RCMP asks for help handling troubling number of kids radicalizing online
CBC
When RCMP Supt. Jean-Guy Isaya first started as a police officer 20 years ago, school outreach involved drug safety programs.
Now the Mountie says there's a growing need to talk to kids about violent extremism.
"We believe that young people and minors pose the same threat as adults," said Isaya, who works in the RCMP's national security team.
"This trend is certainly continuing and it doesn't seem to want to disappear."
It's why the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, along with other Five Eyes intelligence and law enforcement agencies, put out a report earlier this month warning about the rising prominence of young people who are attracted to violent ideologies.
The Five Eyes alliance, which includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, warns that minors are particularly vulnerable to online radicalization. Extremist recruiters can turn innocuous social media and gaming platforms like Discord, Instagram, Roblox and TikTok into breeding grounds of hate.
Isaya said kids as young as 12 are being drawn to a "buffet of ideology" including religious fundamentalism and white supremacy.
The alliance said it was putting out the report in the hope younger people can be diverted before the threat becomes so grave that law enforcement and security agencies need to act. The report is meant as an SOS to governments, social services, health-care workers and educators.
Police have already had to intervene.
A year ago, the RCMP charged a 15-year-old Ottawa boy for allegedly plotting a terrorist attack against Jewish people. Another young person has been charged as a co-conspirator in that case.
In August, Mounties charged a youth from the Greater Toronto Area with alleged ties to a terrorist group. Police provided no details of what the accused was trying to do.
David O'Brien, director of mental health at Yorktown Family Services, is working to stop headlines like that.
He said his clinic is dealing with a "significant" and "worrisome" increase in the number of tweens, teens and young adults who are harbouring hateful views — some even plotting attacks.
"Especially coming out of the pandemic, where lots of children and youth spent most of their time online," he said. "I think we're seeing the consequences of that."
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