In an Ipsos-Reid poll taken this past week in thewake of the so-called “terrorist” arrests in Toronto58 per cent of those polled believe thatmany potential terrorist groups exist in thecountry and 49 per cent support more focuson investigating Muslim groups. Fifty-eightper cent were shocked that all of the alleged“terrorists” in Toronto were Canadian. SometimesI wonder what planet half my fellow Canadiansare living on.

There have always been terrorists of one stripe oranother in the country, and most of them areCanadian. So what’s new? Maybe just all thehysterical press coverage and politiciansexploiting the incident for all the benefit theycan reap from it. Well, on second thought, thatisn’t new either.

The fact that there is a tendency here to blame aspecific religion for the trouble is itself troubling.Blaming Islam for violent nut bars who seek tomake their point with explosives is like blamingthe Catholic Church for the Irish Republican nutbars who also make their point with explosives, orSikhism for the fruit cakes who carry outassassinations in Canada and blow airplanes outof the sky. Then there are any number of religiouscults in the country that we can blame for theidiots who shoot abortion doctors and burn downclinics.

Would most of us tolerate the governmenttargeting Catholics or fundamentalist Christiansfor intensified surveillance and the attendantharassment because of what a few of their half-baked extremists do? Probably not, nor shouldwe tolerate that kind of treatment for Muslims.

As for the “shock” that it was Canadians involvedin the Toronto plot, what is shocking? Canadahas a long history of Canadians engaging in whattoday we call terrorism, from Louis Riel to the FLQto naked ladies in B.C. running around settingbarns on fire. The alleged plotters in Ontariomight be viewed as just carrying out anestablished Canadian tradition. Perhaps the 58 per cent of Canadians who are shocked justdon’t have much of a grasp of their own history.

It is questionable, too, whether or not the 17young men arrested were much of a terroristthreat if any to begin with. Reports say that theauthorities have had them under surveillance fortwo years. They were not too secretive abouttheir activities, carrying out training in the open inrural Ontario where they were reported by localsand generally acting like testosterone-drivenyoung men. In fact, one could say they are muchlike others of their age group who join the militaryor a street gang.

They were also in contact with undercovergovernment agents doing who-knows-what to eggthem on, including arranging to supply them withexplosive material. Perhaps if they had beengiven enough time they might have blownthemselves up. Their arrest might be consideredan act of mercy.

For all accounts it sounds as if these fellows are toterrorism as the Keystone Cops are to lawenforcement. Of course they do make good pressand serve as a convenient tool to excite the publicto a state which the government can exploit forpolitical advantage and curtailment of those peskycivil rights that get in the way of an orderly andcompliant society.

It is interesting to note that in early May theCanadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)reported that a terrorist attack in Canada was“now probable.” This warning was repeated at theend of May when CSIS deputy director ofoperations Jack Hooper said that Canadians fromimmigrant backgrounds were using the internetand looking for targets in Canada. He used thethreat of terrorism to justify the occupation ofAfghanistan. Then, shortly thereafter we have theserendipitous arrests in Ontario with much handwringing about terrorism, etc. in the media. Acynical person might suspect there is more to thisthan meets the eye.

The outpouring of rhetoric that followed thearrests appeared to have as much or more to dowith promoting an agenda as it did with reportingthe news. The obligatory links to the bogeyman,in this case Al Qaeda, were implied, though nolinks were actually substantiated. The Afghanistancard was played both to use the case to justifyinvolvement there and to deny that being therewas in fact one of the factors making us morelikely to go through these kinds of events. And, just to makesure that this alleged plot wasn’t taken as ananomaly it was also reported that the RCMP hadfoiled a dozen plots in the past two years.

Terrorism is nothing new in Canada. What reallymatters is how we deal with it. The question to askhere is why is the government acting the way it is,and who gains by it?