| Ahmed Ressam and the Cheapening of Canadian Citizenship Canadian citizenship began losing its value in 1985 when the Supreme Court of Canada made being a Canadian citizen a lot less special. In 1985, the Court extended the benefits of Canadian citizenship to anyone who managed to plant his or her two feet on Canadian territory. It did not matter if you concealed your identify by flushing your travel document down the toilet of the airplane bringing you to Canada; it did not matter if you lied about your motives for coming to Canada; it did not matter if you were engaged in terrorist activity prior to planting your feet on Canadian soil and it did not matter that one of the first things you did after coming to Canada was mug your benefactors. Daniel Stoffman writes in his book Who Gets In about the impact of the court’s decision: "the court’s ruling has been interpreted … to mean that the most transparently fraudulent arrivals have the right not only to a hearing but to multiple appeals of negative decision…. In no other Country does the government so severely constrain its ability to carry out its primary duties; to protect its citizens …" Diane Francis, Editor-at-Large for the National Post, in her book Immigration – The Economic Case, talks about how Canada took great care in checking on her and her husband’s background when they applied to immigrate to Canada in 1966. As she points out in her introduction: Looking back, the care and research that led to our approval was protection for us as well as our adopted country. That was when Canadian citizenship meant something. When Canadian citizenship meant something the likes of Ahmed Ressam would had much more difficulty getting if he could have gotten in at all. Canadians may have forgotten the story of Ahmed Ressam and his attempt to blow up a piece of Los Angeles Airport. The American authorities have not. It has left them with a deep suspicion of Montreal’s Muslim community. While I am not trying to make excuses for the American actions, an account of Ahmed Ressam’s story and how he was welcomed into Canada even though he was known to have links with terrorist organizations bears retelling if only to gain insight into American actions. It also bears retelling because the Americans have both the economic and the military clout to do us serious damage should Canada be nurturing another Ahmed Ressam. In 1992, Algeria's military-backed government cancels parliamentary elections in which the Islamic Salvation Front (ISF), an organization intent on governing by Koranic law, is set to win. This action leads to the Algerian Civil War. The Front splits into a number of armed extremist factions. The most notorious of these, the Armed Islamic Group, is believed largely responsible for the series of village massacres that characterizes the war. An estimated 70,000 civilians are butchered between 1993 and 1998 in raids carried out by these extremist Islamic militants throughout the country. Some Algerians, fearing the new military government because they participated in the massacres, or because of their support of the Islamic ideals behind the violence, come to Canada claiming refugee status. Ahmed Ressam first made his way by boat to Corsica where he is identified as an illegal and is about to be deported by the French authorities. So he gets a fake passport and jumps on an Air Canada plane to Montreal where he lands at Mirabel on February 20, 1994. He readily admits to Immigration authorities that his passport is fake, his name is fake that just about everything about him is fake. He then seeks refugee status because he fears imprisonment if returned to Algeria for "arms trafficking and association with terrorist". By admitting to lying about his real identify, by admitting to associating with terrorist and supplying them with weapons, he is admitted to Canada as a refugee. He is given the name of a lawyer, told where to get welfare and sent on his way with a request that he attend a refugee hearing sometime in the future. He will be informed of the date by mail after he lets them know where he will be staying. Under Canadian law, he will be allowed least two and half years to roam freely, to go anywhere in Canada while his claim for refugee status is determined. In Montreal, he supplements his income from welfare by mugging his benefactors. In Montreal, he finds other Algerians who have not just come to Montreal for the night-life. With his new friends, he attends Friday services at the local mosque. It is at this mosque, in Montreal that Ressam is given recruiting videos that will convince him to attack the Americans from his Canadian base. He goes to Afghanistan for training at one of bin Laden’s terrorist camps. The Canadian Passport Office, to facilitate his travels to and from the terrorist camps, supplies him with a fake passport under the name of Benni Norris. On his return to Montreal from Afghanistan, with the help of local Muslim extremists, the planning of acts of terrorism begins in earnest. According to an associate of Ressam, Samir Ait Mohamad, their planning includes blowing up some of the locals. On December 14, 1999 Ressam took a ferry from Victoria, British Columbia to Port Angeles, Washington. It was only the vigilance of an American custom agent who found bomb making material in his car that averted a disaster. The close call that was Ahmed Ressam’s attempt to bring terrorism to the American mainland via a Canadian route should have been enough to convince the government to again make Canadian citizenship special, but it wasn't. Bernard Payeur, July 4, 2005, Rev. Aug 25, 2011
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