North of the Border, Terror's `Club Med'
In Canada, tough new scrutiny of immigrants
MONTREAL--Outside the Sunnah Al-Nabawiah Mosque, a lanky young immigrant named Aji recalls the violence and terror in his native Sri Lanka. His father was abducted by Tamil extremists, and Aji himself narrowly escaped being killed by a terrorist bomb at the Central Bank that sent body parts flying into the street. Aji came to Montreal hoping for a better life--only, he says, to have immigration and police officers force their way into his apartment last month, shove him against a wall, and demand his papers.
That's not quite what you might expect from a nation with a tradition of open borders and laissez-faire inclusion. But now there's a growing fear that Canada has become what some authorities call a "Club Med for terrorists." Exhibit A: an Algerian immigrant to Montreal named Ahmed Ressam, who is awaiting trial in an American court on charges of trying to smuggle explosives into the United States. Since Ressam's arrest, in December, terrorism--or at least the fear of it--has gripped Canada in a way not seen since radical elements of the Quebecois went on a terror campaign here three decades ago.
Canadian law enforcement agencies say they are aware of some 350 suspects linked to 50 different radical groups. One person's terrorist may be another's freedom fighter, but many Canadians are no longer willing to debate the distinction. Politicians have been accused of supporting terrorist causes by attending ethnic fundraisers. Supporters of the Tamils' violent campaign against the Sri Lankan government, for instance, reportedly raised money at a school cultural event in Toronto while displaying mock machine guns. "Canadians don't have that frontline mentality; it's not bred in our bones," says David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. So "we've got virtually any group the world has to offer."
Individuals with ties to terrorist groups exploit lax policies on travel documents, and tax laws make it easy to fund questionable organizations. Ressam was able to get a Canadian passport and driver's license by using a phony baptismal certificate--even after he was slated for deportation. Mokhtar Haouri, who will be extradited to the United States within weeks to face charges in the case, had equally good luck, remaining in Canada seven years after he was denied refugee status. Many supposed terrorists live inconspicuously here. Canadian security officials, for instance, recently alleged that a Toronto convenience-store clerk is a former leader and current fixer for Egypt's Vanguards of Conquest, an Osama bin Laden-backed group blamed for three assassination attempts on Egyptian politicians.
Cracking down. Now, however, there is talk of strict new measures. Among them: keeping close tabs on ethnic minorities thought to be terrorist friendly, scrapping parts of the country's Charter of Rights and Freedoms to allow more information sharing between Canadian police forces and outside agencies, and tightening restrictions on immigration. A proposed new immigration measure would let officials detain suspicious foreigners without a warrant and rescind portions of the appeals process for those deemed security risks.
Some Canadians support these measures, but they have provoked worry among others--and not just the Tamils, Sikhs, Shias, and Sunnis, some of the country's most influential immigrant groups. The measures go against a long-entrenched tradition of inclusion, and they conflict with government immigration policies--driven by low birthrates and a shortage of skilled workers--that have expanded ethnic diversity.
In central Montreal alone, more than 15,000 of its 1 million citizens are, like Ressam, of Algerian origin, and about one third of all children under the age of 15 are what Canadians term "visible minorities." Now, Algerians say they are being denied jobs because of their ethnicity, and immigrants of all stripes complain of harassment by the authorities. "I don't think every immigrant should suffer," says Aji. "I came here to escape war. I came here for peace."
The paradox of the Ressam case may be that the man who instigated Canada's immigration angst may have little to do with the sort of terrorism to which he is now tied. One investigator tells U.S. News there is still no evidence linking Ressam to a jihad or to alleged terrorist mastermind bin Laden. "Ressam has become like the Y2K bug, a self-generating frenzy," he says. "And that's not good for anybody."
This story appears in the August 7, 2000 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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