http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/canada/2015/07/08/senate-committee-urges-tougher-anti-terror-measures.html/

Toronto Star

Senate committee urges tougher anti-terror measures
A Senate committee is urging a range of tougher anti-terror measures to fight the “Islamist fundamentalist menace.”

A Senate committee report expressed frustration with CSIS director Michel Coulombe, whose agency had acknowledged 145 Canadians have left to fight in various jihadi movements. The committee said it is unacceptable that more haven’t been charged under laws outlawing the departure from Canada to participate in terrorist groups.

Published on Jul 09 2015
Tonda MacCharles
OTTAWA BUREAU REPORTER

OTTAWA—A Senate committee is urging a range of tougher anti-terror measures to fight the “Islamist fundamentalist menace” through criminal bans on radical speech, preachers, charities and those who “glorify” terrorism.
And in what would likely be seen as an unprecedented reach by the state into the religious sphere, the report also says the federal government should explore “options to train and certify imams in Canada”
Many of the 25 recommendations released Tuesday by the Conservative-dominated committee on national security and defence seek to counter radical ideas, speech and ideology, saying more effort should be made to “create an effective counter-narrative to denounce the ideology of Islamist fundamentalism.”
The 38-page document also says the government should create a “no-visit” list to bar suspected foreign radical preachers and leaders from visiting Canada, and should create new libel protections for people who criticize radical Islamist extremism.

Overall, it says the federal government, RCMP, CSIS and the anti-terror financing agency FINTRAC, along with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, are not doing enough to fight terrorism — specifically the spread of “the ideology promoted by the global Islamist fundamentalist movement.”
In the end, the report failed to win the support of three Senate Liberal members who say it was rushed out before the election, failed to call for more resources for national security agencies or for more academic research into the counter-radicalization, and did not present a balanced view of the national security threats facing Canada.
Sen. Grant Mitchell, a Liberal who co-chaired the committee and is drafting a dissenting report, said in an interview the committee heard evidence that Canada faces a terrorist threat from right-wing racist ideologies as well, and “not just from one group” yet the report focuses almost completely the Islamist extremists.
Amira Elghawaby, a spokeswoman for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said the organization is “deeply concerned” the Senate is suggesting only Muslim religious leaders require special vetting.
“This particular recommendation actually bears the hallmarks of racial and religious discrimination,” she told the Star’s Ethan Lou.
She said the Senate’s recommendation suggests “something untoward is going on” with imams, when the actual situation is the exact opposite.
The report urged unspecified “measures” to stop foreign money from promoting extremist views, citing testimony that “wealthy Saudis, Qataris and Kuwaitis are using charities as conduits to finance Canadian mosques and community centres” in order to “promote their own fundamentalist brand of Islam — Wahhabism — here in Canada.”
In another part, it says radical views are being promoted to youths in universities and community centres. But it expresses doubt about the RCMP’s and CSIS’s ability to know who’s who, and suggests their outreach efforts have led them to rely on suspect individuals.
The report expressed frustration with the head of CSIS, Michel Coulombe, whose agency had acknowledged 145 Canadians have left to fight in various jihadi movements across North Africa and the Middle East, with more than 90 having returned. The committee said it is unacceptable that more haven’t been charged under laws outlawing the departure from Canada to participate in terrorist groups.
“This is concerning, given, that there are approximately 93 Canadians — so-called ‘high-risk travellers’ — the authorities believe want to leave Canada to engage in terrorist activities,” the report says.
It recommended the government publish a “Wanted Terrorist List,” of those Canadians for whom a warrant (national or international) has been issued on grounds of terror-related activities.
Among its other findings:
The committee recommended the federal government make it a criminal offence to be a member of a terrorist group. The Conservative government and its Liberal predecessors have determined membership alone in any group cannot be criminalized because the law penalizes what people do, not who they are, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees of freedom of expression and association suggest such an offence wouldn’t survive a legal challenge. The law does now criminalize all activities and actions that would support or facilitate terrorism, however.
The committee recommended the federal government criminalize the “glorification of terrorism” — which the Conservative justice minister told Parliament this spring it rejected because it would likely not pass a charter challenge. Instead, Bill C-51 criminalized the advocacy or promotion of terrorism. In fact, the committee urged the government to update Canada’s hate laws to “consider including a prohibition on the glorification of terrorists, terrorist acts and terrorist symbols connected to terrorism and radicalization.”
The committee says the government should make it a priority to investigate and discourage “the spread of the ideology promoted by the global Islamist fundamentalist movement.” Yet it notes elsewhere the RCMP has assigned 600 officers from other public safety duties to fight terrorism, “an indication of the priority it has placed on confronting this threat.”
The committee recommends the establishment of a dedicated team of lawyers in the department of justice to specialize in terrorism prosecutions. Terrorism prosecutions are already handled by specialized federal lawyers in the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. However, the committee seems to contradict its own reasoning for that recommendation when it says police find it too bureaucratic to go through the federal prosecution service to obtain consent for terror charges. The report says “the centralizing of criminal proceedings under the RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service for . . . terrorism charges appears to be overly complicated.” It recommends removing the requirement for the consent of the federal attorney general before laying charges.
The committee says Canada Revenue Agency and the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) should be more aggressive and transparent in pursuing charities that support terrorist activity, the directors and individuals behind them, as well as foreigners who it says are funneling money to groups that support radical ideologies in Canada. It said FINTRAC identified 683 transactions linked to terrorist financing between 2009 and 2014, but no charges have been laid on these grounds. (FINTRAC reports suspicious transactions to police, but it is not a law enforcement agency.)
In an emailed statement Jeremy Laurin, spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, did not respond when asked if the minister had read the report, and what his comments were. But he wrote: “We thank the Senate committee for their thorough report. Once again, it is clear that the threat posed by the international jihadist movement is real.”
---------------------------------------------------------
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Canada/

Islam in Canada

According to Canada's 2011 National Household Survey, there were 1,053,945 Muslims in Canada or about 3.2%[1] of the population, making them the second largest religion after Christianity and the fastest growing religion in Canada.[2] In the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), 7.7% of the population is Muslim, making GTA the highest concentration of Muslims in any city in North America.[3] A majority of the Muslim population in Canada follow Sunni.[4]

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/politics/canadian-converts-to-islam-focus-of-study-by-australian-sociologist-1.3165573/

Canadian converts to Islam focus of study by Australian sociologist
Professor Scott Flower receiving $170,000 over two years from Public Safety Canada for his research

CBC News

Public Safety Canada is funding a project by an Australian academic to study why Canadians convert to Islam.

This is the first study on the subject ever conducted in Canada and one of a number of studies to receive money from Public Safety through its Kanishka Project, which funds research into terrorism and counterterrorism.

Harper government seeks advice on how jihadis use internet
The Current: Anti-radicalization campaign creates dialogue
Ottawa's de-radicalization focus too narrow, reformed skinhead says
"Canada was a country that had not even one published journal article on converts between its borders. So, I thought, 'Wow, what a great opportunity,'" said Prof. Scott Flower of the University of Melbourne.

Flower's earlier research looked into Muslim converts in Papua New Guinea and Australia and he was looking for comparative cases in other Western nations.


Scott Flower, a researcher from The University of Melbourne in Australia, says he understands why some Muslims may be leery of his research. (University of Melbourne)
He hopes to spend the next few months in Canada conducting interviews with converts to Islam with a view to finding out what spurred their conversion.

Flower doesn't know what the government will eventually do with his research but he did stress in an interview with CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning that he understands how the subjects of his study might be leery of it.

"You'd have to be very ignorant to not sense the level of concern amongst the Muslim community in general, let alone the convert community. There's been a number of recent legislative bills passed in this country — I won't use the word oppressive — but I would say that it's really made Muslims go to ground," said Flower.

He added that this atmosphere is complicating his research.

"That's really posing a challenge to recruiting participants to what is really a study that is not interested in security whatsoever," he said.

Kanishka not 'nefarious'

Canadian academics who have received money from the Kanishka Project for other studies say there is nothing nefarious about its intentions.

"All the work is being done by independent scholars that are arm's length," explained Jeremy Littlewood, a Carleton University professor and terrorism expert.

Amarnath Amarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax, agrees with Littlewood, but sympathized with Flower's challenges.

Amarasingam is conducting his own research into violent radicalization, also funded by the Kanishka Project.

"We've tried very hard to explain that [our] research was independent. None of the data is being handed over and the government is seeing the final product and there is no secret report," he said.

"As the researchers retain copyright, such reports provide policy research advice and do not necessarily represent the policy position of Public Safety Canada," wrote Jean Paul Duval, a spokesperson for the department, in an email to CBC News.

The Kanishka Project was created in June of 2011 and came out of a recommendation in the Air India report. It is a five-year project worth $10 million.

Flower's study received $169,240 from the Kanishka's fifth round of grants. His report will be called, "Towards understanding the extremely rare: distinguishing ordinary processes of religious conversion from violent extremism."

ALL converts should be monitored VERY closely IMO

CANADA & USA (Toronto & California, especially), now facing discrimination based on RELIGION & what OUR countries are defining as ' minority '
NOT by the numbers, but by region & area. And are FORCING separatism with housing.


http://youtu.be/BqniMJ1AHOs/
Video 13:06

To say all Islam is to blame for terrorism is asinine at best. It's like blaming all Christians for Westboro Baptist. I believe ALL PEOPLE with terror ties should be watched but I also believe discrimination is WRONG