On Wednesday, the man behind the February 2020 Crown Spa attack pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder. A minor at the time, his identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Court heard the killer saw the man responsible for the deadly Toronto van attack as an “inspiration,” considered himself restless or involuntarily celibate and stabbed 24-year-old Ashley Noell Arzaga about 40 times with a serrated sword. with the term “thot-slayer” — “thot” being a derogatory term used against women. On Friday, the Crown called an expert who cannot be identified due to a publication ban. Speaking in Ontario Superior Court, the expert said incels generally have “a lot of anger and contempt for people in the sex work industry” believing they “prey on desperate men and take advantage of them for money.” The killer will now undergo a psychiatric assessment and there will be a pre-sentence report, which will take at least eight weeks to complete. The case will return to court on December 6, when a sentencing date will be set in the new year. The terrorism charges against the defendants were added in the months following the February 2020 slaying of 24-year-old Ashley Noell Arzaga, a receptionist at Crown Spa in Toronto’s west end. (CBC) The case marks the first time police in Canada have treated an allegedly inspired attack as an act of terrorism – the RCMP defines involuntary celibacy as a “violent, ideologically motivated extremist movement.” First-degree murder in Canada carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. But with charges upgraded to include terrorism in the weeks after the attack, it will be up to Judge Suhail Akhtar to determine whether that characterization should count towards sentencing.
Labeling terrorism “doesn’t help,” says former CSIS analyst
The Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act carried out “for a political, religious or ideological purpose, purpose or cause” intended to intimidate the public by causing or attempting to cause death or grievous bodily harm by violence, endangering health and safety or disrupting an essential service. Ideology is not defined in the code, meaning the Crown will now have to prove that being an incel meets the line. But for a former senior terrorism strategist in Canada’s intelligence agency, terrorism should not be considered a factor in the case. Phil Gurski, who spent 15 years at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told CBC News he disagrees with labeling crimes motivated by terrorism, saying Canada’s Criminal Code has provisions for hate-fueled violence and that prosecutors in the case could have very well pushed to prove that the act was a hate crime. “I don’t know what we gain by calling it terrorism,” Gurski told CBC News. Phil Gurski, who spent 15 years with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, tells CBC News he disagrees with the labeling of motivated crimes as terrorism. (Devin Heroux/CBC) “It’s not helpful. It doesn’t lead to anything different in terms of the Criminal Code and the sentencing provisions,” he said, noting that if the Crown succeeds in pushing for an adult sentence, the offender will face at least 25 years before being eligible for parole. That’s not likely to change even if the judge decides the act was terrorism, he says. His take on why terrorism charges were applied in this case: “It’s purely political.” In fact, the former intelligence analyst told CBC News that he now believes Canada’s terrorism laws, which came into force in December 2001, were a “knee-jerk reaction” to 9/11 and should be scrapped entirely.
“We could wipe them out tomorrow”
“Obviously, a devastating act, you know, 3,000 people killed, you know, in New York and Washington, incredibly significant,” Gursky said. But even the 1985 Air India bombings—considered the worst mass killing in Canadian history—were not prosecuted as terrorism. Neither did the bombings by the separatist Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) in the 1960s that culminated in the October 1970 crisis, he notes. Nor were terrorism charges brought in the deadly 2018 van attack, when Alec Minassian told police his actions were a mission for the incel movement, or in the killing of six men at a Quebec City mosque by Alexandre Bissonette, who had identified the Muslims as his own. target. In fact, as of 2020, all but one of the approximately 60 terrorism charges brought in the past two decades involved cases inspired by Al Qaeda or ISIS. Another was convicted against a man who was raising money for a Tamil militant group. “It’s certainly a perception that’s not fair, that the only time Cohn decides to use terrorism charges is when you happen to be Muslim. And I think that’s a fair, fair point to make.” As for previous terrorism investigations, such as the so-called Toronto 18 case in 2006, Gurski says other charges could easily have been applied. “I don’t know why they would have chosen not to charge them with conspiracy to commit murder. Maybe because it was shortly after 9/11.” Regardless, he says, expanding the definition isn’t the answer. “I don’t want to play catch up,” says Gurski. “Let’s use the term more wisely moving forward, and not throw it away willfully because we’re trying to make a point politically.” “Bottom line is we survived without terrorism laws in the past, we could eliminate them tomorrow.”
