Daniel Robson: The Canada–India reset will fail unless we shut extremist gaps at home

Targeted prevention bridges the period when risk is credible but evidence is not yet charge-ready. Canada’s terrorism recognizance regime in s. 810.011 permits courts, with attorney general consent, to impose tailored conditions—device restrictions, counseling, contact, and geographic limits—while investigations continue, including in youth cases. A national standard for when police propose 810.011 in extremist-adjacent files, combined with annual usage reporting and judicial training that emphasizes proportionality, would strengthen both efficacy and legitimacy. Federal tracking is laid out in the 2022–23 annual review and the 2021–22 annual review; independent assurance can be reinforced through case sampling by NSIRA’s results and oversight program. Transparency builds trust Trust follows oversight that talks to Canadians. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians can brief Parliament and the public with unclassified summaries on a regular cadence, explaining how CSIS/RCMP are using speech and financing powers in diaspora-linked files and how any information-sharing with India is being handled within Canadian law. That accountability sits alongside the independent authorization and review architecture, including the Intelligence Commissioner’s 2024 annual report and NSIRA’s rolling reviews, to ensure necessary action remains bounded by the Charter. Municipal readiness is where flashpoints most often ignite—on streets, at consulates, and near community hubs. A standard national protocol adopted by big-city police and municipalities for safeguarding diplomatic premises and vulnerable sites would codify multilingual liaison capacity, clear separation and de-escalation practices, and bright-line thresholds for when targeted harassment or incitement flips from protected protest to chargeable conduct using the Criminal Code tools above. After-action reports following major demonstrations should publish lessons learned so that public-order standards evolve with the threat. Comparative law clarifies that early-stage harm can be policed without smothering dissent. The United States uses the material-support statute to bring financial and logistical help to designated terrorist organizations within its scope at earlier phases, while the United Kingdom’s encouragement of terrorism offence addresses direct and indirect glorification at a lower threshold than Canada’s counselling provision. Canada need not duplicate either approach; the point is to design enforceable early-intervention regimes that are both effective and rights-respecting. Success should be measured in public numbers, not photo-ops. Within six months, a FINTRAC scorecard should report terrorism-financing STRs tied to diaspora-political risk, the number of disclosures to law enforcement, and resulting investigative actions, using FINTRAC’s reporting definitions as the baseline. Justice should release aggregate data on pre-charge legal reviews under s. 83.221, segmented by language and outcome, alongside an annual synopsis of s. 810.011 recognizances that detail applications, orders, conditions, and breaches. Parliamentary briefings should occur quarterly with unclassified summaries on information-sharing safeguards and Charter compliance, while major-city police services should issue after-action reports following protests at diplomatic sites that spell out what triggered charges and what remained protected speech. Canada has the tools—let’s use them Welcoming new envoys is necessary. But the only reset that matters, from a Canadian security perspective, is the one that reduces the probability that our streets become theatres for someone else’s conflict and that our financial and digital systems serve as scaffolding for violent politics. Canada has the legal tools2s. 83.03, s. 83.18, s. 83.19, s. 83.221, and s. 810.011 and the oversight bodies—CSIS, NSICOP, NSIRA, and the Intelligence Commissioner—to do this within the Charter and with public confidence. Let’s reset our relationship with India, but let’s do it like a country that puts national security first—by closing the loopholes at home and publishing the proof.