Top Mountie wants more money to fight terrorism

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Canada's top Mountie wants his police force to be the lead federal agency for terrorism investigations. And he is calling upon the Conservatives to pony up for police probes that can put terrorists in jail.

In a rare speech, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott said fighting terrorism is rightfully viewed primarily as a police responsibility. But it is one that has been underfunded by the federal government, he said.

He pointed out that the lion's share of the federal billions in post-9/11 resources went to Canada's intelligence agencies, and not police.

"Has the focus on enhanced intelligence overshadowed the role of law enforcement?" Mr. Elliott asked.

"The next chapter must be written by law-enforcement," he said. "The time has come to step up law-enforcement in closing the loop on national security."

Mr. Elliott, the keynote speaker at an influential security-intelligence conference on Friday, took the opportunity to point out that only police have the power to put terrorists in jail.

Observers pointed out that his aggressive and emboldened stance on fighting terrorism in courts, contrasted defensive remarks made the previous day by the new head of Canada's spy agency. Following judges dishing out several legal setbacks for spy agencies, Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Dick Fadden had castigated Canadians for being unmindful of terrorist threats.

Wesley Wark, a professor specializing in national security matters, said Mr. Elliott's message sounded more on-the-mark than Mr. Fadden's.

"The way to educate Canadians is not to complain about Canadians not understanding the threat, but actually to bring cases to court and win prosecutions," said Mr. Wark.

"I was personally pleased that he [Mr. Elliott]was prepared to be that bold about it," added Mr. Wark (who is an executive member of the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies, which organized the security-intelligence conference.)

Canada's human-intelligence spy service, CSIS, and its electronic eavesdropping agency, the CSE, have both seen their budgets more than double since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

But the outcomes of this stepped-up intelligence gathering is not manifest. And while clandestine intelligence can prompt police investigations, judges are growing increasingly wary of entertaining any sort of secret intelligence in court.

While the RCMP's national-security operations did get additional funds after 9/11, Mr. Elliott suggested the Mounties got a pittance in relative terms.

Adequately funded police investigations, he said, would go along way to better enforcing the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act.

That law criminalized a broad range of terrorism offences. But it has netted only seven total convictions of individuals to date.

Part of the reason is that counterterrorism costs -- a lot.

Mr. Elliot emphasized that such investigations voraciously consume police resources.

The RCMP picks up the tab for the cost of enforcing new laws, the cost of sending detectives overseas to investigate, and the cost of providing documents and testimony to prosecutions that can take years amid myriad constitutional challenges.

All of this needs to be better funded by the federal government. Mr. Elliott said.

As for threats, he said that al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists remain the biggest threat to Canada -- including young Canadians now training overseas in al-Qaeda camps.

But he also suggested threats have multiplied, to include Hezbollah and Tamil Tiger operatives based in Canadan.

Radicalized Somalis who have fought in the al-Shabbab insurgent movement also now represent a major threat, Mr. Elliott said.

The RCMP and other federal agencies have been probing these groups for years, but few Tamil Tigers, Hezbollah agents, or Shabbab militants have ever been arrested following these investigations.