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Driver was shot dead by police in Strathroy, Ont., last August while leaving his home to conduct a suicide bombing he said was for the ISIL cause. He was subject to a peace bond at the time.

In an appearance before the Senate security and defence committee, Paulson said police needed “a mechanism to be able to validate” that extremists were obeying the restrictions placed on them.

“In other words, it’s nice to be able to say ‘Don’t use the computer.’ But if you can’t go in and check whether he’s using the computer, then we’re back to square one,” the commissioner said.

According to a court document, Gonyou-McLean was allegedly found at a downtown Ottawa apartment in “possession and control” of a computer with Internet access.

Police have gone to the courts for terrorism peace bonds 19 times in the past two years. Paulson said they were a “valid strategy” in cases where police lacked the evidence to lay terrorism charges.

But he said “we have to be, as a police force, smarter in how we manage these peace bonds,” which he said were “simply one tool in the box that we use and we’ve used increasingly to effect.”

“How does the state force the individual into some process by which his or her radicalized state gets examined and managed?” the commissioner asked the Senate committee.

Gonyou-McLean, whose father was in the Canadian military, has struggled with drug use and mental health issues, according to his family. Since his conversion in March 2015, he has voiced extremist views about Canada.

Following his arrest on Aug. 12 for what police said was a threat to avenge the killing of Driver, he repeatedly breached his release conditions but told the judge at his peace bond hearing he would obey them.

National Post

Email:sbell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: @StewartBellNP