would make some comments on our Criminal Code amendments that were proposed in this legislation and specifically measures to criminalize the promotion and advocacy of terrorism.

[Dr. Zuhdi Jasser]

I can't underscore how important that is because it is suicidal for our governments in the west to say that just because they don't target an individual, the advocacy of acts of terror against Canadians or Canada is so generic that it's protected speech. That is fuel. The reason you're getting pushback from Islamist groups is because once your government and our government, our intelligence operation, starts to focus on that, all of a sudden you're going to start to look at where this come from. What are they preaching at the mosque or at the Islamic organization that fuels this?

They're going to start to ask questions, versus the mantra that the violent radicals are somehow psychiatrically ill and come out of nowhere. They're not coming out of nowhere. I think that ultimately this is why you're getting obstacles. Every Muslim I know would want legislation that protects free speech but defeats speech that promotes terrorism. Because we don't want that in our mosques and I don't think we want it in our Muslim organizations or on our Internet affecting my children or any of the Muslim kids, because they will be susceptible to radicalization through that Islamo-patriotic movement. I think ultimately it's very important to start shedding the light of day upon those ideas that advocate and apologize for terrorism, because if you're not looking in those pools where the terrorists float, you can't drain them and ultimately keep your country safe.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I'll just touch a bit more on how CSIS will perform disruptive activities, and I stress, with judicial warrants that are required. We've heard all kinds of different examples of how this is not necessarily meeting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As I understand it under the charter, safety and security are pre-eminent for our country. We know that police have to get warrants to put wiretaps on the personal phones of individuals. I think it's important that, if there is such terrorism, doing so should be allowed. I also understand that when these warrants are issued by the judiciary, there can certainly be conditions under which they might have to report back on exactly what has happened with regard to those kinds of issues. I wonder if you have a comment on that.

[Dr. Zuhdi Jasser]

I think, ultimately, I can understand. I am a conservative, but I also believe in the libertarian ideals of civil liberties, so contrary to the way the Islamist groups try to portray our work, we're not giving up any of our civil liberties. There certainly should be just cause if there are going to be violations of privacy, but if our security forces are doing good intelligence work, they need to follow the leads to wherever they take them. As Mr. Quiggin highlighted, a lot of these organizations that are working under the ideologies that fuel anti-western thought need to be monitored, even the public elements. Our mosques, for example, are open, public places. You can walk in. You are not violating someone's privacy. It's different from putting a wiretap on a phone in a private facility. It's one thing to be monitoring public places; it's another to violate privacy. If you have to do that, I hope then you have probable cause and an actual concern about an act that not only will be committed but might be committed.

The other part of this, which is new, is disruption. Disrupting doesn't mean arresting these individuals or violating their personal property rights or taking them out of commission. You're actually just disrupting a plot. To say that Canada should not have access to groups and cells that come together, and should not be able to monitor their communications.... Nidal Hasan was speaking to al Qaeda from Fort Hood. You'd think our military would have been monitored, yet most of our military soldiers were unable to speak out because they were worried they'd be labelled as anti-Islam and bigots, so you realize we have a problem.

Even five years after Fort Hood, the reports that came out still didn't identify Islamism, jihadism, and ideologies that needed to be monitored, so we have a major problem in identifying the ideological problem. I think the warrants are a small part of the bigger picture that hampers CSIS and other intelligence operating systems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Jasser.

Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Ms. Doré Lefebvre, you may go ahead.