Juno News - December 09, 2019


Is Canada finally taking terrorism seriously？


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

180.26735

Word Count

944

Sentence Count

44

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 It seems like finally, just maybe, the government is getting serious about getting tough on
00:00:12.020 Canadians who choose to go abroad to fight alongside ISIS. You'd think it would be a
00:00:17.640 no-brainer that if anyone even makes a step in that direction, we'd throw the book at
00:00:22.360 them, lock them up, and throw away the key, but that is not how it has been unfolding
00:00:27.460 in recent years. We know that there are dozens of Canadians, at least 60 they tell us, but my
00:00:33.720 investigations lead me to believe that there are more, at least 60 who have gone abroad or attempted
00:00:40.260 to go abroad to join and fight for ISIS who have returned. The total number of people who have gone
00:00:46.240 abroad is actually believed to be in the couple hundreds, because some of them were killed, some
00:00:51.200 of them are still there, but at least 60 of them walking around freely on Canadian soil within
00:00:57.200 impunity. A couple of them even did media interviews, pretty much laughing at the idea
00:01:01.260 that they feel they will never face the consequences, even though this is a very serious criminal code
00:01:07.360 offense. New provisions brought in not too many years ago say that leaving, or even attempting
00:01:13.320 to leave to join a terror group abroad, a serious offense, to say nothing of treason charges, that
00:01:18.200 frankly we should throw out these guys, given that ISIS has named Canada as one of its desired
00:01:23.860 targets. So what's new? What did we learn? Well, on Friday, charges were issued and announced against
00:01:30.080 a 22-year-old man originally from Guelph, Ontario. He and his wife traveled abroad, they went to Turkey,
00:01:37.500 Turkish authorities held them, and they say they were trying to get into Syria to join ISIS. We'll see
00:01:42.900 where this goes. The man apparently denied this to Turkish authorities. But it's nice to see that there
00:01:49.600 are charges actually issued on this, because there are these laws before the books on a very important
00:01:54.720 issue that a lot of young people here, rather tragically, a couple hundred, were seeing the
00:01:59.640 clarion call to go out and fight jihad abroad. Is this not one of the most serious things there can
00:02:06.100 be out there? Just look at what ISIS does. Let us not forget all of these atrocities that they do.
00:02:11.760 The beheadings, the stonings, the killings, the throwing LGBT persons off of buildings. Absolutely horrendous
00:02:19.080 stuff. And yet, for some rather troubling and bizarre reason, the Liberal government previously talked
00:02:23.700 about the importance of rehabilitation, of de-radicalization, countering violent extremism, they call it.
00:02:31.180 And then something happens, like the London Bridge tragedy just the other day. Two people killed by
00:02:36.620 somebody who had actually been in a rehabilitation program. Usman Khan is his name. He had actually
00:02:42.220 written poetry talking about how he was a good guy again. And he wrote that poetry before he went and did
00:02:48.600 this attack that left two people killed. One of them being the man who was a coordinator of that
00:02:54.900 very rehab program. So rehabilitation, not the way to go, at least not when it comes to hardened
00:03:01.460 ideologues who join these extremist organizations like ISIS. The government has to focus on prosecution.
00:03:08.720 You want to put someone in a program? Fine, do it. But do it from them being behind bars. Now, one of the
00:03:14.540 reasons that we've been told as to why these 60 have never really faced any legal challenges, the ones
00:03:20.500 here back in Canada, is because it's very hard to get the evidence needed to take them to court and
00:03:27.400 see for certain that you can get a conviction. So they say, well, what's the point? What's the point
00:03:31.540 of charging them if we can't know 100% certainty whether or not we're going to get a conviction?
00:03:38.280 And you go, really? That's your excuse? And the reason they say they don't have the evidence is
00:03:42.580 because Iraq and Syria, other countries that are, of course, a mess. There's no record keeping going
00:03:47.400 on. Filing cabinets have been burned. There's no police forces or not rigorous national police
00:03:52.700 forces that they can rely upon to help them as policing partners in all of this. Okay, fair point.
00:03:58.280 And that may apply in some cases. But in all 60 of them, some of these people, the ones who have
00:04:03.660 been bragging to the media, one New York Times podcast they spoke to, one guy told his whole story,
00:04:09.580 you would think that they are pretty much opening up about it and giving evidence that they're
00:04:13.840 admitting to this. You think a few of these people might actually just plead guilty the moment they
00:04:17.700 walk in the door. Why not give it the old college try? The idea that prosecutors only take things to
00:04:24.760 court if they have a 100% slam dunk case is total nonsense. The John Gomeshi case, of course, was a
00:04:31.760 very high-profile one. That was completely unrelated charges. But they still went ahead with it,
00:04:37.380 and he walked. The Mike Duffy case, clearly something of a bit of a political show trial
00:04:42.540 because they threw, I think it was 31 charges at the guy, and he was found innocent. He was cleared
00:04:47.760 on absolutely all of them. So you want to tell me that you're willing to throw the resources of the
00:04:53.160 state, taxpayer dollar, mess up the lives of these guys, and that's okay, but you can't do it for
00:05:00.300 hardened ISIS terrorists. Incredibly troubling, this disconnect that we see. But at least this new
00:05:07.200 case suggests maybe, just maybe, things are beginning to change and it's heading in the right direction.