Conservative MP slams security officials for ignoring church burnings in 2021
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the burning of over 30 churches in Canada in 2021, and the lack of mention of these crimes in the government s public report on the matter. Why wasn't there a single mention of them in the report?
Transcript
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thank you mr chair my first question for uh miss soper are you aware that over 30 churches were
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burned down in canada in 2021 yes i am and can you answer are you is public safety currently
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investigating the burning of over 30 churches in canada last year
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public safety does not have an investigative mandate uh to uh that might be better directed
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towards our cmp but you said in your testimony that you were given a mandate by this government
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in 2021 to bring imve perpetrators to justice and now you're saying you don't have a mandate to
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investigate well we are not the police of jurisdiction uh for investigations into imve
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uh so i might i might defer that question to my my colleagues in on the policing side okay so if
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you're not doing an investigation are you doing anything about the 30 churches that were burned
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down in 2021 again i can't i can't speak to what the nature of any investigation might be occurring in
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relation to those uh horrible uh events but i i would i would defer the question to rcmp who may uh
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may be police of jurisdiction in relation to some of those uh some of those thank you i'm gonna move
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on to uh csis uh miss uh chair um i have a copy of your 2021 csis report and you know it lists off a
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lot of ideologically motivated violent extremist examples but there's not one example of 30 churches
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being to burn down in canada last year why has that not been included in your csis public report
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thank you very much for the question however um i my organization is the integrated
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threat assessment center i think your question is probably more for my colleague mrs anderson
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okay but you're saying are you saying that it's not a threat that churches 30 churches were burned
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down in canada last year this isn't under your purview this isn't a terrorist attack
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so if you if you want me to explain just a little bit uh the mandate of my organization and how we come
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up with threat assessment so itac is responsible to evaluate the threat and we do that according to a
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very detailed methodology we look at the intent the opportunities and the capabilities of potential
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threat actors and we do that don't believe that these 30 church burnings posed a threat
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so if if i'm if i may sir we uh do our assessment based on collected intelligence by other organizations
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and so i i when we we provide any intelligence about the 30 church burnings
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so i really i really think that i am not the best person to answer that question
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i just find it interesting because you do have extensive stuff in your public report about
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ideologically motivated extremism religiously motivated extremism politically motivated extremism
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and yet 30 churches being burned down in canada last year didn't merit a mention i also note on page 30
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of report that says cesus continues to engage with community leaders members and advocacy groups
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to offer support and solidarity and to reinforce the government of canada position that there is no
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place in canada for racial prejudice discrimination and hate can you tell us if cesus has ever reached
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out to support show support and solidarity with the 30 church communities that were burned down in canada in
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2021 i would defer to my cc colleague go ahead thank you thank you for the question what i will say is that the
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service is always extremely concerned with any violent form of extremist activity in this case that had already
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gone into the criminal realm and so the rcmp may have further comments what we are always doing is trying to get out ahead
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and see if we can determine where the threat is coming from in advance of those horrendous sorts
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of activities absolutely the burning but your report sorry your report does talk about a lot of
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things that happened in the past so clearly you're not just talking about the future you have talked
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about terrorist attacks happening since 2014 ideologically motivated violent extremism yet in 2021 uh there's
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not a single mention in your public report about 30 churches being burned down in this country
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well what we are trying to do is make sure that we understand the underlying threat so that we can
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try and prevent that sort of activity happening into the future and we definitely are always very
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concerned about any serious serious acts of violence that can impact the national security of our country
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so could you tell me yes or no has cesus reached out to show support and solidarity to the 30 church
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communities that had their churches burned down last year yes or no i can't speak to certain
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investigations that may be ongoing but what i can do is say that we are definitely concerned with
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any acts of violence that impact the national security and could threaten can you know if you've
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reached out to show support and solidarity i can't speak to what may be happening in the operational
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space in an unclassified environment okay well it would have been nice to have a statement of at least
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concern for these communities from cesus considering the fact that at 4 a.m in the morning in my town
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of mournville over 50 people had to be evacuated from their homes because a church was burned down
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and there was a massive threat that a senior's home apartments were going to be burned to the ground it
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was only due to the heroism of 50 local volunteer firefighters that this blaze was brought under control
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this could have been one of the most the highest potential mass casualty terrorist events in on
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canadian soil in our modern history and yet it doesn't seem to have merited a single mention by
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our security services so i want to put that on the record thank you mr chair thank you mr lloyd