Apprehended Insurrection

"They took part in military-style training, as well as shooting, ambush, survival, and navigation exercises. They also conducted a scouting operation."

"A variety of firearms, some prohibited, as well as high-capacity magazines and tactical equipment were allegedly used in these activities."

Royal Canadian Mounted Police statement

 

"The main point of the ideology was that they're anti-government, anti-authority."

"Quite often that will be mixed with racism, misogyny, and then personal grievances. And there's nihilism that we're seeing now ... violence becomes the ideology so some people mix that up and then create whatever ideology they want."

"It's a major issue. It's really a society problem, not just a police issue."

"The recruiting is done quite often online. So, then, who's online the most is our young teenagers and children, so it's something that is worrisome."

"Also and then we saw with these guys, they also did a lot of recruiting with their Instagram account."

RCMP Staff Sgt. Camille Habel 

Military-style training in which the accused took part.   RCMP

 

Four people are facing terrorism charges in Quebec for their alleged actions plotting an anti-government militia; among them are active members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Three of the four stand accused of taking "concrete actions to facilitate terrorist activity", including a plot "to forcibly take possession of land in the Quebec City area". The land in question was ostensibly required as property that could be utilized as a base where they could plan to build and train their group.

 

The RCMP investigation was launched in March of 2023, although the group had been active back to 2021. Three arrested young men face a charge of knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity. If convicted they stand a chance of being awarded a charge of knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity, with a minimum sentence of 14 years in prison. Charges are inclusive of possession of firearms, prohibited devices and explosives and possession of controlled items. Heavily armed members of police emergency response teams arrested the men on Tuesday.

 

Searches throughout the course of a year for what the RCMP considers a case of ideologically motivated violent extremism, included searches in the Quebec City area where 15 explosive devices, 83 firearms and accessories, about 11,000 rounds of ammunition, close to 130 magazines, four pairs of night vision goggles, and military equipment were seized, according to the RCMP. The military equipment, though not expressly stated, would have been purloined over time from Canadian Armed Forces stock. Presumably the missing equipment would have sparked an investigation, leading to suspicion of Armed Forces members. 

Numerous firearms were seized by police officers during searches in January 2024.   RCMP

 

Military-style rifles were also among the weapons seized by the RCMP. Photographs used as evidence by the RCMP show a small group of people dressed in military camouflage armed with rifles in a training exercise staged in a rock quarry. An Instagram account was created and administered by one of the accused with the purpose of recruiting new members to their militia. The Instagram account is being dismantled: "It was used for the members to promote training sessions and exercises and they were having these exercises in different regions in Quebec and Ontario. And we know also that the online group was really aimed at recruiting individuals that already had an interest in or knowledge of firearms", explained St. Habel.

 

Additional charges against the group accused include the possession of prohibited devices, transfer of firearms and ammunition, careless storage of firearms, possession of explosives and possession of controlled items.The Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), formed to fight domestic extremism and terrorism led the investigation. Canada's natural security and intelligence community has its focus on xenophobic violence, gender-driven violence, and other grievance-driven and ideologically motivated violence. 

"Given the kinds of materials seized, including explosives, it would appear to have been a very serious plot that was pre-empted. The authorities will try to determine whether the individuals charged had connections with others in Canada, had any cross-border connections with far-right groups in the U.S., and the nature of their social media interactions, including sources of inspiration."

"The plot sounds to me like it might have been inspired by the activities of U.S. militia groups. Frightening to see such a thing manifest itself in Canada. It shows that the military has a lot to do to root out potential extremists in their midst."

Wesley Wark, intelligence specialist/national security issues, senior fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation 

One of the accused allegedly created and administered an Instagram account with the aim of recruiting new members to the anti-government militia.  RCMP

 

"The fact that we could charge [them] with facilitating a terrorist activity, it means that people were actually preparing, were taking actions that led us to believe they wanted to actually achieve something and wanted to commit this violent terrorist act. Of course, it was very serious and dangerous."

"We don’t know exactly what could have been done, but when someone is at the point of wanting to seize property, then the plan is really ongoing and we needed to make the arrest and ensure public safety and make sure the plan was stopped and everyone was secure."

Staff Sgt. Camille Habel of the RCMP national security team in Quebec 

Supplying Ukraine With Military Materiel : Canada

"We get hit with machine gun fire  and mortars, we have to hide them [the cars they use instead of armoured military vehicles] in the woods. It's been surreal, but we're using what we've got"

"I hate to say it -- and don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Canadian -- but a lot of it [military equipment sent by Canada to Ukraine] is just junk. You're down here helping these people and someone says, 'Oh, this is from Canada'. But it's a training tourniquet you can't use in the field. The night vision [goggles] they sent down, half of them worked and half of them didn't."

"I know the equipment is there and I know we can send it. We needed it yesterday. There is going to be a big push down here in the south and if we don't keep the momentum going, it's going to stop dead in its tracks."

"It's small things -- like using Motorola radios that the Russians can pick up. Some guys are still rocking steel plates [instead of body armour]. But we're pushing forward no matter what. There's no choice."

"[I came to Ukraine with] certain skill sets [and] because I believe in life, I don't believe in death."

"The guys I'm with, I started training them in March. We've stuck together the whole time and that's a big thing. I'm proud of these guys. We've been in a lot of contact and a lot of situations where I thought I was a goner But my friends have had my back."

"If we keep doing what we're doing and we get the supplies we need, I think we'll be able to take back everything they took after February 25."

"I know there is policy and procedure and politics involved. But there shouldn't be. Just send it. When it comes down to this kind of war, timing is absolutely everything. You need stuff yesterday." 

James Challice, Canadian Forces veteran, volunteer trainer, fighter w/Ukrainian troops

Members of the Ukrainian National Guard patrol during a reconnaissance mission in a recently retaken village on the outskirts of Kharkiv. (Bernat Armangue/The Associated Press)

Like most other Ukrainian civilians-turned-soldier in Ukraine, Canadian volunteer James Chalice has become accustomed to travelling to the front -- to take his place among other foreign volunteers and Ukrainian men who until February 24 were civilians knowing little-to-nothing of handling weapons, military strategy and fighting -- not in military troop vehicles, but with the use of private cars. In a country unprepared for war, never quite believing its larger, militarized neighbour would ever stoop to invading and engaging it in an existential battle, both rudimentary and more complex military equipment is in short supply.

This former Canadian military veteran who chose to put his life on the line in the greater interest of helping to train civilians to enable them to counter an enemy aggressor on their own soil, has turned from training Ukrainian civilians to become adept at fighting a war they never expected would interrupt their lives, to fighting alongside them, in the embattled Kherson region in the south of the country.

 

Moscow's authorities in occupied Kherson have floated holding a referendum on integrating with Russia

 

Mr. Challice's government in Canada is prepared to announce its intention of sending a few dozen decommissioned Coyote light armoured vehicles to Ukraine. Canada's retired General Rick Hillier, former chief of the defence staff, doesn't think much of Canada's efforts to date in fulfilling its ongoing pledge to do all it can in support of Ukraine's defence. As far as General Hillier is concerned, Canada has been tardy in delivering on its promise. It should long since have delivered 250 LAVs, 50 Leopard tanks and 18 M777 howitzers out of its stock of military equipment.

Ukrainian defence forces in the south are engaged in pushing back the Russians gradually in spite of being outgunned; for each big gun Ukraine fires, Russia sends back five. Ukrainians lack the most basic of equipment such as encrypted phones and body armour, recounted Mr. Challice. In the south, the terrain offers little cover. "It's hard to mobilize a large number of troops because there is only the treeline and fields for cover", he explained. Flush with ample munition,s the Russian military has been indiscriminate in shelling treelines.

Putin's army, points out General Hillier, has learned a lesson from its first months of surprise failure in attempting to take Kyiv and having to retreat in the face of staunch Ukrainian resistance which cost Russia a number of leading commanders. Russia has resorted to keeping its military men at a safe distance, reliant instead on the use of longer range artillery. Its superior electronic war machinery is being used to pull Ukrainian defence forces into a vice which will not allow them to activate reserves or to counterattack. Russia is waiting for the Ukrainian forces to run out of weaponry and ammunition.

 

Ukrainian troops fire ordnances during a training exercise in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. Western countries have vowed to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

General Hillier knows of estimates of a mere one-tenth of committed aid having landed in Ukraine. Some Western equipment is in the field, however; over 150 towed howitzers have been delivered by a number of donor countries, along with 120 rocket launchers. And four badly needed high mobility artillery rocket systems arrived from the U.S. Still, Ukraine hankers for 300 rocket launchers, 500 tanks and 1,000 howitzers to give it a fighting chance for an effective defence against the invaders. 

Recently, an incursion into the fields and drainage ditches of the south on a mission to extract bodies of dead Ukrainians, Mr. Challice saw a teammate die from a bullet to his neck. "It happens everyday now. It's reality. I'll have time to think about it when I come home. If I come home", he said philosophically. His team, he said, has been incentivized to advance for the prize of taking back villages occupied by the Russians where atrocities have taken place and that is everywhere. He was informed by one woman whose husband had been tortured in their backyard, then shot in the back of the head.

Another man who had been isolated in a bomb shelter for six weeks, discovered later that his wife and daughter had been raped, murdered and left in a shallow grave. The horror of atrocities revealed to have taken place in the Russian occupation of Bucha was not, after all, an isolated anomaly. There were massacres everywhere the Russian military occupied a village, a town, a city suburb.

 

"The longer this goes on, the higher the probability of Russia breaking through or of Ukraine collapsing. The West can change that equation by delivering what it has promised."

"Ukraine is in a dire situation and the West will be complicit in any Russian victory."

Rick Hillier, former Chief of Defence Staff, Canada