Gazette - The threat from within

COVER SECTION

Protecting Canadians from domestic terrorism

By Caroline Ross

On June 2, 2006, Canadian police arrested 17 Toronto residents for allegedly plotting to bomb Toronto infrastructure, behead Canadian politicians and commit other acts of al-Qaida-inspired extremism.

It wasn’t the first time that Canada has been targeted by domestic extremists — the FLQ, Squamish Five and Air India incidents spring to mind* — but the Toronto arrests do suggest a new threat from within, and one that will continue to grow as Canada becomes more active in global hot spots like Afghanistan and Darfur, and as the Internet brings extremist ideology into everyone’s living room.

“Domestic terrorism is probably a bigger threat to Canada now than it has ever been,” says A/Commr Bob Paulson, head of RCMP National Security Criminal Investigations (NSCI) in Ottawa. “We have Canadians right now, as we speak, in Northwest Pakistan, at training camps, who have stated their intention to attack us here in North America. That’s what we have to worry about.”

In Canada, the RCMP holds jurisdiction in matters involving national security. NSCI is currently investigating over 800 cases with possible terrorist links. Since 9/11, they’ve been successful in staying one step ahead of the extremists, and they’ve implemented a string of measures to help keep it that way.

“Cadillac” investigations

“One of my priorities is to ensure that we have absolute ‘Cadillac’ (top-quality) investigations when it comes to suspicious terrorist activities,” says Paulson. “We cannot afford to fail even once in terms of getting in front of the terrorist threat.”

Staying in front of that threat requires significant resources — more so than for other types of criminal investigations — because investigators must keep constant tabs on several key targets and treat every suspicious incident as if it were real.

“Basically, we’re doing a threat assessment every day: What are these targets doing? Do we have the level of coverage that we need? Do we have the appropriate resources in the appropriate places?” says Supt Jamie Jagoe, who oversees national security investigations in Ontario. “We have to have a level of comfort that we can respond at any given moment to the threat.”

That level of comfort comes courtesy of partner agencies like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canada Border Services Agency, Citizen and Immigration Canada and municipal police forces. Specialists from these agencies co-exist with the RCMP in four Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETs). Based in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver, the INSETs handle all national security investigations in Canada.

The Toronto INSET currently employs 125 officers, including 50 seconded from 11 partner agencies. In the seven months leading up to the June 2 arrests, that total swelled to 700, including 84 full-time investigators at the peak of investigation and 400 officers on the day of the arrests.

It’s strength in numbers, and it keeps those “Cadillac” investigations on the road.

One voice across the globe

Almost every domestic terrorism investigation has international connections, says Supt Rick Reynolds, recently retired director of the RCMP National Security Criminal Operations Branch.

Canadian extremists may receive funding, equipment, information, training or ideological direction from individuals in other countries. Unfortunately, says Reynolds, many of those countries are third world or failed states with questionable human rights records.

“All you have to do is go to the O’Connor inquiry. . . and you’ll see the risks and responsibilities associated with sharing information with foreign agencies,” says Reynolds, referring to a 2004 government inquiry into the role Canadian officials played in the case of Maher Arar. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was detained in the United States and deported to Syria, where he was interrogated and tortured as a suspected terrorist. According to the O’Connor inquiry’s final report, “it is very likely that, in making the decisions to detain and remove Mr. Arar, American authorities relied on information about Mr. Arar provided by the RCMP, . . . some of which portrayed him in an inaccurate and unfair way.”

In the wake of the O’Connor inquiry, NSCI implemented a central governance framework to oversee all national security investigations. Responsibility for foreign relations rests with the headquarters component, where a dedicated team ensures that information exchanged with other countries is accurate, relevant, legally sound and bound by appropriate caveats.

“It brings a high degree of accountability and consistency,” says Reynolds, and that helps NSCI co-operate with foreign agencies on matters of mutual security while still protecting the values of Canadian society.

A court precedent?

INSET investigators constantly struggle with the fact that Canadian police forces and Canada’s security intelligence agency are bound by different disclosure requirements.

Police agencies, as part of the Crown, are required to fully disclose all information relevant to criminal proceedings. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), a civilian organization, is not bound by the same requirement. However, CSIS regularly provides the RCMP with information that could factor into national security investigations.

For INSET investigators, it can be a long, complicated, sometimes impossible process to bring information provided by CSIS forward as court-approved evidence — even during preliminary applications for search warrants or wire taps. But as the first adult in the Toronto case goes to trial, that situation could change.

“The defense are bringing a motion to have CSIS required to disclose through the Crown prosecutor on the same basis as the RCMP are required to disclose,” says Debra Robinson, senior counsel with RCMP legal services. The motion is scheduled to be heard in December 2008, and it could revolutionize Canadian court disclosure processes.

“This is very novel,” says Robinson. “It’s going to be interesting to see what the court does.”

Eyes, eyes everywhere

National security investigators can’t be everywhere all the time, hunting for signs of potential terrorist attacks. It helps to have people at ground-level aware of what to look for and what to do if they see something suspicious.

In April 2008, the RCMP launched a Suspicious Incident Reporting system for critical infrastructure targets like subways and oil pipelines. Currently operating on a pilot basis, the system allows pre-authorized infrastructure stakeholders across Canada to file incident reports in a secure central database. RCMP intelligence analysts regularly review the reports for linkages and escalate items accordingly.

NSCI is also working to create a national network of Counter-Terrorism Information Officers (CTIOs) — officers who are attuned to national security threats, indicators and processes and can educate front-line staff and funnel relevant observations to the INSETs. The goal is to get front-line officers thinking “national security” on a regular basis, says Sgt Steve Corcoran, who created the program and has trained over 100 CTIOs in British Columbia.

Corcoran’s network spans RCMP districts, municipal police services and external agencies like B.C. Corrections, the B.C. Conservation Officer Service and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. You need only look at the Toronto case to see the value of external partnerships, says Corcoran.

“(The Toronto suspects) went out into the bush to set up a camp. . . . Fisheries officers and conservation officers are as likely to find that as (police) are, so they have to know what to look for.”

Looking upstream

Perhaps the best way to tackle the threat of domestic terrorism is for police to build strong community partnerships and involve community members in solutions to domestic radicalization.

That’s certainly what RCMP Insp Jim Stewart and his team are hoping. Stewart chairs a multi-agency working group involving stakeholders from the Government of Canada, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and police forces from Victoria to Halifax. Together, the partners are developing a pan-Canadian counter-radicalization strategy, based on similar initiatives in the United Kingdom.

“(This will be) a very Canadian program, one that has been fine-tuned to provide the best benefit to communities across Canada when it comes to recognizing and countering radicalization that leads to violence,” says Stewart.

The strategy will incorporate several existing NSCI outreach initiatives, such as local community advisory groups that helped quell community concerns in the wake of the June 2 arrests. Stewart also hopes to deliver elements of the strategy through the CTIO network.

“What’s key right now is that the time is right,” says Stewart. In the post 9/11 environment, Canada has not experienced a terrorist attack, so the RCMP and its partners aren’t building relationships in crisis mode. “If we can start to look upstream before (terrorist acts occur), we’re preventing. It’s all about making sure that there’s a non-event.”

* I n October 1970, members of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped two government officials, murdering one. In 1982, five Canadians bombed infrastructure targets in British Columbia and Ontario before being apprehended near Squamish, British Columbia. In June 1985, an Air India flight originating in Montreal exploded in mid-air, killing all 329 passengers. Canadian residents later stood trial for planting a suitcase bomb.