CALGARY - The threat of a major terrorist attack on Canadian soil could increase dramatically when Prime Minister Paul Martin calls a federal election, a former CIA director warned yesterday.
An election call could come as early as next month.
James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, said yesterday the March 11 Madrid bombings may have sent a message that makes an election campaign a dangerous season.
"The severity of the threat of a major terrorist attack in Canada may depend on how close you are to an election," Mr. Woolsey said in Calgary, following the taping of a panel discussion on the topic for Global Sunday, a national current affairs program.
"What al-Qaeda learned from Spain is that an election is a good time to blow people up."
[. . . .] "Democracies get to choose their leaders, and the Spanish people chose theirs," Mr. Woolsey said. "But if terrorists get the idea that all they have to do is kill a number of people just before an election and then the democracy will back off from prosecuting the war on terrorism, then I think that the new Spanish government may be making it a lot more likely that they do."
Even a country such as France, which Mr. Woolsey described as being "very accommodating to Iraq," could be at increased risk of attacks now that it has moved to prevent Muslim children from wearing headscarves to school.
"What the terrorists want is complete appeasement," Mr. Woolsey said. "I'm pleased to say that Canada has not been very accommodating to the terrorists, which puts it at risk for a major attack."
Mr. Woolsey was joined on the panel by Dale Watson, former counter-terrorism chief for the FBI, and National Post reporter Stewart Bell, author of Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around the World.
According to Mr. Bell's research, more than 50 terrorist organizations already have a presence in Canada. "We're talking all of the nastiest groups in the world, from al-Qaeda to Hezbollah to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad," Mr. Bell said in the televised discussion.
