Senator Jerry Grafstein

Making suicide bombing illegal

In early April, Senator Jerry Grafstein introduced a private members bill to outlaw suicide bombing. Bill S-206 proposes to amend the terrorism sections of the Criminal Code to make suicide bombing a specific offense.

After the obligatory jokes about the difficulty in prosecuting someone whos dead, let alone blown to bits, is there any point to make suicide bombing a specific terrorism-related offense?

Criticizing the proposal in the National Post, columnist Don Martin likened it to the legislation that was recently introduced to make street racing illegal. Martin argues that street racing is already illegal and no one who sets out to race on the street is going to be deterred by the fact that street racing (as opposed to dangerous driving) is now illegal. And there is something to the argument that laws against street racing and suicide bombing; already punishable by other sections of the Criminal Code is simply an attempt by the government to show that the are active in combating certain unlawful conduct but really lacks substance. After all if someones family is killed by a driver who is going 100 km. an hour in a 40 km. zone, are they going to say to themselves, "well at least the driver wasnt involved in a street race"? Not likely.

Outlawing suicide bombing, like making street racing a specific offense, is not going to act as a deterrent. Actually it would be bad if it did. Given the choice of (a) someone blowing up a building by remote control or (b) causing the equivalent explosion in a suicide, (b) would indeed be preferable. But, having said all that there are advantages to making suicide bombing as specifically enumerated offense, no matter how silly the idea first appears to be.

The advantage in making suicide bombing an offense allows us to do what is difficult to do now talk about it. Although the act of suicide bombing was brought into vogue by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, that group very rarely resorts to such tactics outside of their own country and only then at specific targeted people. However, whether we want to face it or not, a terrorist attack in Canada by radical Islamists is a matter of "when" and not "if". And that attack may very well be in the form of a suicide bombing. In fact there is some evidence to suggest that we have already had at least one suicide bombing in this country. The official version of the incident that occurred earlier this year in a Toronto Tim Hortons made little sense. A man, apparently with the intention of committing suicide, drove to the intersection of Yonge and Bloor, one of Torontos busiest, so he could walk into a Tim Hortons that just happened to be on top of where Torontos two main subway lines intersect in order to kill himself by blowing himself up in the washroom. No details of the man were released because his relatives, all in "South Asia", didnt want the police to make his identity public. Whether it was or it wasnt, suicide bombing is something that is not completely remote to Canada.

And any discussion of suicide bombing is good. It is of course difficult to now discuss suicide bombing (or terrorism for that matter) because it goes against the politically correct prime directive that nothing can deviate from the notion that "Islam is a peaceful religion". Debate is necessary to oppose the apologists for the bombers who excuse their conduct, even when children blow themselves up, on the grounds poverty and desperation. Of course if poverty was the real reason for engaging in suicide bombing, Haitians would be forever blowing themselves up all over Montreal. And more importantly, making suicide bombing an offence might force those on the left like Sid Ryan and CUPE Ontario to talk about it rather than stay silent and blame all the ills in the Middle East on Israel and Sids favourite scapegoat, the Jewish lobby.

Suicide bombing needs to be the subject of discussion and the easiest way to achieve that objective is to put it on the books as a separate offense.

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Toronto Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: Columns 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 '00 1999 Media 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 Toronto 2006 '05 '04