Canada’S Counter-Terrorism Strategy Is Failing. From The

The 2006 Ontario terrorism plot or the “Toronto 18” was a terrorist conspiracy where 18 radicalized extremists where planning an attack in Southern Ontario Canada on June 2 2006. The main targets were to detonate truck bombs, attack the CSIS headquarters, the Toronto stock exchange, open fire in crowed areas, attack the parliament building, take hostages and behead the prime minister of Canada. Fortunately, the police and the Canadian security intelligence services impeded it.

In the last three years there have been 4 students from Mississauga that are thought to have left the country to join ISIS, which is the successor to AL-Qaeda. People who go abroad to join terrorist groups are called extremist travelers. There have been approximately 130 Canadians put on a no fly list. Counter-terrorism became much more important in the days after 9/11. The Department of Foreign affairs is charged with keeping Canadians safe against terrorism working with other

Recently there have been two “anti-terrorism” bills that are really affecting Canadian citizens who weren’t born here. Bill C-24 is an attack on duel citizens that were not born in Canada or are eligible for another citizenship. This bill allows these the Canadian government to revoke your citizenship if you have committed or are suspected of serious crimes. They could also deport you. This creates the idea of second class citizens. Some are not able to be targeted well others are immune. Bill C-51 is one that is really complicated, but the something it does are: It gives CSIS and the RCMP larger power in order to “prevent” terrorism. The issue is no checks and balances, no safeguards, and nothing in place to make sure what CSIS is doing is legal. It also even has allowed CSIS to break the charter of rights with permission without the public ever being notified. It also vastly expands our definition of security and that of which terrorism falls under. The terms definition of terrorism is very vague. Threats of terrorism can now be considered: interfering with public safety, the economy or financial security of Canada East. This could trap illegal protestors or the blockading railways and much more under terrorism charges. The bill also effects a lot more and threatens the rights and freedoms of many

On June 9th 2015, Stephen Harper and the Canadian government passed Bill C-51. It’s an anti terrorism act, with only the best intentions at mind for Canada and its national security. However since it’s approval, there has been much controversy surrounding the bill. There are five key changes in Bill C-51 and many Canadians aren’t pleased with them, such as, the right to exchange information between national agencies, unwarranted arrests and also the increase in surveillance that will occur with both of these new conditions (Watters, 1). Bill C-51 also interferes with sections of the Charter and other key legal philosophies such as the Magna Carta and the Rule of Law.

As the nature of conflict has changed from that of interstate conflict to transnational attacks, the world must discuss how to effectively combat terrorism in a way that minimizes harm. Throughout the following paper, I will summarize four contrasting responses to terrorism, included in a document adapted from Terrorism: How Should We Respond, of the Choices Program at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. I will then discuss why I believe Canada’s most effective response to terrorism would be a unique combination of Options Two and Four. I believe that Canada should embrace relations with the international community, and seek solutions to terrorism as a global issue. This response would satisfy

Canadians pride themselves on being a “peacekeeping country” and many believe that peacekeeping represents a defining aspect of Canadian identity because it reflects fundamental values, beliefs and interests. Canada has been a leader in peace operations since its development that spearheaded by a Canadian. In fact, Canada’s role as peacekeeper remains the main focus of the Canadian military after its invention around 60 years ago, originally started by a Canadian. Their efforts have gained an international reputation for Canada as a significant contributor to international peace and stability. While Canada has an exemplary history in UN peacekeeping, the current extent of its contribution, both in terms of peacekeeping personnel and percentage of funds to peacekeeping missions, are on a clear decline. The belief that Canada is a peacekeeping country is misguided because recent Canadian commitment shows a sharp decline in Canadian participation in UN peacekeeping. Surprisingly, as of March 2007, Canada ranked 59th out of 114 countries in terms of military and police contributions to UN operations. Despite Canadian declined involvement in peacekeeping during the last decade, it still remains a valuable and important mission that greatly deserves Canadian resources including monetary support, resources and personnel.

On the date September 11, 2001, the world stood still and watched the horror of terrorism unfold in the heart and soul of the United States of America. For the world, this was just the beginning of the terrorist attacks that will take place. In my essay I will carefully evaluate the measures taken by Governments to stop the terror attacks from happening, through my paper I will discuss the United Nations (UN) and global counter-terrorism, summarising the facts on the 9/11 attacks, furthermore the connection between Muslims, United

Since the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil at the outset of the twenty-first century, western states have enacted vast changes in the way that they deal with terrorist groups and terrorists. Due to the fact that civilian casualties have escalated as a result of terrorist acts, western polities have steered away from a punitive paradigm that criminalizes terrorist acts and aims at penalizing individuals who perpetrate such acts. Instead, there has been a dramatic shift towards a preventative approach in which terrorist acts are prevented prior towards any manifesting and inflicting harm on innocent victims. In Jonathan Shapiro’s “An Ounce of Cure for a Pound of Preventive Detention: Security Certificates,” published in Queen’s Law Journal in 2008, discusses the paradigm shift in Canadian foreign policy as it pertains to terrorism through a cogent discussion of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). The IRPA authorizes the government to detained suspected terrorists amidst deportation proceedings. However, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a decision that the Charter was provisionally violated by certain provisions of the Act, which is the central point of contention Shapiro has in this article. Indeed, he critiques the approach of the Supreme Court in the Charkaoi v. Canada decision, positing that the security certificate process violates several of the liberty and equality

The post-Cold War international system has elevated human security issues, global issues and economic competitiveness to be leading concerns. Nonetheless, 9/11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan have ensured that the high politics of peace and security take precedence. Canada’s interest in Afghanistan was a direct result of the terror attacks of September 11th in the World Trade Center in the United States (Readings in… 117). This not only signified an outbreak of war on Canada’s neighbour, but it was symbolic of a fight against the entire Western World, undoubtedly including Canada. Over twenty-four Canadians were killed as victims of the attack. Essentially, Canada entered Afghanistan to fight terrorism abroad in order to maintain safety domestically; in a sense it was retribution for the lives lost in 9/11 and an active mission to eradicate the possibility of terrorist attacks in Canada. Secondly, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1368 which classified the terrorist attacks as a threat to international peace and security and recognized the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence”(“Security Council…”). Arguably, three main factors led to Canada’s intervention in Afghanistan. Firstly, Canada chose to fight terrorism internationally as a reaction to 9/11, displaying the country’s complex neorealist agenda that

What is Mr. Trudeau solution? A “guarantee” that all warrants would respect the Charter and the judges. Whether this “guarantee” will hold up is questionable but at the very least it is better than nothing.

So far, terrorism has been a key obstacle to many foreign nations, as they are struggling to prevent terrorist attacks. From the year of 1997 up to the year of 2003, international terrorist attacks have gone from less than 500 to almost 3000. Overall, global terrorism has grown by almost 1200% from 1997 to 2003. (Johnston 1). This massive increase in terrorism reflects on other nations' lack of control of the safety of their nation. These statistics also show that something needs to be done to protect the

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

As a direct consequence of September 11, a number of substantial challenges lie ahead in the area of counter-terrorism..   The most prominent of these is the changing nature of the terrorism phenomenon.  In past years, when terrorism was largely the product of direct state sponsorship, policymakers were able to diminish prospects for the United States becoming a target using a combination of diplomatic and military instruments to deter potential state sponsors.  Today, however, many terrorist organizations and individuals act independently from former and present state sponsors, shifting to other sources of support, including the development of transnational networks.

Security mechanisms used to protect the entirety of the Canadian state at the behest of certain ethnic and religious categories become legitimized through violence acts towards political institutions or figures (Bell 155). These ethnic and religious categories that experience biopolitical racial profiling by the security state are typically Middle Eastern or Islamic in appearance or action. These groups of people are increasingly being viewed as connected to terrorist activities in Middle Eastern countries. Critics arguing the Canada’s security regime breaches the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because of the possible use of surveillance and security provisions against Canadian citizens who are members of these ethnic and religious groups (Shaffer 200). Racial profiling in the surveillance provisions of these security acts against politically unpopular groups should not be underestimated” (Shaffer

Bill C-51 also known as the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, is a bill that was first tabled in Parliament in January 2015. It was introduced to enhance Canada’s original anti-terror laws which were created shortly after the terrorist attack on September 11th 2001 in the United States of America. Moreover, the need to revise and amend these laws became even more evident after recent attacks both in Canada and abroad. In doing so the government recognized the need to adopt a more preventative approach to dealing with internal and external threats. However, there are a large number of individuals, groups and institutions which opposed this bill. This was evident in March of 2015 when political protests were held and over fifty-five rallies took place across Canada (Lepore, 1). The majority of those opposed to the new anti-terror legislation expressed concerns with three major components of the bill and the vagueness; to privacy concerns with the new information sharing between agencies, new amendments to the Criminal Code surrounding terrorism offences and the increased powers provided to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); specifically their perceived lack of oversight. Although this piece of legislation is crucial to the safety and security of Canada against acts of terrorism it requires some amendments in order to ensure proper oversight and respect for Canadian values. This paper will argue that changes need to be made to the CSIS act, specifically regarding