By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Ontario
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) will receive $150 million over five years to increase the force’s “capacity to conduct criminal investigations related to terrorism.”
The announcement follows the arrest of 10 individuals, mostly minors, at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport last weekend on suspicion that they were flying to Turkey to join armed groups in Syria. The RCMP confiscated their passports but no charges were filed because no crime had been committed.
Harper said the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) will also get an additional $5.4 million in the same time frame with some of the money targeted to identify and intercept high-risk travelers who may plan to join militants overseas.
The RCMP is continuing its investigation into the activities of the 10 Quebecers to determine if they are associated with a terrorist network.
“The CBSA will use this funding to enhance resources in the following areas: the national High Risk Traveller Team, which supports the RCMP-Joint Operations Centre and the CBSA regional intelligence, which supports CBSA operations, as well as the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams,” the CBSA said in a statement.
Harper said violent jihadism is a fact in Canada and other parts of the world but added that it was hard to understand why Canadians would join the movement.
“Obviously, we have great sympathy for the families affected, but let us be clear: We have a great country here, we have a country that is unparalleled in terms of its freedom, its democracy, its openness and its tolerance,” he told reporters at the same airport where the 10 were apprehended.
“There is no legitimate reason of any kind in this country for someone to become a violent jihadist or a terrorist or to join any kind of group that is involved or advocates that kind of activity,” the prime minister said. “It is totally unacceptable to Canada and Canadians and unacceptable to the government.”
