If we’re determined to ramp up our effort to fight terror, can we please first define it?
Not the narrow Criminal Code definition, but the way it is defined by our politicians.
To do so, perhaps we shouldn’t be looking to our justice minister for clarity.
Two persons in Halifax, allegedly with mass murder in their hearts, are dubbed “murderous misfits” by Justice Minister Peter MacKay.
They appeared in court on Tuesday, facing four charges each, allegedly for a plan to shoot and kill innocent shoppers in the city’s largest shopping mall. None of the allegations has been proven.
Never mind the terror this would obviously engender. Never mind the duo was allegedly aficionados of Hitler and white power. Never mind that one of the most chilling terror attacks in recent years was in a shopping mall in Kenya, when 67 persons were killed in an attack by al-Shabab.
According to MacKay this couldn’t possibly be terrorism.
“The attack does not appear to have been culturally motivated, therefore not linked to terrorism,’’ he said.
Then, just to further muddy the waters, MacKay made a pitch for his government’s anti-terror legislation, added that anyone plotting such mayhem would also be “susceptible to being motivated by groups like ISIS and others.’’
In his definition, the alleged shooters did not have the motivation to change government policy. Perhaps it was the lack of political, religious or ideological purpose. A cultural motivation appears to be a product of MacKay’s mind.
Perhaps it was there was no Islamic State propaganda found on their computers. Perhaps it was because the purported targets were not soldiers or politicians. Perhaps it was their names.
But, of course, one’s “murderous misfit” is another’s “terrorist.”
Justin Bourque killed three RCMP officers, wounded two others and struck terror at the heart of Moncton, N.B.
Testimony at his trial showed he wanted to kill police to encourage people to rise up against federal institutions. He killed police officers because they were police officers.
Yet, that was not branded an act of terror by the Harper government, with one exception — MacKay.
He called the Bourque rampage a classic definition of terrorism because it terrified the community.
So, how was Bourque culturally motivated, to use MacKay’s definition, but the would-be Halifax shooters were not?
This is germane today because debate begins on Bill C-51, the government’s new anti-terror measures.
They follow two cowardly murders of Canadian soldiers last fall, one in Quebec and in Ottawa. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau then stormed the Parliament buildings.
Both men were killed and explanations for their motives went with them.
Both were immediately branded acts of terror by this government. In the case of Martin Couture-Rouleau, who used his car to kill Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Quebec, it was called a terrorist attack in the Commons before any details were known.
That has not been disputed. He had been under police surveillance and had created a social media account depicting himself with his face covered and bearing a copy of the Qur’an.
Zehaf-Bibeau more closely resembled the mentally troubled lone wolf.
The government immediately branded him a terrorist and we are left to take its word and that of the RCMP because a so-called manifesto — recorded before his murder of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, in which he reportedly railed against the Canadian government and foreign policy — has never been released, despite a quick promise of transparency by RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson.
According to the CBC, the Commons public safety committee decided at a closed door meeting Tuesday to invite Paulson to come before the committee to play the video and discuss its contents at his “earliest convenience.’’
That would be an important first step, but the government is doing nothing to reassure Canadians fearful of an anti-terror law if we can’t define terrorism. If one can be arrested for promoting terror on a computer in their parents’ basement, we should know what terror is.
And if we are prepared to arrest someone and detain them because they “may” be plotting a terror act, then we shouldn’t be defining terror on the fly or defining it to further our political goals.
Tim Harper is a syndicated Toronto Star national affairs writer.