Melanie Phillips makes a point that applies to Britain, Canada and beyond: “With few exceptions, politicians, Whitehall officials, senior police and intelligence officers and academic experts have failed to grasp that the problem to be confronted is not just the assembly of bombs and poison factories but what is going on inside people’s heads that drives them to such acts.” These are not Pushtun yak herders straight off the boat blowing up trains and buses. They’re young men, most of whom were born and all of whom were bred in London, Toronto and other Western cities. And offered the nullity of a contemporary multicultural identity they looked elsewhere — and found the jihad. If we try to fight it as isolated outbreaks — a suicide attack here, a beheading there — we will never win. You have to take on the ideology and the networks that sustain it and throttle them. Does [Toronto mayor] David Miller sound like a man who’s up to that challenge? A reader in Quebec, John Gross, emailed me to distill the mayor’s approach as: “Don’t get mad, get even . . . wimpier.”
Despite the delusions of many Canadians, being “nice” will not save Canada.