Montréal, Quebec
21 May 2015
Thank you very much.
Thank you Minister Blaney, Steve, for that kind introduction, Minister Lebel, honourable parliamentarians, distinguished guests from other levels of government and police services.
Indeed, we all know that the threat of violent jihadism is not a future possibility in a faraway land.
Sadly, it is a present day reality here in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada.
On the North American continent, we saw the face of jihadist terrorism in all its horror for the first time on September 11, 2001.
More recently, our police forces have countered terrorist plots targeting, among other sites, Parliament, the British Columbia Legislature, the CN Tower and a Via Rail passenger train.
And now, with the establishment of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and in Syria, we have before us a merciless quasi-state that has no qualms spreading terrorist violence around the world.
Under its influence, attacks and plots have become more frequent and more dangerous across the world.
Jihadist terrorists have struck recently in France, Australia, Denmark and elsewhere.
Let us remember that this terrorist organization has specifically mentioned Canada and Canadians as targets.
And let us especially not forget the October murders of two Canadian soldiers on our soil.
The first of these attacks took place not far from here in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
The other ended inside our Parliament, our house of democracy.
In his annual report published just a few weeks ago, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service very clearly states, and I quote: “There are violent people and violent groups that want to kill Canadians.”
The CSIS report also states that the phenomenon of so-called foreign fighters gained increased prominence in 2013-2014.
In just the past few months, the number of youth who joined terrorist groups increased by 50%.
These people pose a serious risk to us, and we are paying particular attention to this threat.
Here in Montreal, too many young people have left their families to join the terrorists.
A fifteen-year-old teen was charged with terrorism-related offences last December.
One month later, at the Montreal airport, arrests were made under our new Combating Terrorism Act.
In relation to other charges laid by Ottawa.
We’ve been taking many steps to protect Canadians from terrorism.
In 2013, our Government brought forward the Combating Terrorism Act, created new criminal offences for leaving or attempting to leave Canada for terrorist purposes.
We’ve also made important amendments to the Citizenship Act, enabling us both to revoke citizenship for dual nationals, and to deny it to permanent residents convicted of terrorist offences.
Two weeks ago, we and Minister Blaney announced the introduction of the Prevention of Terrorist Travel Act, and changes to the Canadian passport order.
These will provide the Government of Canada with a strengthened ability to cancel, refuse, or revoke passports as a preventative measure against high-risk travellers.
We also introduced Bill-C44 to clarify authorities for our security agencies, and of course, recently we brought in the Anti-terrorism Act 2015 which gives our security agencies the full range of modern tools to help make Canadians safe.
The 2015 Anti-Terrorism Act is designed to help our authorities counter planned attacks, exchange information, rid the streets of threat as quickly as possible, eliminate terrorist propaganda and prevent terrorists from travelling to recruit others.
To be clear, this involves the possibility of removing terrorist propaganda often used for recruitment purposes from Canadian websites.
Our recent budget, the 2015 Economic Action Plan, also confirms our strong commitment to combat terrorism.
I’m announcing today, to help counter extremist and terrorist threats at home and abroad, the provision of substantial additional resources to the Canada Border Services Agency and to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Again, these new resources will help the CBSA more effectively target high-risk travellers, and will help support the investigative responsibilities of the RCMP.
The RCMP has already put the integrated national security enforcement teams in place in our country’s biggest cities.
Some actions undertaken by the team here in Montreal have recently been in the news.
We will be expanding the investigative capacities of these teams.
These teams are made up of representatives of the RCMP and federal partners and agencies such as the CIS, the CBSA, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and provincial and municipal police forces.
This format has already demonstrated its effectiveness here.
Ladies and gentlemen, in closing, I want to assure you that there is no job more important to me or to our entire government than to protect Canadians.
We will implement all resources necessary to combat the scourge of terrorism and protect our country and society.
This is the cost of freedom.
As Canadians, we will always be prepared to pay it.
Thank you very much
