Canada to speed up plans to toughen security laws: PM Harper

[jakeXT]

Source: Reuters

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Thursday the government will expedite plans to give more powers of detention and surveillance to security agencies in the wake of an attack on Parliament.

"They need to be much strengthened, and I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that work which is already under way will be expedited," he told the House of Commons, one day after a gunman launched an attack on Parliament and was shot dead.

Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0IC1RA20141023?irpc=932

[LiberalLovinLug]

1. The shooter was mentally ill

He also had a long history of criminal activity and known to the police. Just because he recently converted to Islam doesn't make him a "terrorist", which term our PM is eager to use at any opportunity.

There is no need to lock down our Capital and introduce new draconian laws. But Harper will use this lone gunman incident as an excuse to fan the fears and install overblown security measures and NSA like powers.

[GliderGuider]

2. And down the drain we go.

[dead_head]

3. And the guy near Montréal

was a idiot. I'm from that town. I was in the town when it happened. My buddies back there told me he had a company that was not going well, he got ripped off by some people too.

He ¨converted¨ to islam one year ago and according to the news and what I heard, he was in the delusion it was the only way to save his family from hell. Nothing political.

CBC even econfirmed that he was being watched and then they stopped becuase he said he was going to be nice.

It's totally ridiculous!!!!

[The Magistrate]

5. 'Religious Motivation' And 'Mental Illness', Sir, Are Hardly Exclusive Categories

It is fairly frequent that a person who ascribes a religious motivation to some anti-social action is mentally unbalanced. Religiousity often serves as a sort of 'self-medication' for persons of unsound mind. I suspect few of the people who engage in suicide bombings and similar activities would not, were they placed under a modern secular psychiatric examination, be adjudged to be suffering from serious mental disturbance. None of this alters the influence of a religion's ideas, as apprehended by the person in question, on his or her behavior.

The man did in fact commit a criminal act out of politico-religious motivations, and did so while of an unbalanced mind. While neither part of that can be ignored, it is foolish to pretend the first part of it ought to be ignored and only the second heeded in description of his motive.

[dead_head]

6. I kinda agree

that he did it according to HIS version of what he understood about religion.

In his crazy mind that's what religion told him to do.

[LiberalLovinLug]

8. I agree that religion had a part in this.

It gives cover to a whole lot of bad behavior. And yeah, an unsound mind mixed with extremist religion makes for a toxic cocktail. But the mental illness part is the main point I think. How many violent shootings are because of religious beliefs (abortion doctors shot etc..) and those with no religion but mental illness involved (fired from job, conspiracy nut, bullied at school, or just plain whacko for no perceivable reason). I'd say the latter incidents far outweigh the former.

And what i object to most is my Prime Minister giving the impression that it is a pure "terrorist" attack. I don't even think it qualifies as a real terrorist act if that is defined by being orchestrated by some overall group, that will usually take credit for it after. But ok, if someone wants to define terrorism as causing "terror" then I'd say fine, although you'd also have to include all acts of war as well. US troops kicking doors down during the Iraq invasion at 4 am and dragging out the father and sometimes even shooting some of the family members, or drone bombing villages with children and families today.

Because if the PM were to accent the "mental illness" at all, he may just be pressured to put more resources into that, which is the furthest thing a Con wants to spend money on. After all he has already ridiculed the opposition leader for even suggesting we should look at finding out the root causes of home grown terrorism.

[The Magistrate]

10. I Disagree On The Significance. Sir

I think that a direct attack on government symbols, given both recent events in Canada and abroad, taken together the particular form of religious toxicity this person was afflicted with, suggests strongly that the act was intended as a 'propaganda of the deed', what we have taken in the U.S. to calling 'stochastic terrorism' when displayed by some of our right wing extremists and racists in individual attacks on police or minorities. These are instances where people are moved to act by ideas they become fixated on, frequently ideas acquired through internet activities, and act individually with the idea that they are furthering some great cause by what they do. That these people often are mentally unbalanced hardly needs saying, but it is exactly that mental imbalance that the grand idea speaks to, and comes to shape to action. In this instance, it was Islam, specifically Islam responding in self-defense against assault on the umma by Christendom. In some of our more recent incidents here in the United States, the idea was the 'sovereign citizen' mythos, conviction not just that the government is wholly illegitimate, but that people are seething under its yoke, and only a spark is needed to ignite a revolution, so that if a believer, say, shoots a police officer and shows it can be done, many more who learn of the deed will rise and copy it, and tyranny will be overthrown. This pretty much is the method of nineteenth century Anarchism, from whose milieu the phrase 'propaganda of the deed' arises. The method of a number of jihadi propagandists is the same: try and rouse some individuals to act, and hope others will be inspired to imitate them, and the thing will spread and multiply. There is no doubt in my mind this person hoped to be imitated, and was imitating the earlier incident where two soldiers were run down by an automobile whose driver then charged at police with a knife. I agree it is possible this person may well have, at some point, cooked off and killed someone; that he did so yesterday, and did so in the manner he did, owes to his religious fixations and jihadi propagandas.

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. ok

I enjoyed reading your response. You no doubt have some academic acumen on the subject. We may just have to agree to disagree.
I still maintain that it is mental illness at the heart of this incident. I would expand on your thought: "That these people often are mentally unbalanced hardly needs saying, but it is exactly that mental imbalance that the grand idea speaks to, and comes to shape to action." You even seem to admit there that mental instability is a given, and the primary base on which extremist religious dogma sticks to. I could expand further and suggest that being beholden to any religion, its books, its leaders, in a blind worship is a form of, at least a mild one, mental illness.

And when an unstable mind such as Zehaf-Bibeau finds reprieve in a Church/Mosque he will develop a kind of synchronicity with that community. And with this newly discovered, but old and established belief system, he now does not feel alone in his anger. That now he has his justification for violent action against authority figures. He already must have had negative thoughts towards authority just from his many run-ins with the law and this new jihadist religions call to kill infidels was, yes, "the grand idea" that spoke to him.

In conclusion it may be a chicken and egg thing. Was religion, in this case extremist Islamic teachings, and the knowledge of 'stochastic terrorism' the main influence and his acts only executed because his diseased mind was the last piece of the puzzle, and "allowed" him to carry it out. Or did his ingrained mental illness find a home in the mosque, which he had only joined a year earlier, and the more extreme teachings were absorbed and became a part of that diseased mind where he could convince himself that he was working for a greater good through his violent actions.

[The Magistrate]

12. I Think We Agree Far More Than We Differ On This, Sir

A pleasure to have made your acquaintance.

[LiberalLovinLug]

13. Re-reading I believe you are correct

The pleasure is mine.

[grasswire]

4. slippery slide

you're on it now, Canadians!

[growersltd]

7. Latest Breaking News

lol

[PSPS]

9. Gee, I'm confused. He also said, "We will be vigilant, but we will not run scared."

I suppose he said while cowering in fear, demanding "more powers of detention and surveillance." Then he ran away scared, I guess.

This is the same recipe Bush used to destroy the US. I hope Canadians are smarter than that. So far, at least, the CBC hasn't become a compliant lapdog like the US Corporate/State media has.