After all, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, positioning himself as a wartime leader protecting Canadians from terrorists, had just introduced Bill C-51, legislation that would vastly increase the powers of Canada's state security agencies.
Facebook feeds were immediately full of Conservative-sponsored clickbait about "Protecting Canadians From Terrorist Threats" and Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney's personal message proclaiming that "jihadists have declared war on us all."
Why was it so important, in the midst of a debate over controversial new policing powers, to detain 25-year-old Awso Peshdary, who appears to have been under surveillance for a good five years, for the alleged crime of raising money to send two Canadians to fight in Syria in 2012 and 2014?
In addition, why were the Mounties suddenly issuing warrants that named two individuals overseas (one of them reportedly killed last December) whose activities have long been public knowledge?
The federal government's ability to create a mirage of cascading terror threats was further enhanced by its introduction of C-51 before two long-scheduled terrorism proceedings were set to begin. The defendants in those trials - the Toronto Via Rail plot and the BC Canada Day pressure cooker plan - were also arrested at convenient times.
In the spring of 2013, the Harper government had been having trouble reviving recently lapsed anti-terror legislation originally passed in 2001. Then an opportunity arose following the Boston Marathon bombing. The government suddenly cleared the parliamentary schedule for a two-day discussion and vote on Bill S-7 (the Combating Terrorism Act), which revived preventative detention and investigative hearings.
On the first of those days, April 22, 2013, the RCMP's actions once again coloured the debate, this time with the arrest of two individuals who had allegedly been talking about derailing a train.
"While the RCMP believed that these individuals had the capacity and intent to carry out these criminal acts, there was no imminent threat to the general public, rail employees, train passengers or infrastructure," the RCMP assured the public in a statement read at an afternoon press conference.
Across town the next day, defence lawyer John Norris told media crowded on the Old City Hall courthouse steps that "the timing of the arrest is a bit of a mystery…. The [RCMP have] been very clear there was no risk to public safety."
In Ottawa, NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison shared with House colleagues his fear that the Tories were using Boston and the VIA arrests "to create a climate that will cause people to not ask the questions they need to ask about this legislation." The bill passed on April 24 and received royal assent the following day in the Senate.
Just two months later, mere weeks before the Combating Terrorism Act came into full force, the RCMP again took to the airwaves to announce they had foiled a Canada Day plot to set off a pressure cooker bomb at the BC legislature.
Questions immediately arose after RCMP Assistant Commissioner Wayne Rideout told reporters, "We employed a variety of complex investigative and covert techniques to control any opportunity the suspects had to commit harm. These devices were completely under our control - they were inert and at no time represented a threat to public safety."
As the Vancouver Province noted in an editorial, police had enough evidence months earlier to lay charges of facilitating a terrorist activity and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, but the two suspects were not arrested. Did the RCMP stage-manage things so the connection to Canada Day would provide them with a blast of positive coverage?
Canada's national police force has never been above playing politics.
The RCMP Complaints Commission released a 2008 report finding that an unprecedented decision to announce a politically sensitive investigation of then Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale in the middle of the 2006 election campaign likely helped bring law-and-order Stephen Harper to power.
Subsequently, in June 2006, the Toronto 18 - an informant-driven and -controlled plot - were arrested 10 days before the Supreme Court was set to hear two days of historic arguments on secret hearings and security certificates for alleged terrorists against whom no charges had been laid. Needless to say, the direction of questions from the bench could have been influenced by the recent headlines.
Other agents of government supposedly above partisanship are not immune from turning events to their advantage.
The Ottawa Citizen recently reported that as shocked Canadians watched the parliamentary shooting saga last October 22, Canadian Forces Lieutenant-General John Vance was writing an email to the Defence Department communications office about the need for the military to appear at an RCMP press conference to capitalize on the day's events.
Viewing the tragedy as a further rationale for the controversial decision to dispatch CF-18s to bomb Iraq, Vance noted that chief of defence staff General Tom Lawson had "indicated we should seek a strategic opportunity [to promote the mission], and this may be it."
The Iraq bombing campaign and national security will no doubt be hot-button issues as a tight national election race heats up.
What remains to be seen is how many more well-timed strategic announcements and arrests will pop up to reinforce Harper's fearful wartime narrative now that the RCMP will be in charge of security on Parliament Hill.
Original Article
Source: NOW
Author: MATTHEW BEHRENS
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