Ottawa shooting inflated the rhetoric of 'homegrown terrorism'

As Canadiansmark the one-year anniversary of the Ottawa shooting today, Muslim communities around the country will be sharingin the sorrow at the deathsof Cpl. NathanCirilloand Warrant OfficerPatriceVincentbut will also be reminded of some of the ugly rhetoric that accompanied the tragedy and the unwelcome attention it drew to their faith.

"It was ahorrific thing, and we all felt it was terrible what had happened and were anxious and frightenedabout it,but suddenly, along with that feeling thatwe sharedwith all Canadians to be targeted as if it was part of us and Islam and Muslims that those two men did it..." recalledAliaHogben, executive director of theCanadian Council of Muslim Women.

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In the days and weeks following the Oct. 22, 2014, shooting of Cirillo, a sentry at the National War Memorial and the targeted hit and run that killedVincent two days prior inSaint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. much of the focus wason the factthe perpetrators were Muslim converts who sympathized with ISIS and extremist ideas of jihad.

Less consideration was givento the factthat both were troubledyoung men with histories ofmental illness who had become increasingly isolated from their families and communities.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper placed the attacks squarely within the broader context ofthe global war on terror almost immediately.

"It will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redoubleour efforts to workwith our allies around the world and fight against the terrorist organizations who brutalize those in other countries with the hope of bringing their savagery to our shores," Harper said afterthe Oct. 22attack.

Four months later, his then minister of defence JasonKenneytold the Conference of Defence Associations that"homegrown terrorism is not a remote concept but a Canadian reality."

ByApril, the Conservative government had joinedU.S.-ledairstrikes on ISISin Syria, after vowing in December 2014 to restrict Canada's participation to Iraq. The next month, the governmentpassed BillC-51,counterterrorism legislation that expanded the powers ofCSISand other security forces andwas intended, the government said, to help law enforcement more easily thwart attacks such as the one that had occurred on Parliament Hill.

But as more details about Michael Zehaf-Bibeauand Martin Couture-Rouleau andtheir troubled lives emerged, some questioned whetherthe attacksshould even be seenin the context of the wider ISIS threat,but ratheras the isolated, violent actions of mentally ill individuals in crisis.

Rhetoric vs. actions

ThomasJuneau,who has worked as a strategic analyst for theDepartment of National Defence (DND),doesn't think the two are necessarilymutually exclusive.

"Even if they had some form of mentalfragility or vulnerability or illness, that doesn't change thatthey did it under inspiration from Islamic State.They were not guided or directed by Islamic State,but they were inspired by the ideology, by the online activity," he said.

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"It's partof thebusiness model of an organization like IslamicStateto prey on individuals like that."

Juneau acknowledgesthe government engaged in somefear-mongering after the attacks andagain during the recent election campaign, when Harper referred tothe Ottawaattackson several occasions, telling supportersin Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., that "Canada is not immune to jihadist terrorism.Twobrave soldiers deadon our own soil." He asserted that"only our Conservative Party is going to keep Canadians safe."

It's important to distinguishrhetoric fromsubstance, however,saidJuneau, anassociateprofessor at the University of OttawaGraduate School of Public and International Affairs.

"Some of the things that were stated were clearly inflated and sometimes even apocalyptic in theirtone, but Ididn't seebehaviour that matched that,"hesaid. "The actual substance of the reaction was basically measured, moderate and appropriate."

The rhetoric might have helped the government get more public support for airstrikesin Syria and Bill C-51, but given the Conservatives' view on homegrown terrorism and the ISIS threat, it'slikely these measures wouldhave been carried out anyway, Juneau said.

Radicalizationathreat taken 'extremely seriously'

Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, has seen first-hand how the rhetoric around the attacks has affected hiscommunity. Complaints to the council about anti-Muslim vandalism and verbalabuse spiked in the attacks' aftermath and again during the election campaign, fed in part by the heated niqab debate.

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He said he hopes a change in government will help"turn the page on the kind of rhetoric that divides usversusthem."

"We have confidencein our fellow Canadiansthat they will see theseacts for what they are the actions offringe groups or individualson the margins who have been radicalized towards extreme violence throughpropaganda and other factors," Gardee said.

Gardeewas one of several Muslim leaders who publicly condemned the attacks when they occurredand participated in a wreath-laying ceremony. Hesaidthat althoughsome of what we learned about the attackershelped distance them from the Muslim community, most Canadian Muslimsrecognize thatviolent extremism remains a real threat.

"Some of what we have learned has certainly provided a deeper and morecontextualizedpicture of what transpired.At the same time, it is clear that violentradicalizationtowards criminal violence remains an issue and one that Canadian Muslims take extremely seriously," he said.

Angry young men

Sikander Hashmi, an imam with theKanata Muslim Association in Ottawa, saidthat although local police and theRCMP reachedout to the communityin the wake of the shootings and have maintained good relations, the samewas not true atthe federal level.

"Theredidn't seem to be,on a national level, an effort to engage the community and to reallytalk to us as partners.We as community leadersand imams are really onthe front lines of the struggle againstradicalization," he said.

Hashmi would like to seeacommon strategy to combat radicalization that engages community leaders, law enforcement,social workers and educators instead of the kind of exploitation of "fears and misunderstandings" that occurred after the attacks and throughout the election campaign.

"It's somewhat disappointingthat that approach hasn't really materialized, and I thinkthe federal government has a really important roleto play in this,so we'll see what happens [withthe new government]," he said.

Steve Day, a former leader of the elite JTF2 counterterrorism unit,sees the rhetoric around the October attacksas a distraction that has kept the governmentfrom addressing the real weaknesses in Canada's defences.

He sees Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleauas"young men with mental challenges angry at Canadian society for whatever reason" whose connection toISIS was one ofconvenience, not conviction.

"It's likeany other loser looking for a friend:they just hook their wagon to the latest,greatest thing. It could have beenwhite power," he said.

There is little to be doneto stop such lone-wolf actors, he said, but there is something to be done about the systemic problems in Canada's national security apparatus, whose agencies areunder-resourced and each fighting to protect their piece of thepie.

"We need to break down the silos between the different security actors betweenCSIS,CSE [Communications Security Establishment],theRCMP, DNDand other public safety agencies. We need to breakdown those silos, share information appropriatelyandget out of this tribal everybody's got their own rifle [mentality]," Day said.