Juno News - Is Canada finally taking terrorism seriously？

It seems finally, just maybe, the government is getting serious about getting tough on Canadians who choose to go abroad to fight alongside ISIS. You d think it would be a no-brainer that if anyone even makes a step in that direction, we would throw the book at them, lock them up and throw away the key. But that is not how it has been unfolding in recent years.

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. 0.99

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 1.00

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.

Juno News - December 09, 2019

Is Canada finally taking terrorism seriously？

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