Alberta could be hit by terrorism

Opposition Leader Danielle Smith says there's a chance that murders by people linked to extremist Islamic beliefs could occur in Alberta – possibly in the legislature.

Smith notes last week's murders in Ottawa and the Montreal area were committed by homegrown Canadian terrorists, so she says that underlines the need for police forces, security agencies and even social agencies to work together to prevent such acts.

Smith, the leader of the Wildrose Party, was in Olds Thursday (Oct. 23) for a fundraiser for four local Wildrose riding associations.

Smith said as Opposition leader, so far she has not been informed of any danger of homegrown terrorist acts in Alberta, but she believes it's possible that could occur.

“It's always a danger because of course, being an energy-producing province, where a lot of the radicalism of Islam is taking place in other energy-producing jurisdictions, you can imagine that there is the potential for being targeted,” she said.

“Fortunately here at home, we've been able to avoid the same kind of things that we've seen now in Ontario and Quebec. But I think everybody realizes that now that we're seeing homegrown terrorists – people who were born and raised Canadian, who hate Canada – that that's a whole, entirely different type of terrorist mentality for us to encounter.”

Smith told reporters efforts to prevent such attacks are going to require “a lot of sharing between different social agencies, a lot of sharing between different security/intelligence agencies.”

“We're really encountering a new threat we've not seen before. I don't think that Alberta is immune. So we certainly have to make sure that we're co-ordinating with our federal counterparts, across all of the different platforms for our different policing services to make sure that information is properly shared so we can avert any kind of similar disaster to what they've seen in Eastern Canada,” she said.

Smith said she's been impressed with the way the leaders of all three federal parties – the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats – “have come together to make sure that we can do whatever we can to address the issue of security.”

“I think there'll be a lot more that comes out over the coming days about how we can properly assess security risks to make sure that we're handling them, so I'll look forward to seeing that,” Smith said.

“It's going to take a lot of soul-searching over the next weeks and months for us to figure out how to effectively deal with it. But so far, I've been very pleased with the steps I've seen at the federal level.”

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