The “Toronto 18” conspiracy may have been Canada’s first major homegrown terror threat after 9/11, but if police are to be believed it is far from being the last.
While some worry about being targeted by “foreign” terrorists linked to Al Qaeda or other extremist groups, we can hardly afford to be complacent about perils close at hand. Three more Canadians now stand accused of plotting bombings in Ottawa. And the fact that one of them appears, bizarrely, to have been involved in a goofy song-and-dance act on Canadian Idol hardly detracts from the gravity of the charges.
The RCMP reported yesterday that police had been watching the trio’s network for a year and swooped down on them Wednesday. That prevented them from sending money to conspirators abroad for weapons to use against Canadian troops and allies in Afghanistan. It also prevented them from leaving the country, and from building bombs and staging attacks on the nation’s capital. Rightly, police put public safety first by acting when they did.
