When most people were waking up that Monday morning to the horrific news that six people were dead following a mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque, Ontario’s security adviser had been scrambling the jets since the wee hours.
The deadly attack on Jan. 29, was one of the first occasions to test Ray Boisvert, the newly created provincial security adviser enlisted by the government to advise on threats of terrorism and cyber warfare, and to provide intelligence briefings to top bureaucratic brass when those threats become a reality, like the shooting rampage at the Centre culturel islamique de Québec that left six dead and 19 wounded.
Boisvert sprang into action after the incident and got in touch with his counterparts in neighbouring Quebec and a network of provincial and national security agencies, but is keeping tight-lipped about the details. The process typically begins by asking many questions, such as if the threat is relevant to Ontario, if heightened security is warranted, and so on, he said.
“I can’t get into specifics because those actions are part of our repertoire and confidential, and just because I don’t want to help those who think about how we react to things either,” Boisvert said in an interview with QP Briefing Tuesday. “But rest assured I was on that really early in the morning on Monday … When something happens, the word gets out quickly, situation reports get shared very quickly and so on.”
Boisvert said the Ontario government has been ramping up anti-terror efforts, spurred in part by the creation of his office and a commitment to partner with Ottawa on a counter-radicalization strategy, which will better inform preparedness plans. He said his office will be encouraging the public and private sectors to come up with emergency plans, in the same vein as school boards in case of a shooting.
But prevention efforts and intelligence can only go so far, he said.
“We’re paying attention to it, there are discussions at the highest level ... but the bottom line is, we will continue to be at risk for the foreseeable future,” he said, pointing to the perpetual danger posed by “asymmetrical threat actors.”
“It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen again. Just because you do have that lone wolf phenomenon, whether they’re completely self-propelled or somebody’s influencing them. They’ll have the advantage because they can plan in isolation and attack at will. In other words, a typically lesser armed or lesser capable entity can have a disproportionate effect on a much better defended or armed organization. One person walks in with a handgun and devastates a community. One person at a keyboard takes out the power grid."
Alexandre Bissonnette, the suspect in the Quebec City case, who has been charged with six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder (though none related to terrorism-offences), fits the lone-wolf profile. Details that have emerged about the 27-year-old Laval University student’s social media and online presence – some of which <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-city-mosque-attack-suspect-known-for-right-wing-online-posts/article33833044/" target="_blank">reportedly suggests</a> he was an anti-feminist and anti-immigrant right-wing troll who defended President Donald Trump online and was inspired by right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen – don’t necessarily herald a new type of radical, but rather reflect the medium that facilitates them, Boisvert said.
“My thought is that it’s not really a new threat. Extremism is extremism. It’s an ideology, sometimes it is cloaked in some kind of pseudo religious narrative but at the end of the day it’s about fascist radicalized thought that basically gives some sort of credence or licence for people to act out,” he said.
Asked whether Trump’s election, or Brexit, could have kindled the fire, Boisvert said he thought it was “a culmination of things.”
“There’s a lot of things people can do now when they feel they have a cause and their cause is justifiable now because a lot of the funky narratives that are slipping around the Internet and all these different chat rooms and channels, so that influences people to hate more or dislike more.”
The shooting at the mosque in Sainte-Foy has unsettled politicians throughout the country and at Queen’s Park, where flags flew at half mast in the days that followed.
Hours after it happened Premier Kathleen Wynne called it a “cowardly act of terror” and made a last-minute addition to her itinerary so she could address the Muslim Association of Canada at a Toronto mosque that afternoon. By the end of the week (which also saw Donald Trump attempt to ban certain groups from entering the U.S.) the melancholy appeared to have weighed heavily enough on the Premier for her to pen an <a href="http://www.qpbriefing.com/2017/02/01/seen-ontario-is-a-sanctuary-province-wynne-says-in-heartfelt-letter/" target="_blank">open letter</a> trumpeting the province’s diversity and inclusiveness.
Perhaps Wynne wasn’t alone in her heartfelt response (“I am very sad this week. I think we all are,” she wrote), and the shooting seemed the latest manifestation of what Boisvert refers to as a “viciousness in public discourse that is unprecedented.”
All considered, Boisvert said he expects the left-wing-versus-right-wing violence reminiscent of the 1960s and 1970s to re-emerge.
“What makes it different right now is that we have a new social political context in that we’re seeing a viciousness in public discourse that’s unprecedented,” he said, echoing RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson’s <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/02/06/rcmp-commissioner-worries-caustic-political-discourse-is-radicalizing-extremists.html" target="_blank">remarks </a>before the national security committee earlier this week.
To contact the reporter on this story:  
<a href="mailto:snanji@qpbriefing.com">snanji@qpbriefing.com</a> 
416-212-5789 
Twitter: @<a href="https://twitter.com/sabrinananji">sabrinananji</a>

Ontario’s security adviser springs into action in wake of Quebec mosque attack

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