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Most westerners, including almost all Canadians, still have not begun to understand that they and their way of life are under attack by a lethal army of kamikazes who are convinced they are doing God’s work and that they will soon have a hallowed place in paradise. Governments in Europe are more seized with the threat posed by extremists than the public, but there has not yet been much impetus for the Canadian government to combat this growing peril.

One need only to have listened to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tepid response to the multiple terrorist attacks carried out in Paris late last year and his decision to withdraw Canada’s thin combat contribution to the war against ISIL to understand that he does not regard Canadians as being in danger. His response was natural, given that Canada is a sleepy hollow and that Canadians have no idea what it is like to live in a city under what Belgian authorities said Tuesday was “the highest state of alert.”

Canada is not immune. About 100 Canadians are believed be fighting under ISIL’s flag in Iraq and Syria.

Aid workers from Quebec have been killed recently in terrorist strikes in Africa. A mining executive from Alberta has been kidnapped and is being held hostage by an Islamic group in the southern Philippines. There have been two terrorist attacks inspired by Islamic State on Canadian soil already. Several others have been thwarted.

The worst part of it is that nobody has any idea how many sleeper cells are out there. But with almost every street, bus stop and shopping centre a soft target, with travel so easy today, and so many potential terrorists carrying western passports and familiar with western ways, it is almost impossible to track all these people at once, especially when they disappear into flourishing Arab communities.