Thank you. Good afternoon, honourable Chair and members of the committee. It is in gratitude and service that I respectfully accepted the invite to appear before you today.
My name is Mubin Shaikh. I'm a former undercover human source for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and later with RCMP INSET, responsible for the Toronto 18 terrorism case of 2006. I had worked several other investigations prior to that, which cannot be made public, but today I conduct direct interventions with radicalized individuals from across the ideological spectrum under the U.S.-based organization Parents For Peace, and I'm currently a professor of public safety at Seneca College in Toronto.
Just to go off-script for a moment, in an incredible moment of coincidence or kismet, fellow members of Parents For Peace are currently, right now as we speak, giving testimony in the U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs to discuss the topic of radicalization in the military, so I submit that today's discussion is very timely.
Back to my script: I have had the unique experience of having viewed threats to Canadian public safety and national security from direct participation in covert activities, and also from four years of public prosecution of such offences in our courts between 2006 and 2010 inclusive. Afterwards, between 2014 and 2018, we went through the khawarij of the ISIS crisis. We saw social media platforms become force multipliers for violent actors, and conversations around preventing and countering radicalization, extremism and terrorism grew into important areas of study and practice for good reason.
Today I appear before you to address the issue of IMVE, or ideologically motivated violent extremism, and what can be done about it.
I submit to you that we have come somewhat full circle in Canada regarding a threat that some may erroneously take to be “new”, which it is most certainly not. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, only five years after its formation, was already working to infiltrate the neo-Nazi group called the Heritage Front, established in 1989. Using tried, tested and true TTPs—tactics, techniques and procedures—CSIS was able to foil the ability of the front to become what it had envisioned for itself, and the organization ultimately collapsed.
It is thus unsurprising to me today that security agencies have once again turned their sights onto such organizations and associations, loosely knit or otherwise, while also keeping a watchful eye on the usual suspects, state-based or not. One of the biggest lessons learned from this is not just how much is being supported and agitated by outside actors, but worse, how much is being generated organically right here at home with Canadians highly active in online hate networks.
I have read the submission of various representatives of Canadian security agencies on how they see the threat and their response to it. I am more than confident that they are up to the task and support fully strengthening their staffing and operational ability to do what works in this context. I respectfully submit that it is for government agencies and departments to do their part in conducting covert investigations and public prosecutions and for civil society to do its part as well.
The latter will require educational institutions and places of employment, places of businesses and others to invest the energy to try to prevent trajectories of violent extremism where possible. When it comes to ideas, however, no amount of government legislation or criminal designation is going to suffice. It is here that we will require a collective effort by professionals and practitioners in all areas to bring to bear their concern and attention in pushing back against absolutist, superficial, supremacist thinking as unwelcome, unsustainable, and, frankly, impractical for life in this cosmopolitan future we live in here in Canada and the world at large.
I thank the honourable Chair and members of the committee for allowing me this time, and my co-panellists as well, and I look forward to any questions, concerns and/or comments you may have. Thank you.