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Canada's "Polite" Terror Trap: Toronto 18 Ringleader Parole Proves Counter-Terror Parole Reform Required · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: John Litke's Got a Take with John Litke. John, good
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: morning and welcome to a brand new week.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Gene.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so people may remember a group called the Toronto 18.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It was a terror plot. The ringleader was a gentleman
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: by the name of Zakaria Amara. So back on Friday, John,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the Canadian Parole Board granted Amara full parole After declaring,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: he no longer shows, and I quote, any signs of
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: holding extremist beliefs. Now, here's what I'm having a little
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: problem with, John. How does a guy who methodically built
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: bomb triggers and planned to detonate fertilizer bombs at the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Toronto Stock Exchange, a Canadian forces base, cease his headquarters,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and storm Parliament, walk out as, I quote, cured, unquote.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, Gene, to say what were they thinking would
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: assume thinking was involved. This is not a man who
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: wandered into Home Depot, saw a pallet of fertilizer, and
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: had a religious experience. He stopped because the RCMP showed
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: up on the day that he took delivery of what
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: was necessary for the bombs aimed at those locations that
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: you just listed. Toronto Stock Exchange, CSIS, military base, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: then Stormy Parliament. The parole board looked at the guy...
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: who did all of this, who ordered the fertilizer, who
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: picked the targets, who helped recruit, and essentially said, well,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: he was respectful, he was polite, and he was quiet
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: while he was in medium security. And he hasn't blown
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: anything up lately, so all clear. They wrote that he
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: no longer showed any signs of holding on to extremist beliefs.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: which is great, but I'd like to see the checklist
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: that says, has not recently ordered three tons of fertilizer
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: as a negative mark on one of those checklists. I mean,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: full parole, life sentence still hanging there, conditions still in place,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: but the board has decided that the public can now
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: share the residual risk. That's the decision.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, the defense always points out that nobody
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: was killed because the RCMP caught him first, like you said.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So from a legal and moral standpoint, why shouldn't an
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: attempted mass casualty plot be treated any differently than a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: completed attack when considering parole?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that mass casualty plots that are stopped
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: by law enforcement should be treated the exact same as
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: ones that go through. The defense likes to note that
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: nobody died because the police caught them first, which is true.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: But it's also true that the only reason it stayed
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: an attempt is that law enforcement did their job. He
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: did all of the necessary pre-work to actually carry this out.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: He didn't leave a step undone. So treating this as
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: meaningfully less dangerous because law enforcement did their job is
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: a strange standard. It's like saying, sure, he pushed a
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: piano off the roof, but you ducked. So really, no
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: harm done, no foul. Let's get him a coffee. I mean,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: from a risk perspective, completing every operational step short of
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the explosion carries the same intent. the public shouldn't have
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: to absorb any leftover risk just because the parole board
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: here made a decision that, you know, some might say
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: is incompetent.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Well, as you pointed out, the parole board relied heavily
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: on correctional reports, which said he was polite, quiet, and
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  Speaker 1: cooperative during his years in medium security. What kind of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a metric is that?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's obscene. And it should also note that, you know,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: that during the first number of years that he was
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: in prison, I believe 20 years in total, he was
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: not respectful, polite, or quiet. It took a while to
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: get to whatever this quote-unquote de-radicalized is. But at the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: end of the day, a polite terrorist is still a terrorist.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: The board noted that the correctional officers found him that
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: when he was in medium security, and that's the evidence
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: they weighed. But these risk tools were designed for a
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: guy who steals a riding lawnmower and then gets better
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: once he takes anger management classes. They're not designed for
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  Speaker 2: someone whose own literature tells him to smile, keep his
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: head down, and tell the parole officer whatever progressive things
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the parole officer wants to hear until the gates open.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: And I guess when the positive indicators are quiet, cooperative,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and he took the process of de-radicalization, you're bringing a
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: clipboard and gold star stickers to a counterterrorism problem. The
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: board's own earlier decisions even note they didn't have validated
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: tools for this kind of risk, so they used the
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: tools that they had on hand.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Well, what kind of a message does releasing a senior
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: terrorist ringleader send to prospective extremists who are sitting on
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the sidelines, like the anti-Semitic shooting we saw in Belleville?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I think the message that it shows in releasing this
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  Speaker 2: person is that the message, you know, I think, quite frankly,
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  Speaker 2: the message is not complicated. CSIS had said nearly one
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: in ten of its terrorism investigations now involve a minor.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: We've had teenagers in Ottawa pressure-cooking bombs against Jews, ISIS-inspired
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: cases in throughout Canada and a steady run of fire
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: bombings and shootings at synagogues and Jewish schools and community
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  Speaker 2: centers since October the 7th. And we know how small
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the Jewish population is, but I think broadly the prospective extremists,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: especially the ones getting radicalized, can now look at a
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  Speaker 2: senior plotter who did all the necessary steps to carry
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  Speaker 2: out an attack and see that if you stay compliant,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: you can actually eventually walk out on full parole. Law
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: enforcement has to be right every single time, but the
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: parole board only has to be wrong once. Releasing senior
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: plotters whose threat level is elevated, that's a choice. And
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: we'll find out later whether or not it's a good
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: or a bad one.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So he had his Canadian citizenship revoked back in 2015.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Then for some unknown reason, Trudeau gave it back to him.
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  Speaker 1: So if the parole board model is completely broken for
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: national security offenses, what do you think specific structural changes
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  Speaker 1: must a Canadian criminal justice system implement to fix this
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and fix it permanently?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Naturalization comes with an oath and a pledge to the country.
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  Speaker 2: And Amara's citizenship was revoked in 2015 under former Prime
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Minister Harper, the only person stripped under that provision, and
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: only to have it restored two years later under former
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, under a policy decision. And the
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: slogan that we heard from Trudeau, a Canadian is a
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Canadian is a Canadian, that works great in campaign ads.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: but it gets a little thinner when you apply it
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  Speaker 2: to dual nationals who plan to truck bomb the Toronto
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  Speaker 2: Stock Exchange CSIS and a military base in Storm Parliament.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, my view is that if a naturalized dual
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: citizen commits high-level terrorism, revocation and removal should be on
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the table and should be, you know, just automatic, quite frankly.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Canadian taxpayers should not be required to fund indefinite domestic
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: supervision of someone who tried to blow up Canadian institutions
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  Speaker 2: when removal is legally available. The oath is not decorative.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Another great take today. We'll talk to you on Tuesday
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: morning at 945. Thank you, Gene. There he goes. John Litke.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Litke's got a take.