Western Standard - August 13, 2024


Terrorism is Canada's problem too

Hosted by
Nigel Hannaford
Mentioned
Alex Dale Trudeau David Vigneault Taylor Swift Sikh
Attempts to cancel Paul Coffey CMS： with Premier Danielle Smith on immigration.

Episode Stats


Length

28 minutes

Words per minute

161.46

Word count

4,638

Sentence count

240

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the wake of an ISIS suspect being arrested in Canada, many are asking: How could a terrorist slip through Canada s immigration screening test? In this episode, Senior Fellow and National Security Project Lead at the McDonnell-Gloria Institute, Alex Dale, and I discuss the security implications of Canada's vastly enlarged immigration program.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers.
00:00:20.020 I'm opinion editor Nigel Hannaford, and you're watching The Hannaford Show.
00:00:24.640 Canadians were scandalized last week when they learned that a man suspected of deep terrorist links with the ISIS organization,
00:00:34.860 a man indeed who had been believed to have been photographed as part of the cast of one of ISIS's infamous execution videos,
00:00:44.500 had been arrested in Canada and has been charged with terrorist activities here.
00:00:50.460 As if that were not enough, it is revealed that he is a Canadian citizen.
00:00:56.820 What are we to make of this?
00:00:59.520 The police have not said what this man, his name is Ahmed El Didi,
00:01:04.240 they have not said what specifically he was intending to do, he and his son,
00:01:11.680 but edged weapons were removed from the scene of the arrest.
00:01:20.460 People ask how this could happen.
00:01:23.080 How could a terrorist slip through Canada's immigration screening test?
00:01:30.340 And we're going to talk about that.
00:01:32.240 And we're also going to talk about the security implications of Canada's vastly enlarged immigration program.
00:01:41.520 Now, we are taking in something like 400,000 people a year.
00:01:48.360 Are all of them just wanting to be good Canadians as we define good Canadians?
00:01:56.000 With me today, I'm very grateful to have Alex Dale, who is, and I'm going to just read this because this is an impressive resume.
00:02:08.120 Alex Dale is a senior fellow and national security project lead at the Ottawa-based McDonnell-Gloria Institute.
00:02:16.160 And Alex, you have spent more than 20 years in Canada's national security community.
00:02:22.000 That's the Canada School of Public Service, Department of National Defense, Canada Border Securities Agency.
00:02:31.520 And during that time, you worked across multiple operational and strategic domains.
00:02:38.460 And I notice here you were also attached to the Privy Council Office,
00:02:42.060 which, having been in that part of the world, I know is a very big deal.
00:02:46.920 You, sir, are an expert.
00:02:48.860 Welcome to the show.
00:02:50.360 Nigel, pleasure to be here.
00:02:51.380 All right.
00:02:52.780 Well, Alex, let's go to the big question.
00:02:56.120 How does an ISIS member slip through the immigration screening net?
00:03:01.280 I have written that the liberals are very good at grand gestures, like a robust immigration policy,
00:03:08.080 but they're hopeless at actually doing government and taking care of the small details, such as screening people.
00:03:15.160 How say you?
00:03:15.920 Well, I would say that some of the challenges, you're exactly right to put it at this question of screening.
00:03:23.260 You know, immigration security screening is a core part of border security and how we maintain the integrity of our immigration system.
00:03:32.140 You know, you mentioned earlier, 400,000 new permanent residents a year.
00:03:37.300 Actually, we're very close to 500,000 new permanent residents a year.
00:03:41.120 So this is a system working at full speed, something like 5.2 million applications in the year 2022.
00:03:49.360 You know, we had, during that period, 430,000 people apply for permanent residents.
00:03:57.220 You know, that is up to 470,000 in 2023.
00:04:01.600 So we're talking very large numbers.
00:04:04.020 So, you know, within that, you know, the security screening part is only one part of the process.
00:04:09.460 But as I said, it's fundamental to maintaining.
00:04:13.400 So, you know, some of these things extend beyond the current government.
00:04:17.740 I mean, the challenges of security screening certainly predate this government.
00:04:22.480 They predate the Harvard government.
00:04:23.600 I mean, you know, they're an ongoing challenge and you need to evolve with the circumstances in the world.
00:04:29.080 So I pick out a couple of points here about how do you slip through.
00:04:33.000 You know, certainly bigger volume, more, you know, people coming in, the greater likelihood some of them are going to be malign individuals with negative intentions.
00:04:44.840 You know, we have a fundamental tension in the system that the system is designed to bring people into the country, not keep people out, right?
00:04:51.020 There's economic and social motives, motivations for that.
00:04:54.020 And that that part, you know, immediately kind of creates a certain balance in the system about, you know, what are the purposes of screening and the overall endpoint, you know, when you're talking hard numbers and reaching hard numbers, there's a pressure to deliver those hard numbers.
00:05:08.020 I think that raises questions about capacity in the system.
00:05:11.440 You know, we talk a lot about the growth under the Trudeau government of the public service, you know, and we've seen those same phenomenon, partly at immigration.
00:05:24.020 Refugee and Citizenship Canada, IRCC, you know, it's gone up like 34% in terms of the people working there.
00:05:30.640 Those people don't primarily work on security, right?
00:05:33.040 They work on the processing and integrating security information in as one part.
00:05:38.040 CBSA, which is really the pointy end of this, the border security agency, you know, they're doing a lot of the screening.
00:05:45.380 So a separate ministry, some real benefits to that, but they are the ones that are looking at various security dimensions, whether that's terrorism, whether that's war criminality, whether that's organized crime, whether that's a criminal record, all the things that would make you what they call inadmissible to Canada.
00:06:03.000 So there's a capacity question here, I think.
00:06:06.060 CBSA hasn't grown quite as much, and I think there's a fundamental problem talking solely about human resource growth in terms of numbers as opposed to training, knowledge, capabilities.
00:06:16.780 I think there's, you know, I've already alluded to it a bit, preparedness of the system, you know, awareness across the immigration process of national security dimensions.
00:06:26.260 This has been a general challenge in the public service that in today's world with, you know, poly crisis, multiple threat, however you want to call it, there's new ways you have to think about accomplishing domestic goals even, right, let alone international ones.
00:06:41.000 So, Alex, do you think there's just too few people with too many applications to screen?
00:06:47.300 So I put a bit of nuance on that.
00:06:49.100 I think maybe not always the right people with the right skill set, not the right tools to do that effectively.
00:06:58.680 I'd point to two things that, I mean, again, the Canadian government has not been strong on, in my experience.
00:07:04.080 One is hiring people with the language skills that are going to make you effective against dealing with the current threat picture.
00:07:11.880 So this is people that speak foreign languages, whether that's Spanish, whether that's Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Chinese, Persian, you know, all the different languages, you know, that, that, that, you know, some of our threat actors are coming from.
00:07:27.000 You know, you know, I think in terms of what the intelligence community will call open source intelligence.
00:07:33.560 So, I mean, this is using materials that are publicly available, like the video that you speak of, that's, you know, currently causing, you know, that's being brought to light in the case of the ISIS arrest last week.
00:07:45.600 You know, you have to be able to find that, you have to be able to identify that, you have to connect it to the individual.
00:07:50.060 There's a lot of tools that are out there now.
00:07:52.940 I think it's important, you know, that, that, that Canadians be aware of that and be pushing the government to make sure that the analysts who work on this have access to those tools.
00:08:02.880 So, you know, quantity isn't always quality.
00:08:04.980 I think there is a slight mismeasure between how much immigration has grown, IRCC versus CBSA, the border service.
00:08:12.840 You know, the border service is not just people doing intelligence and immigration screening.
00:08:16.900 I mean, these are the people who are right at the front lines on the borders.
00:08:20.780 And I mean, there is a question, too, for the immigration officers who are IRCC people working at our embassies and admissions abroad, you know, how they're being equipped and positioned to deal with this, too.
00:08:31.160 Do they have the intelligence that they need?
00:08:33.060 Are they getting that support from across the system?
00:08:36.640 So, yeah, I'm a little reluctant to throw in more people at problems all the time.
00:08:40.640 I think that, you know, in some cases there is just a basic need.
00:08:43.980 We look in the past, you know, at, you know, terrorist cases that have led to catastrophe.
00:08:52.140 You know, often say the security services will be following five groups, but it was the sixth group, right, that eluded their net.
00:09:00.120 So, you know, those are raw human numbers.
00:09:02.680 It takes numbers to process information, to do surveillance, to do all the things that can potentially be important to law enforcement.
00:09:09.020 So, but I would caution that this is an issue where we need to be thinking about technology and we need to be thinking about the training, background, and knowledge that the people doing this work have.
00:09:21.040 So, as things stand, it's probably, with 400,000, 500,000 people to screen, there is probably a failure rate that doesn't mean the system isn't working.
00:09:34.800 It's just that anything, any procedure that is done repetitively, there will be fails.
00:09:40.220 I mean, we were talking earlier about the number of people coming in and what kind of a, what would one-tenth of one percent look like.
00:09:49.580 It's obviously still quite a number of potential fails there.
00:09:53.720 But one of the things that, if I were writing talking points for the liberal government, as they try to defend themselves, now that the Conservatives and the NDP have united to ask for a special meeting on this matter,
00:10:10.000 I would say, well, you know, it doesn't happen very often.
00:10:12.720 I mean, it's really a pretty peaceful country and everybody's integrating very well.
00:10:17.080 Well, then I would say, but then I would, if I were writing for the Conservatives, I would say this stuff happens all the time.
00:10:24.000 So, it's, look at the Air India crash, there's 350 people killed there back in 85.
00:10:30.900 Look at the lands of the Toronto 18 who are going to bomb the CN Tower and try and storm Parliament and behead people on camera, you know. 0.97
00:10:42.140 Look at the, we had, there's trouble within the Sikh community, which has been very high profile, the Mississauga event.
00:10:51.560 So, actually, there is a problem.
00:10:54.180 So, let me ask you, as the expert in field here, Alex, should Canadians be concerned?
00:11:02.640 Well, I think Canadians should demand that the national security screening, security screening process be as modern, advanced and world-leading.
00:11:10.140 We want to be a world leader in immigration, bringing people in.
00:11:14.240 And the integrity of the system deeply matters, you know, both for the planned outcomes and for the general trust and confidence that Canadians have in this.
00:11:22.960 Look, our immigration system overall is a success.
00:11:26.020 I mean, you know, our prosperity, etc.
00:11:28.320 I mean, there's very little question that the benefits of immigration are huge.
00:11:33.020 You know, we will not see changes in immigration that don't see us bringing in hundreds of thousands of people.
00:11:40.420 Now, there's a debate whether half a million is the right number or is it 300,000.
00:11:45.320 But I don't think anyone's going to change that political consensus.
00:11:49.040 You know, Canada's a rare status pretty much amongst all of our allies that, you know, immigration is not a controversial issue much of the time in this country.
00:11:56.980 And we need to work very hard to keep it that way.
00:11:59.780 So, you know, in terms of, you know, thinking about this, I mean, you know, like the existence of within these streams of people who allude and have, you know, intentions that are damaging to the Canadian populace.
00:12:15.720 Because this is just a function of what goes on in the immigration system.
00:12:19.920 In Canada, one thing that worries me, Nigel, it's been very historical here, is we have what I call Canadian exceptionalism.
00:12:27.200 We tend to imagine that somehow we're excluded from a lot of the trends that are shaping the rest of the world.
00:12:34.580 Partly that's a function of being in North America, protected by three seas, having a generally, you know, very productive partner to the south.
00:12:41.360 But, you know, whether you're talking about terrorism, as you mentioned with the examples that you've given, whether you're talking about organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, whether you're talking about people, you know, seeking to, you know, who've worked for repressive regimes, you know, flee here and hide war criminals, all these things exist, right?
00:13:05.560 And that does need to be accepted. I mean, I don't think it's an indictment of the entire system.
00:13:11.200 But I think, you know, we have a general problem in this country across the board in taking national security seriously, somehow thinking, oh, well, the Americans will deal with that, or they face more problems, or this is something in the Middle East, or this is something in Europe.
00:13:25.980 I think, you know, as you, you know, your example showed, we've had issues with terrorism over decades.
00:13:34.660 I think, frankly, we're doing a better job at understanding that, you know, some of these issues, you know, come.
00:13:40.800 And I mean, you know, and let's face it too, right?
00:13:42.760 I mean, you know, there's an issue between people eluding the immigration, you know, system, and then there's a question of becoming criminalized and radicalized in Canada after that fact, right?
00:13:53.000 I mean, and this happens as well. So, you know, the immigration part, I think, comes down to, in my mind, you know, if you want to maintain the integrity of the system, the trust in the system, you can't deprioritize the national security piece.
00:14:06.600 It's specialists. It's about a small number of people. But, you know, how many people were involved in 9-11?
00:14:11.360 I mean, how many people does it take to conduct a mass attack event?
00:14:15.800 I mean, you know, looking at, you know, a known ISIS member, or at least someone who joined the group had, you know, potentially committed atrocities before coming to Canada, you know, we've seen the mass attacks with machetes, with other things.
00:14:30.280 You know, Canada is unfortunately in the same space as many of our partners and allies. That's worrying, but it can also be a source of comfort.
00:14:37.540 You know, we've got partners we can work on this with. And I think that's, you know, part of where part of the solution is, in fact.
00:14:43.200 You know, I wonder, Alex, sometimes if we, if the RCMP and CSIS are actually too good at it, because if nothing happens, people will start to think that there isn't a problem.
00:14:52.700 You mentioned 9-11 a moment ago, and after that happened, everybody knew that it was a huge problem.
00:14:58.080 And then I started, at that time, I was still in, before my time in government, so I was paying attention to this through a news lens, but I noticed a number of reports coming through of foiled plots.
00:15:12.020 And, of course, they made a headline, page three, for a day.
00:15:17.180 Right.
00:15:17.860 And then, oh, well, we took care of that, and everything is all right.
00:15:22.760 Whereas, in actual fact, this stuff is going on all the time.
00:15:27.460 And as it was famously said, we have to be on it 100% of the time.
00:15:32.960 They only, they, the bad guys, only need to succeed once.
00:15:38.060 Yeah, that's right.
00:15:39.040 Alex, once, once is all it would take, I think, to make this country very, seem very untrustworthy in the eyes of its allies.
00:15:50.640 What, what would you say to that?
00:15:53.340 Well, Nigel, I mean, we, we don't look like a credible partner with our allies on so many issues right now.
00:15:59.280 So, you know, the ability, you know, we've done a very poor job at, at defending, you know, being ready to defend our own territory in the Arctic.
00:16:08.120 You know, we're not getting, and we're not showing commitment.
00:16:10.520 And again, the Trudeau, Trudeau government is, is, is very much responsible for this, but we're not seeing a strong case from any of the opposition parties about getting a 2% of defense spending, you know, a primary ingredient in, in, in, in, in credibility.
00:16:23.960 So, you know, you know, you know, there is death by a thousand cuts, and, and I think, as you're alluding, I mean, it could, might be more than a cut, it could be a full slice, right?
00:16:32.020 I mean, so I, I do think we have the added issue, as Canadians will be aware of, but it's very good to put this, is that, you know, in an election year in the United States, we're going to hear a lot of things articulated.
00:16:44.660 Americans have a lot of concerns about the border, while many of those relate to the southern border with Mexico, you know, you can be sure, I mean, we've seen it already, that, you know, that also turns attention to the northern border, and what's going on in the northern border.
00:17:00.300 And given how important to us, trade, movement, you know, back, you know, whether it's for going to Taylor Swift concerts, or whether it's, you know, sealing the deal on a multi-billion dollar automotive or oil exports, whatever, you know, that relationship is crucial to us.
00:17:17.160 So I think, you know, we have to be extra attentive here, not necessarily because we're worse, or we're better, or the problems are more severe, or they're more light, but the politics of this are clearly very, very explosive.
00:17:28.680 Well, let me push you on that point a little.
00:17:30.880 How damaging would it be to trade across the border if a serious event was perpetrated in the United States by people who were based in Canada, as citizens or landed immigrants, even?
00:17:45.780 You know, it would be politically an extremely hot potato.
00:17:49.400 You have to keep in mind constantly that from the U.S. perspective, borders are as much a matter of security as about trade, right?
00:17:55.640 They certainly have a stronger bias and willingness to disrupt international, like, trade flows into the country if they are, you know, if they see a risk there.
00:18:10.960 Whereas Canada is very much pushing more for open border, et cetera.
00:18:13.900 So, you know, I think it's a bridge we don't want to cross, to be quite honest.
00:18:20.800 Now, again, you know, like, if you talk at the official level, I mean, I think most people understand, I mean, these are shared issues.
00:18:27.620 But, you know, there's a general perception that Canada is laxer and has fewer, you know, pointing in tools to deal with this.
00:18:34.820 So, you know, I think we need to take it very seriously.
00:18:37.960 Now, in your view, how seriously does the government of Canada react to expert advice?
00:18:47.240 I'm thinking back to the recently retired experience of CSIS Director David Vigneault,
00:18:55.120 who was publicly diminished by the Prime Minister, who more or less said,
00:19:04.800 well, you know, I'm paraphrasing the Prime Minister's remarks, but they were to the general effect that it's good that we've got these eager gumshoes, 1.00
00:19:14.380 but they go overboard sometimes and we have to give everything second thought and check and consider and so forth.
00:19:22.100 I found that highly objectionable.
00:19:26.660 I'm sure Mr. Vigneault did as well, and I noticed that he retired from his post not too long after that.
00:19:33.360 But you have had 20 years in the system.
00:19:38.220 How good are the links from people who actually discover something through their chain of command to the government of the day?
00:19:47.820 Let's not be partisan.
00:19:50.380 It's a problem for both parties when they form government.
00:19:55.020 How good are those links from the field to the boardroom table where the decisions must be made?
00:20:03.500 Well, that's clearly a constant work and process, you know, in a democracy with changing political staff, etc.
00:20:10.560 You know, in the Canadian case, we have a very stable bureaucracy, very professionalized right up to the deputy minister level.
00:20:17.320 So, you know, there's always a building of trust that has to happen there on any policy issue on that.
00:20:25.580 You know, I think what's really obvious to me is that, you know, national security still takes the back foot or, you know,
00:20:33.040 is in the kind of back burner pretty much constantly.
00:20:35.400 So, you know, that information, I think, it's harder to get, you know, it's presented in ways that, you know,
00:20:43.300 show the government of the day what agenda, you know, how it fits their agenda.
00:20:48.560 And I think we've gotten very used in this country to thinking that, you know, again, going back to this idea of exceptionalism,
00:20:54.200 that, you know, it's simply a case of meeting the government's agenda as opposed to this, you know,
00:21:02.320 increasingly dangerous world intervening on that agenda.
00:21:05.400 So, you know, the government has made some good announcements in terms of setting up a national security council
00:21:10.880 at the Privy Council office to address some of these issues.
00:21:14.280 But that only comes down to how seriously the prime minister and his staff take those issues.
00:21:20.200 And I think, you know, for any country, I mean, no country wants to have to deal with these.
00:21:24.200 You'd much rather focus on your prosperity, on your, you know, the health and well-being of your people, etc.
00:21:30.480 But, you know, I think there needs to be a greater sense of awareness that this just goes with the turf
00:21:35.900 and that all those other things you want to do need to have that information flowing,
00:21:42.760 you know, the perspectives being collected, you know, analyzed, put together by your police,
00:21:48.960 by your border service officers, immigration officers, intelligence officers.
00:21:53.440 Alex, as we mentioned before, two of the opposition parties have called upon the government
00:22:01.640 to reconvene the Parliamentary Public Safety Committee to hear how this situation arose
00:22:10.200 where somebody who had been a member of ISIS allegedly became a Canadian citizen
00:22:16.000 and now stands accused of plotting an atrocity here in Canada.
00:22:21.380 I want you to just think about what would you say to that committee if they invited you to testify?
00:22:30.120 Well, you know, first and foremost, we need to think a lot about, you know,
00:22:33.820 some of the points I made earlier around how are we staffing these positions,
00:22:38.160 what skill sets do we need to have?
00:22:40.360 You know, if you want to prevent these things, you know, you need a pretty worldly security screening process.
00:22:47.540 So, again, people understand dynamics in different parts of the world,
00:22:50.920 understand how those relate to Canada, have the tools both linguistically to analyze, assess,
00:22:57.560 identify information elsewhere, have the digital tools that allow them to synthesize information
00:23:04.160 to pull together those pictures, etc.
00:23:07.340 So, you know, the human resourcing and how we develop those human resources
00:23:11.540 and the technology, I think, are absolutely central to having, you know,
00:23:17.320 tightening up this system and identifying the threat.
00:23:20.240 You know, again, you know, I would certainly have opening remarks in that respect
00:23:23.740 to the fact that we have this world where we don't just have to worry about terrorists.
00:23:27.820 We have to worry about espionage.
00:23:29.640 We have to worry about proxies of foreign state governments that want to do us harm.
00:23:33.360 We have to worry about, you know, people who may have done corrupt actions, etc.
00:23:37.860 People are coming to intimidate Canadians because of their views about authoritarian regimes,
00:23:43.060 you know, dissidents, etc., who fled here and are, you know, talking about their country.
00:23:48.700 You know, ultimately, this is about protecting Canadians,
00:23:52.100 whether they became a Canadian citizen yesterday or whether they were born here and, you know, were born here.
00:23:58.020 So, you know, again, we can't indulge, I think, some of the problems of the past where, you know,
00:24:04.060 after 9-11 we became very focused on terrorism, what type of terrorism even.
00:24:09.640 We have to understand that the world isn't going to indulge us on this.
00:24:12.760 You know, all kinds of people are coming at us from different ways.
00:24:16.620 There's still lots of benefit, mostly benefit we can reap from being, you know, open to the world.
00:24:21.040 But if you're going to do that, there's a concomitant part that says, you know,
00:24:24.680 you need to take the national security part seriously.
00:24:27.500 And as much as the RCMP actually had suspicions, followed their suspicions, made an arrest,
00:24:34.460 you might make the argument, well, actually, we're doing pretty well on this commission,
00:24:39.540 and we're getting it right.
00:24:42.980 You could say that.
00:24:44.220 And I dare say they will say that.
00:24:46.080 Well, I don't want to downplay it.
00:24:47.640 I mean, Nigel, it is a success.
00:24:48.880 I mean, if you catch people before they do something, I mean, you know,
00:24:52.320 like we should be very grateful that the RCMP on this case and others.
00:24:55.800 But, I mean, others have slipped through.
00:24:57.300 And you've spoken about this a couple times.
00:24:58.900 I mean, it is a dilemma, right?
00:25:00.300 I mean, when the police do their job, there is sometimes kind of an alternate reaction,
00:25:05.640 like, oh, we're at risk, right?
00:25:07.140 We're at more danger, you know, because, you know, but I think the thing is,
00:25:11.420 is that, you know, like there, you know, this won't be the end of it.
00:25:14.540 And it's never like, you know, wipe our hands and we're done.
00:25:18.640 So, you know, success can be, success, again, seems like a strong word here,
00:25:22.520 doesn't it, when you, you know, by the skin of your teeth, avoid a potential atrocity.
00:25:28.640 But, you know, I mean, so, I mean, Canadians can have confidence that the system,
00:25:32.580 you know, isn't entirely broken, but, you know, like it needs constant work
00:25:37.120 and it needs to update.
00:25:38.260 And I think Canadians really need to be on their government across public policy
00:25:42.340 about the uptake on technology, the standards, you know,
00:25:46.080 the human resource standards of people.
00:25:48.700 Again, I'm not denigrating anyone in there.
00:25:50.180 There's lots of very talented people.
00:25:52.540 But, you know, there always needs to be a focus on training,
00:25:55.080 military exemplary for that, right?
00:25:56.680 Constantly training their people.
00:25:58.460 Public service doesn't always do that.
00:25:59.740 And I think you made the point earlier that if you want to maintain the integrity
00:26:05.860 of the entire system of immigration and international trade,
00:26:12.200 this is the area that you have to get right.
00:26:17.200 Nigel, we're seeing this on so many issues, right?
00:26:19.840 I mean, confidence in the economy, confidence in foreign investment,
00:26:23.120 confidence in, you know, drug makers, you know, confidence in so many things.
00:26:29.040 Like we need to see that the government, when necessary,
00:26:32.520 has the ability to intervene on issues, you know, whether it is, you know,
00:26:36.680 again, a foreign state trying to buy into critical resources 0.94
00:26:40.000 or acquire an airfield, you know, in a place, port access, etc.
00:26:46.460 You know, whether it's our financial system and the entry of, you know,
00:26:50.340 dirty money into that, you know, the integrity of these systems
00:26:54.040 depends on taking the threat of nefarious, if you want to use that language,
00:26:59.520 actors seriously.
00:27:01.100 And, you know, everything is not always going to be easy
00:27:03.740 and is not always going to, you know, unfortunately,
00:27:06.020 people will take advantage of these things.
00:27:08.520 Happily, in most cases, for far less serious issues.
00:27:11.960 But, you know, as you said, I mean, you know,
00:27:13.700 it's sort of a no-fail mission, right?
00:27:16.600 And on many parts of this, I mean, you know,
00:27:18.660 even if you only let one bad person through,
00:27:20.580 if they commit something, you know, that cannot be diminished.
00:27:25.820 So that's, yeah, that's what I would say there.
00:27:29.860 Alex, I think we should be glad of the good work of the RCMP in this case
00:27:35.120 and wish them more of the same.
00:27:38.100 It's been great to have you on the show, sir,
00:27:40.200 and certainly want to commend you for the work that you are doing in this area.
00:27:45.120 Ladies and gentlemen, that's it for tonight for the Western Standard.
00:27:49.980 I'm Nigel Hannaford, and thank you again to Alex Dale.
00:27:54.380 All the rest.
00:28:15.120 Thank you.
00:28:24.220 Thank you.
00:28:25.460 Bye-bye.
00:28:26.380 Bye-bye.
00:28:27.320 Bye-bye.
00:28:28.300 Bye-bye.
00:28:43.060 Bye-bye.