Canada's Wannabe Jihadi-Wives

"With Canadians lining up in food banks in record numbers and struggling with housing costs, the Liberal government must answer for why they spend $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals."

"The fact that these items were purchased for those detained as alleged terrorists is appalling in itself."

"[The opposition is] calling for the committee to be immediately recalled to launch a full inquiry into this matter."

Conservative Party letter to federal government 

 

"Such spending raises serious questions about government priorities, public trust, and the integrity of our system."

"[The return of foreign fighters who left to join terrorist groups should prioritize public safety], not reward those who betrayed their country and broke the law."

"[We are] deeply troubled [by the] extravagant homecoming [the women received]."

"Victims’ families have had to pay their own way to attend legal proceedings related to the terror suspects accused of killing their loved ones."

"The stark contrast between how our government treats perpetrators and how it treats their victims should alarm every Canadian and offend every taxpayer."

Sheryl Saperia, CEO, Secure Canada 

 

"[ISIS] still poses a significant threat via its network of provinces, affiliates, related loose online networks, and due to its ability to inspire Canada-based threat actors to commit serious acts of violence."

Canadian Security Intelligence Service 

 

"The Liberal government needs to be held accountable for the way it throws away our money and wastes hard earned tax dollars, giving rewards and luxuries to people who betrayed our country."

"We want to make sure that we’re getting to the bottom of it so this money can’t be wasted in the future."

"[The women should be asked to repay the costs of their repatriation]. They made the decision to go and join and marry into the worst terrorist network in the world, and they should pay the full costs of getting back to Canada."

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre  

The Al-Hawl Camp, where most of the families capture during the fight against ISIS are detained.

 

When the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was in its expanding Caliphate heyday, a number of Canadian women travelled to the Middle East to reach Iraq and Syria where their steadily expanding empire was located, answering the call to jihad, to link up with the  terrorists as wives to produce children they called the 'lion cubs' of ISIL jihad, and to take part in the propaganda aimed at Western audiences in their bid to inspire more Muslims abroad in the diaspora to respond to the call of jihad.

 

Once the Islamic State lost their momentum of terror-inspired power, when the Kurdish Peshmerga aligned with U.S. and Western military forces began to gain the upper hand, wrenching territory back from their grasp, and eventually defeating the Islamic State whose members were either taken prisoner or escaped elsewhere to attempt to restore their caliphate mission elsewhere, recruit among Muslims in Africa and Afghanistan, rearm and inspire terror once again, Kurdish forces undertook a temporary imprisonment of foreign Islamic State fighters, creating a separate prison for their women and children.

 

The U.S. state department reported in 2023 that 14 countries including Canada repatriated 3,500 citizens, and overall, about 7,000 family members of foreign fighters representing 30 countries were brought back to their countries of origin. More than half of those held in the Kurdish-guarded prison camps were under age 12; the U.S. bureau of counterterrorism warning that if they remained they would be vulnerable to ISIS recruitment, likely fuelling a resurgence in the Middle East. An argument that spurred Western nations to reluctantly repatriate their wayward citizens.

 

Thanks to the federal Access to Information law, an investigative journalist, Stewart Bell with Global News was able to reveal that Canada's Liberal government used over $170,000 of taxpayer funding to retrieve a handful of Canadian women and their children who had gone overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Costs for hotel bills in Montreal were included for the returnees and their government escorts. When the details were revealed, Parliament's Conservative opposition called for an expenditures investigation.

 

Expense reports released under Access to Information Act on costs of repatriating Canadian ISIS women and their kids. Global News

 

The initial round of repatriations completed in October of 2022, came with a cost of $10,863 when Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned. Polman faces charges of terrorism, while Chouay pleaded guilty a month ago to a charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. In April of 2023 the second operation incurred $132,746 in expenses that included government staff and the ISIS returnees. $20,331 went for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott Hotel at the Montreal Airport. That included room-service invoices and a $3,000 catering tab.

 

Four returning Canadian women, three of whom on arrival were arrested and their ten children comprised the returnees. Emontonian Aimeee Lucia Vasconez, married to two different ISIS fighters was in that group while Ammara Amjad also in the group was arrested and faces a charge of terrorism. One room cost $1,100 which included the original room cost of $638 and $95-worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87-worth of items from the hotel gift store that included chocolate, chips and over-the-counter drugs. 

 

A tip of $7 on  a $8 coffee came from that same room while $15-worth of children's ice cream was from another room, and a third had ordered drinks of white, red and sparkling wine at $25 each. Two $24 smoked meat sandwiches came from yet another room. Early July 2023 saw the third repatriation operation proceed, which cost over $27,500 when a government of Canada employee -- likely with Global Affairs -- expense-purchased snacks including goldfish and granola bars, and Timbits. In that operation, Montreal hotel rooms cost about $2,300. 

 

Two women from Edmonton, Dina Kalouti and Helena Carson were in that group; both sentenced to six-month peace bonds, required to continue counselling with the Organization for the Prevention of Violence. Needless to say, none of these operations began in Montreal; there was a journey from the Al-Hol camp in Syria to reach Montreal; the cost of the air flights were not included in the total expenditure figures released by Global Affairs through the Access to Information legislation. Nor the cost associated for government employees to fly out to Syria to escort these women and their children back to Canada.

 

Kimberly Polman is greeted by family members after being released from custody at provincial court in Chilliwack, B.C., on October 27, 2022. Polman was repatriated to Canada from a detention camp in Syria after marrying an ISIS member. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press