‘Our current government hasn’t been heeding national security advice’: Former immigration minister Chris Alexander on how Canada vets immigrants—and how ISIS operatives may have slipped through the cracks 

2024/08/10 Leave a comment

Worth reading, both as an explainer as well as the political commentary:

Significant questions are being asked of Canada’s security and immigrant vetting processes following the arrests last month of Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and Mostafa Eldidi, 26, a father and son facing charges that include conspiracy to commit murder for the benefit or at the direction of a terrorist group—in this case, ISIS.

Reports have emerged that the pair were able to immigrate to Canada despite the elder Eldidi having participated in violence, including torture and dismemberment, against an ISIS prisoner. The assault was recorded on video and released by ISIS prior to the pair’s immigration to Canada.

Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi is a Canadian citizen while his son, Mostafa, is not.

Police claimed the father and son were “in the advanced stages of planning a serious, violent attack in Toronto,” before their arrest.

To better understand Canada’s immigration vetting process, Sean Speer, The Hub’s editor-at-large, exchanged with Chris Alexander, Canada’s minister of Citizenship and Immigration from 2013 to 2015, who offered his expert insight on how the pair may have slipped through the cracks without raising alarm.

SEAN SPEER: How does the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship draw on intelligence and national security analysis when judging the admissibility of an immigration applicant? Does the department have its own capacity or does it draw on the capacity concentrated in CSIS and other national security agencies? If the latter, what’s the mechanism or process for such analysis to be pulled into the department’s decision-making?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship uses national security-related information to make decisions, but this information invariably originates with CSIS, the RCMP, or our trusted allies and partners that share such information with us. When an applicant has never before been flagged for national security-related concerns, then IRCC is relying on CSIS, relevant police services, and their international partners to ensure nothing new has come to light. Timelines are often short; resources are invariably stretched; and matching applicants to data generated by national security review across languages, alphabets, and administrative systems can pose challenges.

SEAN SPEER: What type of national security review is typically used for immigration applicants compared to more extraordinary cases? What’s the triage process for determining the level of national security review?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Applicants for permanent residence receive a more thorough review than say, international students or temporary workers. Anyone with a background in police, the military, or security services will receive additional vetting, especially if they come from a country with a less-than-stellar human rights record. The country of origin and any other places where the applicant lived, studied, or worked are also taken into account: if any of these countries are theatres where significant terrorist or extremist groups operate, where wars, civil wars or other armed conflicts are underway, or where hostile intelligence services may be recruiting assets, then there will be additional vetting as well. The parameters for Canada’s national security vetting are always shifting as the threat environment evolves, and our assessments catch up (or fail to catch up) to fast-changing realities on the ground around the world.

SEAN SPEER: Based on what we know about this particular case, what might have happened such that this individual’s participation in an ISIS-related execution was not factored into his admissibility?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: The information on the file might have been incomplete. For sound operational reasons, those monitoring ISIS comms and participants in ISIS war crimes may not have made their information fully available to national security databases. Stove-piping still happens; delays happen. Names also get garbled: “credible” sources may have claimed this was not the same person. Mistakes are human nature. In addition, our national security machinery has shifted gears in recent years away from terrorist threats to focus more on China, Russia, and homegrown extremism—the flames of which are often fanned online by state actors that engage in large-scale disinformation and active measures, such as Russia.i

SEAN SPEER: Is this a widespread problem in your view? To what extent does it suggest that there are others—perhaps many others—in the country with broadly similar backgrounds or past actions?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: Our system is not prone to widespread, systemic failures—it’s quite solid. But over the decades we have failed on several fronts. One example is the number of Iranian and Syrian regime officials—some with allegations of having committed terrible crimes in those countries—who somehow slipped through our vetting system. But the main challenge today is that the number of threats—from terrorist and criminal groups, as well as hostile foreign states—has grown significantly while our national security capabilities have failed to keep pace.

Add to this tension the unprecedented numbers of immigrants, temporary workers, international students, asylum claimants, and other visitors flowing into Canada over the past two years—roughly double the usual levels, with asylum backlogs rising rapidly—and you have a recipe for more frequent failures. For instance, over the period when Mexicans were coming to Canada visa-free, how many drug cartel operatives eager to open new routes into the U.S. came to Canada? We may never know. The same may be true for ISIS, representatives of China’s United Front Work Department, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) or Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and even Hamas or Hezbollah, which have historically had quite robust networks in Canada.

As we have all observed to our dismay, our current government has not been heeding national security advice and, to put it very mildly, has not been vigilant on these issues over the past nine years. Our allies (particularly in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing community) have noticed, and our reputation has been tarnished as a result.

SEAN SPEER: What, if any reforms, do you think should be undertaken to strengthen the process for assessing immigration applicants through an intelligence and national security lens?

CHRIS ALEXANDER: The key to successful national security review is rapid, continuous, skillful integration of available information. The right insights are out there, but they only shape immigration outcomes in the right ways when the data is well-organized, easily accessible, and properly brought to bear on decision-making. My guess is that those responsible for these issues have been run ragged in recent years: they need backup, a full review of our procedures, and (where necessary) modernization and integration of the relevant secure communication systems and databases.

We need to put sound national security practices back at the centre of our immigration policy—as well as our policy across government. In a world where all categories of threat actors are looking for the line of least resistance worldwide to launder money, move operatives, recruit new supporters, and disrupt democracy, Canada has become an easy mark in recent years. We need to restore our reputation for a best-in-class immigration and refugee programmes rooted in sound, reliable national security vetting. We also need to harden our defences, increase our military spending, and upgrade and broaden our national security capabilities to protect Canadians in general as well as the integrity of our immigration and refugee determination system at a time when hostile state and non-state actors have become more hostile almost across the board.

Source: ‘Our current government hasn’t been heeding national security advice’: Former immigration minister Chris Alexander on how Canada vets immigrants—and how ISIS operatives may have slipped through the cracks 


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Link to Canada’s security needed to bar suspected spies under immigration law: court

2024/04/17 Leave a comment

Of interest, await some commentary from the security researchers:

People can be barred from Canada under espionage-related provisions of the immigration law only when their activities have a clear link to Canadian security, the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled.

The finding came in a pair of decisions involving men from Ethiopia who were deemed inadmissible to Canada for being members of an organization that had engaged in spying.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act bars permanent residents and foreign nationals who engage in espionage that is directed against Canada or contrary to Canada’s interests.

The prohibition also applies to members of organizations involved in these activities.

At issue in the two cases was how to define the phrase “contrary to Canada’s interests.”

Medhanie Aregawi Weldemariam and Abel Nahusenay Yihdego are Ethiopian citizens and former employees of the African country’s Information Network Security Agency, a state security and intelligence organization.

Weldemariam says his work at the agency involved developing air defence simulation software for training military members. He left in mid-2014 to pursue graduate studies in Sweden, returning to Ethiopia two years later.

Weldemariam came to Canada in 2017 and made a refugee claim, alleging he was at risk of persecution by Ethiopian security forces that had targeted him after his return from Sweden.

Yihdego worked at the intelligence agency as a protocol analyst and network engineer. He claims he was pressured to join the agency’s decryption unit, facing threats and harassment when he refused to do so.

Yihdego resigned in 2014, enrolling in graduate studies outside of Ethiopia. He claims that on his return to Ethiopia in 2017, he was detained by security services because of his political activities.

He came to Canada on a temporary resident visa, later seeking refugee protection.

The men’s refugee claims were put on hold while the immigration division of the Immigration and Refugee Board weighed their admissibility to Canada.

The division found the Ethiopian intelligence agency gathered information using offensive cybercapabilities and surveillance malware, targeting journalists and political dissidents.

There was no evidence that either Weldemariam or Yihdego were personally involved in the agency’s espionage activities, only that they were members of the organization.

In each case, the immigration division found that the espionage at issue was “contrary to Canada’s interests,” even though it lacked a nexus to Canada’s national security or security interests.

In 2020, the Federal Court concluded the division’s interpretation of the law was unreasonable on the basis a connection to Canada’s security interests was indeed required.

The court quashed the decisions and sent the cases back to the immigration division for reconsideration.

The federal government appealed the court rulings.

In both cases, the Court of Appeal sided with the men, saying there was no suggestion any of the journalists targeted by the Ethiopian intelligence agency lived in Canada.

The court also found no evidence the agency’s acts were directed at Ottawa or Canadian companies, institutions or individuals, including members of the Ethiopian diaspora.

As a result, the court saw no need to send the cases back to the immigration division for redetermination.

Source: Link to Canada’s security needed to bar suspected spies under immigration law: court

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‘Wild West’: Amid foreign meddling headlines, lawyers fear unfair immigration rulings

2023/07/14 Leave a comment

Always a risk, as is not going far enough:

Even as the conversation around foreign interference continues to centre on efforts to disrupt Canadian elections, the federal government is routinely deporting people suspected of engaging in espionage or terrorism — or barring them entry to Canada.

Lawyers who work within the immigration system say they expect security officials to ramp up those efforts amid the heightened attention on other countries’ meddling attempts. Some fear they could go too far.

Athena Portokalidis, an immigration lawyer based in Markham, Ont., said there seems to be a growing number of such cases.

“What I’m kind of starting to notice is that … whether it’s explicit or not, they can be politically motivated,” she said. “There might be a trend here. It may be too early to tell, but that’s … something that I’ve noticed and something that I’ve heard.”

The federal government was unable to provide data on the number of related cases in time for publication.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada Border Services Agency and the Immigration Department are all involved in the security screening process. None of them provided comment in time for publication, including data on the number of related cases.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows officials to bar permanent residents or foreign nationals from entering Canada if they are engaged in terrorism or in espionage contrary to Canada’s interests. The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada is the independent administrative tribunal that hears applications.

When people submit apply for visas, they are subject to background and security checks before being admitted to the country. If there are red flags, CSIS and CBSA can make reports to the board, which then decides what to do with an application.

“It is next to impossible to challenge the advice that security intelligence agents offer to the department,” said Sharry Aiken, a professor of law at Queen’s University.

Many people are screened out based on secret evidence that can’t be reviewed, which “often leads to egregious injustices,” she said.

“It’s really about how we interpret what constitutes a risk, and what sort of association actually renders someone inadmissible,” Aiken added. “What I would say is that in the immigration domain, it is pretty much a Wild West.”

People deemed inadmissible have the right to appeal their cases in Federal Court.

Earlier this year, Portokalidis successfully fought for a former Canadian citizen who had been denied permanent residency and deemed inadmissible on the basis that he allegedly taught English to Chinese spies and might be involved in espionage himself.

The allegations against Liping Geng, a 68-year-old Chinese citizen, were contained in a report prepared by the CBSA’s National Security Screening Division, which cited information from a CSIS report.

Court records show that as a young man, Geng was a member of China’s People’s Liberation Army. After completing school, he worked as an English teacher at an army-operated department that trained students in foreign languages.

Canadian officials argued that everyone who attended the school was “in or was linked to Chinese military intelligence,” and that the teachers were actively engaging in espionage.

Geng spent nine years completing master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Toronto, where he went on to teach, documents say. His family was approved for permanent residence status in Canada and became citizens in 1995.

When Geng returned to China in 2007, he renounced his Canadian citizenship because China doesn’t recognize dual citizenship. Still, the court documents say, Geng regularly visited family in Canada in the years that followed. He chose to return permanently in 2019 after his retirement.

Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found that the CSIS and CBSA reports used to accuse Geng of espionage were never disclosed to him, and that this was problematic because the documents “drove the decision-making process.”

Moreover, security officials were criticized for drawing upon newspapers and other open sources to build their case, rather than hard evidence.

Mosley wrote in a ruling quashing the Immigration and Refugee Board’s decision that the security assessments amounted to an “overzealous effort” to establish Geng as a member of the Chinese military.

Portokalidis said many people who find themselves in a similar position don’t have the means to fight it in court.

“Our client was fortunate enough that he had the resources and the means to hire a lawyer to assist him this process, but if you weren’t so fortunate, I mean, he might be facing a lifetime ban,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time that Portokalidis said she had seen a failure to disclose information.

“Mr. Geng’s not the only person, unfortunately, who’s been subjected to this,” she said. “It’s unfortunate, because we could have avoided the time and expense for everyone involved if he had just been properly advised of what the concerns were from the get-go.”

The matter has been punted back to the board for further review, which Portokalidis said could take months.

The push-and-pull between maintaining an open immigration system and prioritizing security can put people’s lives and futures on hold. But the law only vaguely defines what constitute security threats, and clearer definitions could prevent injustice, Aiken suggested.

“I would, in my view, assert that it has unfortunately been an invitation, all too often, for overreach,” she said.

Evidence that would otherwise not be admissible in a criminal or civil courtroom can be used in immigration proceedings. And unlike in a criminal courtroom, there aren’t parameters specifically detailing what constitutes guilt.

“Basically, little more than suspicion is enough to render you inadmissible,” said Aiken.

In 2020, the Federal Court overturned a 2019 decision to deport a 34-year-old Ethiopian citizen who had arrived in Canada in 2017 to seek asylum.

The reasons used to determine that Medhanie Aregawi Weldemariam should be rendered inadmissible were not relevant to Canada’s national security interests, the court found.

Weldemariam was a former employee of Ethiopia’s state security and intelligence agency. That line on his resume was enough to kick him out of Canada, officials argued.

Security officials made the assessment that the Information Network Security Agency had committed cyberespionage on Canada’s allies and targeted journalists outside of Ethiopia who worked for an outlet critical of its government.

But they did not establish why such surveillance was contrary to Canadian interests and made “too tenuous” a jump in finding that Weldemariam was involved in activities against Canada, Federal Court Justice John Norris found.

He ordered a new admissibility hearing, but the federal government challenged that decision.

The matter is currently waiting to be argued at the Federal Court of Appeal, pending the decision in a separate Supreme Court matter challenging how the federal government applies its “national security” provisions.

The case involved two people who were charged, but not convicted, of separate and unrelated violent crimes.

The federal government could not remove either one of them from Canada based on the charges because of the lack of conviction, but it tried using national security provisions in immigration law as a reason to deport the two men.

Their lawyers maintain that the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act should not be used as a catch-all for using criminal conduct to kick someone out of the country.

There are legitimate concerns about foreign interference in Canada, Aiken said. People who represent genuine threats are being screened out.

“But you know, there’s a line there,” she said.

“Not any and all tenuous connections to foreign interference should render somebody’s security inevitable.”

Source: ‘Wild West’: Amid foreign meddling headlines, lawyers fear unfair immigration rulings

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Muslims and Jews find common ground in faith, hope — and security

2018/01/15 Leave a comment

Good example of communities working together even if the circumstances which compelled this cooperation are unfortunate:

From the outside, the mosque is an unremarkable, warehouse-like building in an industrial pocket of central Mississauga. Away from city lights, a few streets down from the highway, its doors are always open, the Islamic school brimming with women and children during the day, the echoes of Arabic prayer quietly streaming in its halls.

Jeffrey Brown, an Orthodox Jew from Thornhill, spent the last day of Hanukkah there meeting with three police officers, five Muslim men, and a Muslim woman. In December, the unlikely congregation had gathered in the teal-coloured carpeted prayer hall to talk about restoring a sense of security in their places of worship.

For more than 10 years, Brown has served as a community security volunteer at his synagogue. He has developed relationships with police, created a pool of volunteer patrols, and established a security infrastructure.

He’s clear-eyed about the need for security. “People in a house of worship have to be comfortable where they are,” Brown said. “They should be able to concentrate on prayers and know if something happens, plans are in place.”

But until last year’s mass shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, Brown had not had any close interactions with the Muslim community.

Where a shocked nation saw the faces of the six Muslim men who were killed there, Brown saw an open and unguarded door.

“There was nothing there,” said Brown. “No one there.”

For months after the shooting, a single-shooter scenario played in Mohammed Hashim’s mind every time walked into a mosque. He imagined where a gunman would come in from, where the children would hide, where the exits were.

Hashim is a crisis manager for the Canadian Muslim community — stepping in to help whenever, and wherever, they need it. He went to Quebec City the day after the shooting to witness “everyone’s worst nightmare.”

In May, he attended a rare interfaith event for the first time. Held at Brown’s synagogue, Hashim walked through metal detectors, as people with walkie-talkies stood inside, and police cars stood outside.

“I thought it was overdone at first — whoa, it’s Thornhill, not a war zone,” said Hashim. “But then, as I started thinking about it, it felt like deterrence. There was a sense of prevention conveyed to those who seek to do harm.”

Brown said that there was chatter about protests in the lead-up to the interfaith event, so he told his police contacts and made the necessary arrangements.

“Critical to community security is knowing who to work with in the police department,” said Brown. “This requires proactive work before incidents happen. It’s a two-way street — you have to learn about the police while they learn about the community.”

At the interfaith dinner, Brown surprised Hashim by offering to share his experience with the Muslim community.

“I don’t think we could’ve gotten this level of help from anyone other than the Jewish community because I don’t think any other faith group has felt under siege as much as them,” said Hashim.

“They’re so advanced in their state of security that it’s only natural that it was someone like Jeffrey,” he said.

“It’s his job now: To teach Muslims how to do security.”

**

Until last year, Atif Malik had never spoken to an Orthodox Jew. When Hashim persuaded him to meet Brown, Malik hesitated. He didn’t know how to speak to someone from the Jewish community. He didn’t know how he’d react if the interaction didn’t go well, if one of them got offended.

Hashim, a big brother figure to Malik, 32, connected the two because of how similar they are. Both are members of the legal profession with a desire to help their respective communities, and to learn. Malik could be the Muslim counterpart to Brown, said Hashim.

Malik’s hometown of Mississauga has one of the largest Muslim populations in Ontario. He calls in “an incubator” that has largely insulated him from racism.

After 9/11, the mosques he attended made a conscious effort to open themselves, to ensure they remained part of the community and not boxes of seclusion. Even if there was only one person inside, the doors to his mosques were always unlocked.

The Quebec mosque shooting shattered his incubator. Imams and mosque volunteers began talking about cameras and protocols.

All of this feels like “a conversation that should’ve happened a long time ago,” said Malik, who feels guilty that he didn’t prompt them earlier. “I question now why I didn’t make the effort to reach out and make connections with other communities, regardless of faith group,” he said. “Could we help them? Could they help us?”

He found empathy in Brown, who spoke about the same fears and complicated emotions. The Jewish community “has gone through a learning curve that we haven’t gone through,” Malik said. “Now, they’re handing us the information — here’s how you do it, if you have any questions come back to us, our doors aren’t closed. It’s mind-blowing.”

Now, they are working together on common security practices to be shared with all mosques, beginning with three in Mississauga and one in Brampton.

Neither will specify the practices being discussed or prevented, for fear of compromising their efficacy. Security is dealt with as quietly as possible, said Brown, apparent only to the person who wants to cause harm.

In this way, both men have become crisis coordinators for their communities, someone who, in the event something happened, would have police on speed dial and a response at the ready.

**

“Here in Canada, we have a complacency when it comes to houses of worship,” said Bernie Farber, executive director of the Mosaic Institute. “We just don’t believe something like [the Quebec mosque shooting] can happen here.”

Farber was one of the first to respond to the shooting, calling imams and volunteers like Hashim to offer his condolences and support. The former chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress oversaw security and safety for the Jewish community for 30 years, beginning in 1986.

In the 1980s and 1990s, having a security officer at large congregations of events was discomforting — an uncomfortable sign that the world had changed, and places of worship weren’t the sacrosanct sanctuaries that could be left unguarded.

Events like the Quebec mosque shooting change everything, said Farber. “The place no longer feels the way it should feel. Whether you ever regain that sense of safety, I don’t know.”

“People come to mosques to find peace, but that sanctuary was violated in the most horrific way,” said Hashim. “I think people saw that as a violation of one of our most basic provisions and rights, which is the right to practice freely and safely.”

Watching and facilitating the Muslim and Jewish community come together with police organisations to try and regain a sense of safety, however, has been a unique experience for Farber and Hashim. “I suppose between every bleak, dark avenue there is a pinpoint of light, said Farber. “This terrible tragedy brought together two communities that are united by hateful acts against them.”

Jeffrey Brown, left, who has served as the lead community security volunteer at his synangogue for 10 years, has been working with mosques and their members in Missisauga for the last six months. He's training a counterpart, Atif Malik, and leading an interfaith conversation about security and safety.
Jeffrey Brown, left, who has served as the lead community security volunteer at his synangogue for 10 years, has been working with mosques and their members in Missisauga for the last six months. He’s training a counterpart, Atif Malik, and leading an interfaith conversation about security and safety.  (RICHARD LAUTENS)  

Such acts can be deadly, as the Quebec mosque shooting, or just a series of less threatening acts: Putting bacon on a mosque’s door handle. Carving swastikas onto a synagogue. Graffiti of hateful messages.

Rabbi John Moscowitz, who also reached out to imams in the wake of the shooting, believes that social bonds constitute a different type of security. “When you can trust people of different faiths from you and stand together in the wake of something like the mosque attack, it deepens relationships,” he said. “And that deepens the bonds of trust, commonality and brotherhood.”

“Sometimes security feels less secure because you’re aware of why security is there” said Moscowitz. Community bonds, he added, are an “antidote to loss of faith” that heal.

At that first conversation in Mississauga, the unlikely group of one Jew, six Muslims and three police officers shook hands and promised that the conversation would continue.

“Both our faiths and our country demand a sense of respect and friendship amongst peoples,” said Hashim, “and I don’t think I witnessed that so clearly as I did that night.”

“This is about new communities getting established and getting comfortable,” said Brown. “We too were once strangers in a strange land.”

“When we had that meeting, we felt God’s presence.”

via Muslims and Jews find common ground in faith, hope — and security | Toronto Star

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«On ne doit jamais tenir pour acquise notre cohésion sociale», dit Joly

2017/12/22 Leave a comment

True.

And good to see that the Liberal government has maintained and strengthened the program introduced by the Conservatives to provide funding for security equipment for faith centres:

Les appels à manifester lancés la semaine dernière par des groupes d’extrême droite avant qu’ils ne se ravisent sont un rappel qu’on «ne doit jamais tenir pour acquise notre cohésion sociale».

C’est ce qu’a déclaré la ministre du Patrimoine canadien, Mélanie Joly, qui était de passage mercredi au Centre communautaire Laurentien situé dans l’arrondissement montréalais d’Ahuntsic-Cartierville.

Mme Joly y annonçait l’octroi d’une subvention de 29 000 $ visant à améliorer la sécurité de ce centre communautaire musulman, qui abrite également une mosquée.

Ottawa épongera la moitié de la facture de ce projet frôlant les 60 000 $. Des pellicules de protection empêchant de fracasser les fenêtres seront apposées. Le centre se dotera également d’un système d’alarme, d’un système de télévision en circuit fermé et d’un système de contrôle des entrées.

Cet investissement du fédéral provient d’un programme mis en place il y a quelques années pour protéger les communautés à risque contre les crimes haineux.

Lors du dernier budget, Ottawa avait doublé le financement de ce programme, appelé Programme de financement des projets d’infrastructure de sécurité pour les collectivités à risque et chapeauté par le ministère de la Sécurité publique, pour le porter à 10 millions de dollars sur une période de cinq ans.

Interrogée en point de presse sur la présence plus visible de groupes d’extrême droite dans le paysage politique québécois, Mme Joly, qui est responsable des dossiers de l’inclusion et de la diversité au sein du gouvernement fédéral, a souligné qu’il est de notre responsabilité à tous de ne jamais baisser la garde.

«À chaque fois qu’il y a des discours haineux qui sont prononcés, on doit toujours les dénoncer», a-t-elle souligné.

«On a un rôle de leadership moral à jouer», a-t-elle rappelé à la classe politique.

Bien qu’aucun incident majeur ne soit à déplorer au Centre communautaire Laurentien, un sentiment d’insécurité avait fleuri chez ses membres dans la foulée de l’attentat perpétré à la mosquée de Québec le 29 janvier dernier.

Quelques semaines plus tard, Mme Joly participait à une rencontre avec des représentants de la communauté musulmane d’Ahuntsic-Cartierville pour discuter de ce qui pouvait être fait pour «accroître la tranquillité d’esprit» de ses membres.

C’est alors que le Centre communautaire Laurentien a décidé de déposer un projet auprès du gouvernement fédéral pour renforcer la sécurité des lieux.

Quelques incidents isolés étaient venus ternir la quiétude des lieux au cours des dernières années, dont notamment des messages haineux laissés sur la boîte vocale du centre et des vitres brisées, se rappelle le directeur du centre, Samer Elniz.

Il ajoute toutefois que pour ces quelques gestes odieux commis à l’encontre du centre, il répertorie un nombre incommensurablement supérieur de paroles chaleureuses et de mains tendues.

«C’est une minorité qui veut jouer avec le sentiment de la majorité», dénonce-t-il, se disant convaincu que le climat social continuera à s’améliorer au Québec.

Source: «On ne doit jamais tenir pour acquise notre cohésion sociale», dit Joly

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Les minorités visibles se sentent moins en sécurité que les autres

2017/12/14 Leave a comment

GSS Selected Indicators Police Perception

Not surprising in the current climate but somewhat more so given that the GSS data dates from 2014:

Les minorités visibles – surtout les Arabes et les Asiatiques occidentaux – se sentent moins en sécurité que les autres au pays, révèle mardi une analyse de Statistique Canada.

Selon cette étude portant sur les perceptions des Canadiens à l’égard de leur sécurité personnelle, réalisée sur la base des données de 2014, les personnes ayant affirmé appartenir à une minorité visible étaient moins susceptibles que les autres de déclarer se sentir tout à fait en sécurité lorsqu’elles marchent seules dans leur voisinage quand il fait noir.

Elles n’étaient que 44% à se sentir en sécurité, par rapport à 54% pour les Canadiens qui ne sont pas des minorités visibles.

Cette notion de «perception de sécurité» est évidemment différente du taux réel de criminalité observé.

Statistique Canada a bien noté que les habitants des grandes villes se sentent généralement moins en sécurité que ceux des petites localités, et que la majorité des personnes se décrivant comme minorités visibles résident dans les grands centres. Même en tenant compte de ce facteur, les minorités visibles étaient moins susceptibles de déclarer se sentir en sécurité que les autres.

Parmi les différents groupes de minorités visibles, les Arabes (15%) et les Asiatiques occidentaux – par exemple les Iraniens et les Afghans – (16%) étaient les plus susceptibles d’indiquer ne pas se sentir en sécurité lorsqu’ils marchent seuls le soir.

Chez les femmes arabes ou asiatiques occidentales, cette proportion était encore plus élevée, à 25%.

Il s’agit d’un changement par rapport à 10 ans plus tôt, alors que les Arabes et les Asiatiques occidentaux affichaient des sentiments de sécurité semblables à ceux des autres groupes de minorités visibles, note l’organisme fédéral de statistiques.

De même, parmi les principaux groupes religieux, les musulmans (14%), en particulier les femmes musulmanes (21%), étaient aussi les plus susceptibles de dire qu’ils ne se sentaient pas très ou pas du tout en sécurité.

«Certaines études suggèrent que les crimes haineux peuvent avoir une incidence sur le sentiment de sécurité de l’ensemble de la communauté ciblée et non seulement sur la victime directe», note l’organisme fédéral de statistiques. Et puisque les plus récentes données policières font état d’une augmentation du nombre de crimes haineux ciblant les Arabes et la population musulmane, cela pourrait expliquer en partie le fait que les Arabes et les Asiatiques occidentaux soient maintenant plus susceptibles que les autres membres des minorités visibles de déclarer ne pas se sentir en sécurité lorsqu’ils marchent seuls quand il fait noir», est-il écrit, études à l’appui.

via Les minorités visibles se sentent moins en sécurité que les autres | Stéphanie Marin | National

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ICYMI: CSE’s Levitation project: Does mass surveillance prevent terrorist attacks?

2015/02/03 Leave a comment

Valid questions:

Questions about the effectiveness of mass surveillance are being raised as the Canadian government plans to introduce new legislation Friday to give security agencies broader powers. The new rules come in the wake of two attacks on Canadian soldiers last year as well as a growing number of extremist incidents around the world.

Wesley Wark, a national security expert, says that no matter how many “interesting needles” come out of the haystack of online data, spy agencies still need to translate that to “usable intelligence” – meaning something they can act on.

“At the end of the day, one piece of good intelligence might be worth it all,” says Wark, who is currently at the University of Ottawa.

In its 2012 presentation to its “Five Eyes” spying partners — the group that includes the U.S., U.K., New Zealand and Australia — the CSE mentioned two important successes from the Levitation project.

The first involved the discovery of an uploaded document that outlined the hostage strategy of AQIM, the North African branch of al-Qaeda. That strategy was “disseminated widely,” including by the CIA to its overseas counterparts, the CSE presentation says.

U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald says Canadians need to ask tough questions about how effective mass surveillance is in light of two attacks on soldiers. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Cyber analysts also unearthed a video of a German hostage from a previously unknown target. That hostage died in late May 2012, months after spies came across the video.

Edgar Fritz Raupach, an engineer working in Nigeria, was killed by his hostage-takers when local soldiers — who were unaware of Raupach’s presence — attacked the captors’ hideout in an unrelated operation.

Wark cautions that the document — as a presentation by CSE to its spying partners — is inevitably biased toward touting the most favourable results. Ultimately, he says, success in this business depends on whether the findings were timely, didn’t consume too many resources and were useful.

“These Canadian documents suggest it can pay off,” says Wark. “So, does it pay off? Is it proportionate to the resources we’re putting into it? Are there different ways to do it?”

CSE’s Levitation project: Does mass surveillance prevent terrorist attacks? – Canada – CBC News.

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Anti-terror bill: Can government balance security and civil rights?

2015/01/27 Leave a comment

The debate continues over the scope over the Government’s plans to introduce a bill with new measures on Friday:

The ideological debate is summarized by University of Ottawa national security law expert Craig Forcese.

“A risk-minimizing society would permit mass detentions in the expectation that the minimal increase in public safety from the dragnet would outweigh the massive injury to civil liberties,” he writes.

“A rights-maximizing society, however, would deny the state the power to detain except through conventional criminal proceedings, for which it would impose demanding standards, even at the risk of leaving people free whose intent and capacity are clear but whose terrorist acts lie in the future.”

In a recent statement to the Citizen, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said: “Canadians want to be safe, but they also care profoundly about their privacy rights.

“Horrific attacks on innocent people obviously raise concerns about safety. But I was struck by the fact that, immediately after the attacks in Ottawa and in Paris, many people were talking about the importance of also protecting democratic rights such as free speech and privacy.

“Security is essential to maintain democratic rights, but our national security responses to acts of terror must be proportionate and designed in a way that protects the democratic values that are pillars of our Canadian society.”

Anti-terror bill: Can government balance security and civil rights? | Ottawa Citizen.

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Ottawa man wins religious rights complaint against Commissionaires

2014/03/19 Leave a comment

Right decision, and would hope that the same decision would be provided if it had been a Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist or other applicant (most Commissionaires basically control entry points into government buildings and accompany visitors inside – an important but limited security role):

Cybulski, 24, started training with the Commissionaires in late 2010. His complaint stemmed from one question, asked at his pre-screening interview in March 2011 — what was his opinion on “Canada’s involvement overseas?”

Cybulski said he responded that “I’m Catholic and a religious guy and I don’t think it is morally or ethically right to kill people.” They asked him to elaborate and Cybulski declined.

Ottawa man wins religious rights complaint against Commissionaires.

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