The Public Safety committee (SECU) of the House of Commons held its first meeting today of a planned six sessions to explore the potentially explosive question of how two individuals, Ahmed Eldidi and Mostafa Eldidi, father and son, both Egyptian nationals, were able to pass through security screening and be granted admission to Canada. The pair were charged on July 31, 2024, with terrorism offences following an RCMP INSET investigation, which allegedly foiled a planned terrorist attack.
The committee heard in its first hour from Dominic LeBlanc, the Minister for Public Safety, who was accompanied by a gaggle of senior officials.
How the meeting would play in terms of partisanship was predictable, but two important things emerged from the testimony of the Minister and his officials as the day proceeded.
The first was that the committee was provided, just prior to its meeting, with a detailed chronology surrounding the case (I don’t have access to the chronology). Questions (inevitably partisan) then arose drawing from that chronology.
Among the findings from the chronology regarding the admission of the father, Ahmed Eldidi, was that he was initially granted a visitor visa to Canada in 2018; that he went through two more-intensive security screening processes in 2018 and again in 2021, neither of which raised any red flags; that his application for Canadian citizenship, granted in 2024, prompted a CSIS security check, which was favourable; and that CSIS only gained information regarding a security threat he might pose in June 2024.
The chronology involving the son was less detailed, and not well known by officials. Mostafa Eldidi was refused a student visa in July 2019, but made an asylum claim, entering from the US, in February 2020. He passed security screening checks and was granted convention refugee status in July 2022. When pressed by a Bloc MP as to why he was not refused entry to Canada and returned to the US under the Safe Border Agreement, officials pointed to an exemption under the agreement for persons with an “anchor” family member in Canada.
This official chronology has to be aligned with the startling revelation of an ISIS (Islamic State or Daesh) video shot in 2015 that allegedly shows Ahmed Eldidi engaged in a vicious sword assault on a captive. One Conservative party MP who referred to the video says that its title was “deterring spies” and that it was first released by the media arm of ISIS in Iraq. The same MP, Melissa Lantsman, also suggested that Ahmed Eldidi may have somehow come to Canada as part of the Syrian refugee process. No confirmation on this. Red herring alert!
CBSA officials present to give testimony confirmed to the committee that CBSA has its own copy of the ISIS video, which apparently was posted to some corner of the dark web at some time. The committee was told by a CBSA VP, Ted Gallivan, that the preliminary finding of the internal review of the case files indicates that CBSA was not aware of the video during the security screenings of Mr. Eldidi that took place in 2018 and 2021. Aaron McCrorie, in charge of intelligence at CBSA, added that to the best of CBSA’s knowledge, the ISIS terror video has only been available within the last two years—so after the security screening process that covered Mohammed Eldidi.
Conservatives on the committee pressed witnesses about what they allege was a “colossal” failure—the presence on Canadian soil over a period of six years of a person who, unbeknownst to the government, was connected to crimes by ISIS dating back to 2015. The view of Minister LeBlanc was quite the opposite, that thanks to fast and effective action by the security agencies once they became aware of concerning intelligence, the threat posed by the Eldidis was contained and the pair arrested before they could carry out any terrorist plot. Somewhere between colossal failure and operational success lies the true story, which we don’t yet have. As an aside, we should probably reserve “colossal” failure for something colossal and hope it doesn’t come about. There are lots of “colossal” intelligence failures on the historical record. This one wasn’t Pearl Harbor, or 9/11.
That there might have been an intelligence failure of some kind is a possibility and will be the focus of the internal audit--lessons will surely come out. It is equally possible that an earlier intelligence “success” in the case of the Eldidis was simply not obtainable. To judge something an intelligence failure there has to have been a reasonable prospect of an intelligence success, which was somehow blown. I am not sure all MPs get this.
A second thing to come out was that the internal review being conducted by the key agencies involved in security screening—IRCC, CBSA and CSIS—is still ongoing after the July arrest. The Minister and officials could say little about it. A month-long file review of a high-profile case strikes me as an indication of either data and file-retention problems, or something worse in terms of gaps in the security screening process. But let’s not jump to conclusions.
One concerning thing, though. Aaron McCrorie from CBSA did say his Minister wanted early answers from the internal audit. But it seems that CBSA officials may have a different timeline—one involving months—in mind. I hope not.
I am not sure what the following five sessions of the Committee’s hearings will reveal. With no audit results likely available within the Committee’s time frame, and with the limitations placed on testimony because of the ongoing criminal investigation and trial, it may be mostly grandstanding and hot air. Marching behind the banners of “great success” and “colossal failure” won’t advance our understanding of the complexities, challenges and reform needs of the Canadian security screening system.
But I will stay tuned (if humanly possible).
Thanks for this and your efforts at keeping abreast of our national security reality. "What did we learn"...I'm afraid I learned that the clock is ticking on when Canada gets to experience an actual, real world, 'colossal failure'. Just hope it happens somewhere I'm not.
I saw a screenshot of the ISIS video that shows someone, who may have been the father, with a sword and preparing to slice off the hands and feet of some poor man strung up on a rack. I'm glad there wasn't more of it.
My concern is that the CBSA or any other of our other foreign investigative services did not pick up on the video (which was made evidently in 2015). Who the heck do we have doing these checks if they are not finding such crucial information? Are they just bored of something so stop far short of doing the web searches? Again Canada fails.