It was reported in the Globe and Mail recently that Mr. Justice Edmond Blanchard of the Federal Court of Canada refused to grant a warrant to CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) which would have enabled them to "carry out overseas electronic intercepts". Apparently the Federal Court of Canada is now become predominantly expert on the issue of Islamic terrorism abroad, as though Islamic terrorism without Canada is in no way connected to the threat of Islamic terrorism within Canada. In the same insouciant manner the Liberal government disdainfully rebuffed the advice of CSIS on the matter of an insidious Tamil Tiger presence in the City of Toronto, now the Federal Court has rejected the prudent designs of our intelligence service and its efforts to thwart the threat of Islamic terrorism-or at the very least, its efforts to be cognitive of the threat of terrorism-before it reaches our shores, our streets, our homes.

T. S. Elliot wrote, "Human kind cannot bear very much reality." I believe Canada's justice system is not determined enough to deal with what has always been Islam's prevalent reality-its violence and hatred. For example, two of the 17 terrorist suspects arrested June 2nd and 3rd 2006 were released on the condition that they report to the police twice a month and (get this) that they seek counselling from their respective Imams. This is justice? Sending suspected terrorists to receive counsel from a cleric of the very religion that served to animate them to violence? Salman Hossain, a University of Toronto student, was identified and visited by the RCMP for advocating on an internet blog page the murder of Canadian soldiers in Canada- before they leave for Afghanistan! What is his punishment? None. He is still attending classes, the last I heard, a free man and an avowed enemy of the Canadian Armed Forces. The above examples are indicative of a democracy and a justice system as yet unconvinced of Islam's malefic nature-further proof that Canada is still sleep-walking into the teeth of a religious ideology that has spawned terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

I remember shortly after 9/11 a New Yorker angrily remarking to a TV reporter, "We have to go after these mother-f---ers!" Efraim Halevi, former head of Israel's Mossad, justifies Israel's targeted assassinations of Hamas leadership by clarifying to those who decry such methods, "This is a wartime situation, and in war you need to take drastic measures to defeat the enemy." Sam Harris writes (The End Of Faith), "Subtract the Muslim belief in martyrdom and jihad, and the actions of suicide bombers become completely unintelligible, as does the spectacle of public jubilation that invariably follows their deaths; insert these peculiar beliefs, and one can only marvel that suicide bombing is not more widespread. Anyone who says that the doctrines of Islam have ‘nothing to do with terrorism'-and our airways have been filled with apologists for Islam making this claim-is just playing a game with words."

In other words, Canada's Federal Judiciary, and Justice Edmond Blanchard in particular, is making a fatal mistake by disallowing CSIS to "keep tabs" on Muslim terrorists operating outside Canada; a fatal mistake simply because it is logical for CSIS to assume-post 9/11-that these "jihadists", whether in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or Bangladesh, are designing to attack Canadian (or American) targets inside Canada. Remember that bin Laden has placed Canada on his hit-list of those nations he deems deserving of Islamist justice. Islamist terrorists half a world away will not be placated because here in Canada our unctuous human rights commissions pander to the whims and wishes of litigious Muslim apologists like Prof. Elmasry and Syed Soharwardy. Canada's weakest link is our Federal Judiciary's foolhardy assumption that concentrating on Islamic terrorists within Canada is the circumference of our salvation from those terrorist who operate outside Canada. Such an assumption is grossly negligent, a negligence that invariably imperils the average Canadian citizen.
 
 What we need from our Judiciary is conviction and punishment of those potential terrorists already living here in Canada, who shamelessly proclaim their disloyalty to our nation and our soldiers; we need from them a more tangible form of justice, something that will prevent these madmen from committing the acts of terrorism their religion demands of them; and finally, we need the Canadian Judiciary to grant CSIS the necessary license to thwart and deny those Muslim jihadists beyond our borders the opportunity to realize their malevolent objectives within our borders. If Justice Blanchard is not equal to these tasks, then he needs to be replaced by someone who is. His timidity in the face of Islamic terrorism is presently Canada's weakest link in the war being waged against it.

Michael Devolin,
Director, B'nai Elim Canada