Speaking to reporters after addressing a Canadian Club luncheon, Kenney said the threat posed by home grown radicalization is very real but shouldn’t be overblown.
“I wouldn’t say it has gone off the rails, let’s not exaggerate the threat. We’re probably talking about at most a few hundred Canadians who have either joined these terrorist organizations or are inclined to do so.”
Kenney declined, however, to provide details to back up his estimates.
“We’re aware, as you know, of something in the range of 200 Canadians who may have gone abroad to join jihadi organizations in the recent past and I’m just extrapolating from that. There may be others with the propensity to do so.”
Kenney, who continues to serve as minister for multiculturalism as well as his responsibility for employment and skills development, said many of the Canadians being drawn towards “barbaric, murderous” groups like ISIL are being influenced by voices from outside Canada.
“I think part of the problem is there is a certain poison circulating on the internet and in some theological circles which makes some young westerners believe that they are at war with the West. These extremist forces very deliberately target young people in the West who are perhaps going through the kind of adolescent identity crisis that is often the case and they are offering them a very compelling world view about armed jihad and something to believe in and something to die for.”
“I think all of us in the West can do a better job of stopping those voices, monitoring some of those websites. We are clearly doing a good job in local communities of picking up noise and chatter and support for the doctrine of armed jihad.”
Kenney’s comments are the highest estimate to come from anyone in the Canadian government of the number of Canadians who have gravitated to extremist Islamic organizations like ISIL, also known as ISIS. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, who has begun invalidating the passports of Canadians believed to be fighting overseas with ISIL and other extremist organizations, had estimated there were 30 Canadians fighting in Syria and 130 active elsewhere.
Kenney’s comments also come as ISIL released a videotape a few days ago urging its supporters to stage attacks in Western countries, including Canada by name.
Kenney suggested what the world is seeing now has been brewing for years.
“Ultimately, my view is a lot of this stuff has been spreading now for several decades because of this theological distortion being funded by money coming out of the gulf, creating madrassas all around the world, from West Africa to Central Asia. The international community needs to do everything it can to stop the flow of that money to these madrassas that are propagating the doctrine of armed jihad.”
“I think on the internet and in those madrassas, the international community has to do a better job of stopping the spread of this toxin.”
The vast majority of victims of the jihadis are faithful Muslims, Kenney pointed out.
While the number of Canadians who have joined ISIL or who are likely to is small, Kenney said even a small but radical group can prove dangerous.
“One of the strategic mistakes made, I would argue, in Syria was a year ago, the argument that the Islamic state organization was just a small group and could be contained. I just did a trip to the Middle East last month and I reminded my interlocutors that the Maoist faction of the Communist Party of China was a very small group, the Bolshevik faction of the Communist Party of Russia was a very small group. Small groups that are intense in their belief and willing to use violent tactics can wreck great havoc.”
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Elizabeth Thompson
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