Canada to outlaw fundraising for world terrorism
Money flowing to fighters:
Ottawa to sign United Nations convention

Stewart Bell
National Post

Canada is planning to sign a United Nations convention that will require the federal government to pass legislation making it illegal to raise funds for terrorism, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

The convention would also require Ottawa to pass a law allowing the government to confiscate money or other assets "allocated" for terrorist purposes.

"We intend to sign, and eventually ratify, the International Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism," said Michael O'Shaughnessy, a foreign affairs spokesman.

The agreement will be available for signatures Jan. 10. Canada will sign "as close to that as possible."

Mr. O'Shaughnessy said "there will be some changes to the Criminal Code that are required for Canada to ratify this convention," one of 12 anti-terrorism agreements adopted by the UN this year in a clamp down on international extremists.

The recent arrests of Montrealers allegedly connected to Algerian militants, as well as earlier arrests of Tamil leaders in Toronto, have drawn attention to Canada's vulnerability to foreign terrorist groups that use the country to raise money to finance the purchase of weapons.

Despite evidence that Tamil, Kurdish, Sikh and Islamic insurgents have been collecting money in Canada to support terrorist campaigns -- sometimes through bogus charities -- there is currently no law specifically outlawing fundraising for terrorism.

The Senate Committee on Security and Intelligence, chaired by William Kelly, pointed out this weakness in its report to Parliament in January and called for a change to the Income Tax Act that would allow the government to shut down charities that Canadian intelligence suspects are a front for terrorists.

However, the UN convention will require Ottawa to introduce more powerful laws that will criminalize either giving or collecting money for acts defined as terroristic. Signatory nations must also co-operate with each other in investigations and extraditions, and funds known to be allocated for terrorism would have to be frozen or seized.

The convention will come into force once it has been ratified by 22 nations.

Mr. O'Shaughnessy said the agreement "addresses one key aspect of the international fight against terrorism of major importance to Canada, and that is preventing terrorist fundraising and support activities that may be taking place in one country which finance terrorist acts perpetrated in another country."

The Sri Lankan government would be one of the major beneficiaries of legislation passed in Canada. Sri Lanka is battling a violent insurgency by ethnic Tamils, fighting under the flag of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Canada has 200,000 Tamil refugees, the largest Tamil population outside Sri Lanka, and many are sympathetic to the Tigers, whom they view as standing up for Tamils in face of government oppression.

At one point, an estimated $8.4-million a year was flowing from Canada to fund the Tigers' campaign of bombings and assassinations, including the killing of Rajiv Gandhi, the former prime minister of India.

Immigration officials are currently trying to deport a leader of the World Tamil Movement, a Toronto organization that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says sends money to the Tigers to finance the purchase of weapons. A Federal Court judge agreed with CSIS this summer and ordered the man out of the country.

The most recent list of worldwide terrorist organizations produced by the U.S. State Department names both the World Tamil Movement and another group called the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT) as "known front organizations" for the Tamil Tigers.

This month, Montreal police arrested members of a crime ring they allege was funnelling money to Islamic extremists. The group may be connected to Ahmed Ressam, arrested at the Canada-U.S. border allegedly trying to smuggle bomb-making equipment into Washinton state, and Adbelmajed Dahoumane, his suspected accomplice who is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant.

"Fundraising in aid of terrorism occurs" in Canada, Ward Elcock, the CSIS director, said last year in testimony to the Senate intelligence committee.

Paul Kennedy, the assistant deputy solicitor-general, said yesterday that Canada has the power to prosecute those who steal or coerce money to finance terrorism because such acts are illegal but there is no law dealing with contributions made voluntarily for terror groups.

"We don't have anything currently on the books specifically directed at, in terms of criminal law, terrorist activities -- in other words collecting money for terrorist activities, fundraising for terrorist activities," he said.