Some easy steps on terror front

Three cost effective ways Canada can better screen out undesirable immigrants.

Today marks my 11th column for The Toronto Star, and I wanted to thank a bunch of you for your positive feedback on the offerings to date. Putting together a constructive column that provides a different perspective than what you get elsewhere, while also being worthy of paying subscribers, can be a very dynamic process as I came to find yet again this time.

The kernel for this column started in late June at the Dublin International Airport Customs wicket when the officer granted me “temporary visitor permission” on behalf of the Irish Minister for Justice and Equality. I was granted the opportunity to stay in their country for “a maximum of 90 days,” I had “no recourse to public funds,” and “employment/business [was] prohibited.”

After we got through the baggage claim, I turned to my daughter and asked (perhaps rhetorically): “why do we grant Visitors six month stays, if an open country like Ireland will only allow 90 days? Tourists to Canada don’t need six months to take in Peggy’s Cove, make the pilgrimage to PEI to see the Anne of Green Gables house, stop at Niagara Falls, and then take the VIA train to the Rocky Mountains.”

I thought of that moment again well later when I read a July 25th news piece by The Star’s Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief, Stephanie Levitz. Half a dozen U.S. Senators had co-signed a letter to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary reflecting their concerns about Canada’s security screening of Gaza refugees, and the Liberal Immigration Minister was pushing back on what he said were “false claims” by the Senate signatories.

Fighting words.

Our Minister Miller assured these U.S. Senators that “it is equally false to suggest that [Gaza Visa] applicants are eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship.” That seems hard to believe; isn’t every Refugee eventually eligible to apply to be a Citizen? More laughable, given the recent “terrorism arrests” in Toronto, was Minister Miller’s confidence that Canadian “security screenings are tailored to the reality of the location from which the applicant seeking entry to Canada is applying, including enhanced screening as warranted. Canada will continue to work with local authorities — at every level — to facilitate and advocate for the safe exit of extended family members while ensuring the safety of Canadians.”

I don’t know about you, but it sounds as though Canadian Immigration screeners are relying on either Hamas or UNRWA, being the “local authorities” in Gaza, to help us facilitate the “safe exit” of 3,000 or more refugees. The Levitz piece included a figure of “encounters” (484 people in 2023) at the Canada/US border that were already on the U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist. Gulp.

That, in my mind, explained why some of the U.S. Senate Hawks were worried about our ability to do a thorough screening program for the 3,000 Gaza-related Visas that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to issue. Canada is, apparently, the only country of 193 nations in the world that’s currently providing travel documents to Gaza refugees. (Even the normally generous Norwegians won’t entertain asylum requests from Gaza.) Given our long, “porous” border, and the fact that U.S. Border Patrol officers encounter far fewer individuals with “terror concerns” at the U.S.-Mexican border each year than America’s northern one, you can sympathize with their perspective.

There was already lots to write about before the news of July 31st, when the RCMP announced two arrests in a Richmond Hill hotel for terrorism offences.

I’ve posted the first half of this week’s column below, and there’s even an interview component! How professional. If you want to see how it ends, buy a print copy, use your Apple News, or subscribe to the Star online via my special discount code: www.thestar.com/informed. Thanks again!

There is nothing about last week’s arrest of alleged ISIS-inspired terrorists Ahmed and Mostafa Eldidi that makes me feel “more secure than before,” an argument proffered by my Star colleague Edward Keenan. 

Consider these three alarming numbers: 37,326, 78 per cent and 484.

There were 37,326 active immigration arrest warrants outstanding in 2023, according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), including 306 individuals deemed “a danger to the Canadian public.” All at large in Canada. That was three years AFTER the Auditor General chastised CBSA for losing track of tens of thousands of foreign nationals facing deportation from Canada, including convicted criminals. The Liberal government has increased the size of the public service by more than 40 per cent since 2014, yet they still can’t find and apprehend these known threats (unlike the Eldidi duo, who weren’t even on police radar).

 Seventy-eight per cent of 30,746 immigration investigations in 2022-23 ended with CBSA’s determination that the individual in question was “inadmissible” to Canada. There are many reasons why you might be found “inadmissible,” including security concerns, human rights violations, criminal record, misrepresentation, health issues, a loss of refugee status, etc.  That’s not a one-off: CBSA inadmissibility findings were even higher in 2021 and 2022.

If the vast majority of CBSA investigations turn up troubling information, it’s frightening to think our immigration screeners missed a publicly available ISIS execution video where Ahmed Eldidi allegedly dismembered “a spy” in Western Iraq prior to being granted Canadian citizenship. Was this a case of bad luck, underfunding, or inadequate training at our embassy in Egypt?

How many other would-be terrorists have been missed over the past decade? 

 The 484 refers to the number of people on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “terror watchlist” that American officers “encountered” at the U.S.-Canada border in 2023. What’s more troubling: that the number of encounters rose 55 per cent since versus 2022 or that the figures for the U.S.-Mexican border are “significantly lower?”

Terrorism concerns lead CBP to turn away almost 10 people a week at border crossings such as Ontario’s Peace Bridge. These are folks we’ve already admitted to Canada on some basis.

How? Why? Where are they now?

It starts, according to former Toronto Police Service lead homicide Detective Mark Mendelson, with shortcomings in Canada’s overseas security screenings: “whether our embassies are overwhelmed or incompetent, I don’t think they’re given the time to find out who we are bringing in.”

Hit the link to read the rest of the column.

MRM

(note: this post is an Opinion Piece)