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During a 2017 year-end interview with CTV, Trudeau said remorseful returning fighters “can be an extraordinarily powerful voice for preventing radicalization in future generations.”

If CSIS agrees with this assessment, there is no such indication of it in the documents received by the Toronto Sun, which were obtained under access to information laws. “CSIS is seized with this issue,” the note states, “as extremists returning to Canada have the potential to pose a significant threat to our national security.”

Canada’s spies also worry that the problem is larger than their official statistics indicate. “I should point out that we remain concerned about the number of individuals that we are not aware of, or about whom we have incomplete information, due to the significant operational challenges associated with such investigations,” the document reads.

Contrary to Trudeau’s remarks, Goodale has previously acknowledged the prospects of rehabilitating fighters are “pretty remote.” And according to the CSIS document, it’s hard to say how a returnee will behave: “Returnees may respond in a number of different ways – from returning to regular life, radicalizing others, or financing and facilitating the travel of others, to attack planning.”

At no point in the document – or any of the other related CSIS material the Sun received – is there talk of deradicalization. “The number of Canadians abroad for terrorism-related purposes has, after a surge, leveled off. But the terrorist threat at home has not diminished. Indeed, preventing individuals from travelling abroad for extremist purposes may in fact increase the threat at home.” They write that this “requires ongoing investigation.”