OTTAWA—The Conservative government pressed its case Thursday for tougher anti-terror powers for police and spies by raising an alarming American news story dismissed by Canadian security sources.

NBC News reported Wednesday night that Canadian officials are concerned about potential Islamic State sympathizers threatening “knives and gun” attacks on “malls and embassies” here.

It was a stunning development, appearing on the American news outlet’s website just two hours after Canada’s top security and policing officials had testified in Ottawa they had no information of any “imminent” threat to Canada.

With this week’s formal entry of Canada into the war on Islamic State operations in the Middle East — and a newly announced agreement to base Canadian warplanes in Kuwait — law enforcement and security officials in Canada scrambled as did Canadian media organizations to determine the source or validity of the report.

Later in the evening NBC scaled back its initial report, dropping the reference to threats on Canadian malls as well as to embassies.

Multiple sources told the Star Thursday the message delivered at committee was accurate — a generalized threat remains — but the NBC report was not deemed to be a legitimate specific threat.

Still, Conservative MP and public safety committee chairman Daryl Kramp used it during question period as fodder to prompt Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney into a blanket warning that more powers are needed.

“Our national security agencies are constantly reviewing the threat to our country and taking action to keep Canadians safe,” Blaney said.

In French, he added he wouldn’t comment further, but said it’s “clear the Islamist terrorist threat is a serious one and we must remain vigilant.”

In Whitby, Prime Minister Stephen Harper weighed in when asked what kind of threat is posed to Canada by the scores of Islamic State supporters identified by national security agencies here.

“I’m not going to speculate on specific threats other than to just say this all should remind us that these threats are very, very real. We have an organization . . . in the form of this Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant — what we call ISIL — that is not only now present over a vast range of territory in both Iraq and Syria, flying its flag and openly promoting the concept of international jihad, that is international terrorism, against targets across the world including targets in this country and that’s why we’re acting responsibly with our allies to deal with that.” Harper said.

He repeated his promise of new legal measures to boost the ability of security officials to monitor threats and where appropriate charge people.

Opposition critics suggested Thursday the Conservative government may be either inflaming sentiments or relying on bad information.

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NDP MP Craig Scott said “the biggest issue here is how in the course of a couple of hours the minister of public safety could not have been up to date to say, ‘Oh, by the way, the information that’s making its rounds and capturing the attention in Canada is inaccurate.’ He wasn’t told that. Let’s just assume he wasn’t told that. That’s what we should be scared of.”

Liberal MP Wayne Easter said the government’s tactics, which included repeated attacks this week on Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s 2011 attendance at a mosque in his riding, one later identified in a U.S. intelligence report as having been a hotbed of extremist talk in the 1990s, were designed to stoke public opinion.

“What bothers me the most is on the one hand, they seem to be trying to increase the fear factor and on the other, inflame hatred through the mosque questions,” Easter said.

Former CSIS assistant director Ray Boisvert said the NBC report was “walked back” by the network itself. He said there is no value for the government to get into specifics of threats, “but I just don’t think this is the one that’s keeping them up at night.”

“There are plots, I have no doubts, and there are some serious ones brewing, and I suspect there are some serious ones in Canada, there’s just no reason for me to think this is one of them.”

On Wednesday, CSIS director Michel Coulombe told the Commons committee that Kramp chairs that: “we have no information indicating an imminent attack but we have to remain vigilant. The threat is real.”

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