Richard Hétu | July 4, 2006 (the whole article available at www.cbc.ca) Highlights are my own.
July 7, 2020
Since Sept. 11, 2001, reliable sources have been repeating the warning: Canada, like any other industrialized Western country, is not sheltered from a large-scale terrorist attack. And yet, for nearly 20 years we have been protected, day after day, by the grace of God, CSIS or luck. Unfortunately, this state of affairs came to an end this afternoon in the Montreal metro.
[…]But will the video of the attack one day be shown on Canadian television? Tonight, broadcasters completely censored it, bending to the requests of authorities, who have promised to find and punish the person or people responsible for a leak that allowed a small-time blogger in Vermont, in the United States, to stream images of the attack over the internet. These made their way around the globe in seconds.
On their websites, Canadian news sources were forced to be content to tell the story in words and photos.
[...]Canadians of all types have certainly pointed the finger at radical Islamists, whether they've immigrated here or grown up among us. Neo-Nazi groups have gone further by burning down mosques.
Still today, authorities call for calm. Still today, the media shows restraint.
After the shock and the mourning, here is the surprise. The Tabun attack wasn't linked to Sept. 11, 2001, as we had thought, but rather to March 20, 1995. Its perpetrators are presumed to be part of a religious organization more closely resembling the Aum Shinri Kyo sect, responsible for the Sarin attack in the Tokyo subway, than Al-Qaeda, sponsor of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
[…]Like the suicide bombers, its disciples are representative of the ethnic diversity of North America. During the sect's last public declaration, less than a year ago, its leader, known as Victor I, predicted a series of spectacular events signalling the end of civilization. As usual, no one took it seriously.