This piece first appeared in The Epoch Times Canada on September 8, 2024.
The federal government’s immigration policy, including increasing the number of newcomers to 500,000 per year, has elicited much criticism of late. The effect so many newcomers have had on a tight housing and rental market has been noted repeatedly.
But one of the primary concerns about Canada’s refugee and citizenship system relates to national security and public safety. What has made the matter worse is a series of new revelations about alleged terrorist plots tied to the ISIS terrorist group being planned on Canadian soil.
Most recently, a Pakistani national and Canadian resident was arrested for allegedly planning an attack on a Jewish Centre in New York in the name of ISIS. Prior to that, a father and son duo—Ahmed and Mostafa Eldidi—who were allegedly on the verge of trying to carry out a mass casualty attack were arrested by the RCMP.
The elder Eldidi obtained refugee, landed immigrant, and citizenship status despite having appeared in an ISIS propaganda snuff film in which he dismembered a prisoner (this occurred back in 2015). Despite “red flags” and “indicators,” he was nevertheless granted the aforementioned privileges.
In keeping with Canadian tradition, a House of Commons committee was immediately launched at which appeared the public safety minister as well as officials from the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and the RCMP. Even in the face of a catastrophic failure to keep this ISIS terrorist out of Canada, no one has taken responsibility for the gaffe.
So, what went wrong? Without access to internal data, several possibilities can still be considered:
- The pressure to allow so many more into Canada led some departments to advise those responsible for security screening to “skip” certain stages. How this was seen as acceptable is anyone’s guess;
- If CSIS, the main body that does security screening, did indeed miss something, it is most likely tied to a huge caseload and limited resources (again linked to the artificial 500,000 number the Liberals have aimed for);
- Screeners simply do not have the time to trawl all databases to make an informed decision, including the so-called dark web. (It is worth noting that given ISIS’s penchant for propaganda videos—I saw them regularly when I worked on counterterrorism at CSIS—I reject the claim that this particular film would not have been more widely available to anyone who needed to know what ISIS was doing.)
As far as the implications of the Eldidi case go, there are a few. The intelligence on the father-son team came from an allied service, likely the French. Our friends in the spy world are already asking serious questions about our commitment to national security: Can you imagine if the newly minted citizen Ahmed Eldidi crossed the border into the United States to execute his plans? We cannot and must not rely overly on the goodwill of our international partners.
With a push now on to bring Gazans to Canada, how much trust can be put in the government’s assurances that all security precautions are being taken?
Most worryingly, the possibility that an immigrant could have killed Canadians in the name of ISIS has an effect on the views we hold on immigration in general. We saw riots in the UK after disinformation that three little girls knifed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class died at the hands of an “illegal Syrian refugee,” and the German government is considering major changes to its immigration system in the wake of the murder of three people by an ISIS wannabe.
Does someone have to die before we get more serious?
