The Views of Canadian Scholars on the Impact of the Anti-Terrorism Act

6. MARTIN RUDNER Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University (continued)

6.3 How should our country respond to these trends and threats? Please feel free to include measures at any level, such as social, economic, political, or legal or a combination of these levels.

The evolving threat of global terrorism cannot be treated purely and simply as a matter of law enforcement. Rather, global terrorism must be fought as a form of warfare that is asymmetric warfare. Canada's response to the aforementioned threats and trends must deploy all the instruments of an asymmetric warfare effort, including an effectual legislative armoury, proactive intelligence collection, vigilant law enforcement, critical infrastructure protection, and government policies designed to promote and defend the values and interests of a Canadian community engaged in a new and unfamiliar situation of counter-terrorism conflict. The following list of priority concerns addresses a set of inter-related issues that in my opinion ought to be considered in Canada's response to the global terrorist threat of asymmetric warfare.

(A) Public Confidence Building

It is incumbent upon Government to reinforce the confidence of the general public in the capacity of the authorities to protect Canadians and secure the national interest against the threat of global terrorism. For any democracy facing terrorist threats, flagging public confidence in national security matters can complicate and even impede the exercise of lawful authority under anti-terrorism legislation and the administration of justice. The public must have confidence in the capacity of its Government to respond effectively and appropriately to the threats posed by contemporary global terrorism in a manner consistent with Canadian constitutional values and law.

A confidence building effort would serve to (a) familiarize Canadians with the reality of the terrorist threat to this country and its interests; (b) promote knowledge about Canada's Security and Intelligence Community, their policy and review mechanisms, and their lawful functions; (c) and encourage a public discourse about the principles and issues of national security, human rights and democracy. Various outreach mechanisms to address these matters already exist in Canadian society in academe, in non-governmental organizations and institutions, in the legal profession, and through the media. What is called for is a Government initiative to introduce policies and programs to access these mechanisms to help build public knowledge, and therefore confidence, in the counter-terrorism effort.

Public confidence in the Security and Intelligence Community, and in its counter-terrorism effort, depends very much on an assurance of public accountability for the secret intelligence agencies and law enforcement services. In the intelligence domain, accountability is best assured by the existence of appropriate mechanisms for oversight and review. Governments in democracies have introduced various dimensions of intelligence oversight, executive, financial, judicial, and legislative. In the Canadian experience, intelligence review agencies like the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), CSIS Inspector General, and CSE Commissioner have contributed to public accountability through their respective, specially focused review functions. However, Parliamentary oversight in Canada has been relatively weak and segmented, certainly by way of comparison to other Westminster-based systems like those of the United Kingdom or Australia. In so far as terrorist asymmetric warfare may call for counter-terrorism actions that could touch on sensitive cultural, social, or human rights concerns, it is important for public confidence that Parliamentary oversight of the Security and Intelligence Community not just be done, but be seen to be done effectively, in the overall interest of national security and democratic governance.

(B) Protect the Arab/Muslim Diaspora

Canada's Arab and wider Muslim communities are especially vulnerable to the Global terrorist onslaught. Not only do Islamicist terrorist groups and cells embed themselves in their otherwise peaceable communities, but militant recruitment, fund-raising, incitement, and operational activities serve to radicalize community institutions and subvert the moderate communal leadership. Canada's Arab and Muslim religious and educational institutions depend overwhelmingly on foreign sources, mainly on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, for clergy, teachers, textbooks, theological tracts, and even finance. This dependency situation makes for a vulnerable diaspora that must be protected against extraneous malevolent influences, which can threaten Canadian multicultural values, public safety and national security.

Many if not most Arab and Muslim religious and educational institutions in this country and elsewhere have been financed largely by Islamic charitable organizations based in Saudi Arabia. An estimated US$70 billion in Saudi funding was disbursed across the Muslim and Western world to set up and run mosques, schools and related communal institutions. The leading charitable donors, the International Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World League, World Association of Muslim Youth, and Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, tended to use their financial largesse to promote Saudi Arabia's stringent Wahhabi form of Islam. Saudi funding brought with it teachers, clerics and materials that infused diaspora mosques, schools, publications and other communal institutions with an extremist, intolerant and militant Islamic purview, characteristic of the Wahhabi creed. Certain of these charities, and most notoriously the International Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World League and Al-Haramain, were also suspected of funnelling money, arms and personnel to al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations. In the aftermath of last year's terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia itself, the Saudi government has clamped down on Islamic charities and began to exercise tighter controls on disbursements. Be that as it may, it behoves the Canadian authorities to continue exercising diligence in monitoring financial flows, personnel movements, provocative activities and incitement, so as to protect the integrity and probity of Arab and Muslim religious, educational and communal institutions in this country.

(C) Curbing Terrorist Recruitment

Islamic terrorist organizations have recruited Muslim Canadians for operations in this country and abroad. A heightened vigilance must be sustained to monitor and forestall terrorist recruitment in Canada from among the Arab/Muslim communities and also others. It is incumbent upon the Security and Intelligence Community to undertake lawful surveillance and conduct investigations to detect the subversion of our educational, religious and other institutions, and to prevent the recruitment and dispatch of Canadians for terrorist missions. Although signals intelligence (SIGINT) and financial intelligence may be useful tools to discern communications and financial flows, the task of penetrating tightly knit, clandestine Islamic terrorist cells requires a human source intelligence (HUMINT) capability to infiltrate and monitor clandestine activities, including recruitment and operational planning.

Careful controls on identity documents and passports and trans-border movements can also help militate against the mobilization and deployment of recruits by terror networks.

(D) Closing Chinks in our Armour

Legal and operational steps need to be taken to close any chinks in our counter-terrorist armour. In view of recent trends on the part of Global terrorist networks to widen recruitment and to acquire Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) capability, it is imperative that urgent attention be directed at making Canada and its laboratories less vulnerable to infiltration by terrorist recruits and trainees. While stricter border controls have already been instituted under existing legislation, it has become clear that these can be bypassed by applicants to fraudulent educational institutions, like the so-called visa schools. Once in Canada, there exists no security procedure to monitor student transfers to other institutions, or access to university and other research laboratories, even those working on dual-use CBRN technologies. Unlike in the United Kingdom, for example, Canada's intelligence authorities currently have no mechanism to alert universities and laboratories about otherwise qualified applicants whose access to sensitive CBRN technologies could pose a threat. The vulnerability is great, and the risks potentially devastating. Urgent action must be taken to equip the intelligence and law enforcement authorities with the lawful means to respond appropriately, in cooperation with the educational institutions, to threats in these domains.

(E) Hardening of Prospective Targets

Global terrorism constitutes an ongoing threat to Canada and its interests. Canada was declared a target by al-Qaeda, and remains targeted still. Any assessment that Canadians are relaxing their guard or becoming complacent is likely to elevate this country's vulnerability to attack. Softer country targets, notably those with vulnerable economic and infrastructure assets, and in particular those sectors and institutions that are closely integrated with the United States, remain especially at risk.

The hardening of target countries requires, first and foremost, a well-crafted legislative armoury that addresses the scope and extent of the terrorist threat, coupled with a broad spectrum of intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. To be effective, their counter-terrorism efforts must be backed by political will and supported by a security culture cognizant of the danger posed by terrorism to our democratic values, and committed to defending these values in a situation of asymmetric conflict. The elements of hardening include a proactive intelligence effort to penetrate terrorist cells and networks, intercept their communications, disrupt their finances, monitor clandestine activities, defeat illicit operations, actively protect critical infrastructure, and bring violators to justice. It is noteworthy that targeted countries that have undergone a counter-terrorism hardening since September 11th, including the United States and United Kingdom, have managed, so far, to avert further terrorist strikes in their respective jurisdictions.

The hardening of prospective targets has to be international as well as domestic. Global terrorism recognizes no territorial boundaries, and its networks are veritably trans-national. Al-Qaeda operations, for example, tend to be globalized in scope: terrorist funds raised in one jurisdiction are laundered and banked in another, usually in the United Arab Emirates; operatives recruited in a third country may be trained in a fourth, like Taliban Afghanistan or Somalia, and deployed in another, where weaponry and explosives have been acquired; meanwhile, operational planning can take place in yet another place, in Southeast Asia or Europe, to command attacks on the targeted country.

This globalized threat environment creates an urgent requirement for the systematic sharing of pertinent intelligence information on terrorist threats among all components of Canada's Security and Intelligence Community, as well as with allies and partners in the counter-terrorism coalition. Canada's legislation on intelligence sharing is still vaguely defined; the relevant provisions of Bill C-17 (formerly C-55), the Public Safety Act, have not (yet) been enacted into law.

Intelligence sharing is a vital element in counter-terrorism, but is also a sensitive issue as regards privacy rights, civil liberties, and the rights of Canadian citizens traveling abroad. Precisely because of the need to strike an appropriate balance between these discrete concerns, it is important that intelligence sharing within the Security and Intelligence Community, at least, be put on a sound statutory footing that reflects accepted principles and society's requirements.

6.31 Concluding Comments

The asymmetric warfare currently being waged against Global terrorist networks has catapulted Canada's Security and Intelligence Community to the forefront of our counter-terrorism effort. Security intelligence, vital for effective counter-terrorism, is necessarily secretive and intrusive into society. However, these secret and intrusive intelligence collection services can be, and are, managed lawfully and accountably in a manner consistent with statute, government policy and democratic values. A balance must be obtained between the protection of Canada's democratic values, and the upholding of those values in our laws, policies, and conduct.

Canada is not alone in facing the asymmetric threats of global terrorism. For the United States and other allies like Great Britain or Australia, national security represents a predominant concern of Government and public, trumping all other matters. Even if Canada sees itself as a follower and not a leader in the international counter-terrorism campaign, this country cannot allow itself to be targeted, neither can we tolerate having our territory, people and institutions become staging grounds for terror attacks on neighbours, allies and friends. Surely our neighbours and friends will not simply stand by passively should Canada become a window of vulnerability to their national security and public safety interests. They will doubtless act to protect themselves, even if those actions cause collateral damage to a wide spectrum of Canadian interests, economic and social. We did not invite terrorism to our land, terrorism has come to us: we must cope and deal effectively with these threats in the interest of our national security, public safety and democratic values. Either we do it ourselves, or it will be done to us.