Professors, researchers, and students from Carleton’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) played a major role in creating the Canadian Incident Database, the world’s most comprehensive database on Canadian-affiliated acts of terrorism that launched online June 13.
The project was born after Public Safety Canada and Defence Research and Development Canada put together a contract to create a public database on Canadian terrorism, in the hopes of improving national security research on the terrorism and violent extremism that have affected Canadians at home or abroad.
The Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security, and Society (TSAS) submitted a proposal. In December 2013 it was awarded the 18-month contract and $130,000 in funding.
“There’s long been an interest in [research into] national security, counter-terrorism, and issues of political and violent extremism. The problem has been that research has been stymied by a lack of data,” explained project lead James Ellis.
The Canadian Incident Database (CIDB) provides an answer to this problem. It combines information from dozens of other sources to create a comprehensive record of 1,815 incidents of terrorism and violent extremism that have occurred in Canada or abroad involving Canadians as perpetrators or targets.
Jez Littlewood, an assistant professor at NPSIA, sits on TSAS’s executive board. It is through his work with the network that Carleton became involved in the CIDB project. Littlewood sat on its advisory committee, while former NPSIA PhD student Joshua Kilberg was the project’s research lead. A number of Carleton students were also involved in its research and data coding.
Significantly, the CIDB describes incidents that date back to the 1960s, making it extremely comprehensive.
“It’s the most complete record of terrorism and violent extremism with a Canadian connection. It also goes back about a decade earlier than any other major national or international terrorism dataset,” Ellis said.
He explained that while most international databases go back to the 1970s, the 1960s saw a significant peak in terrorism activity in Canada. The majority of this activity can be attributed to the Sons of Freedom, a religiously motivated group active in rural BC, and separatist organizations in Quebec.
Ellis said it’s very important that the dataset is able to go back and capture these significant campaigns of terror that many Canadians are unaware of.
“One of the big lessons coming out of this database is that no single group has had a monopoly on the use of terrorism in Canada—at home or abroad. It’s used in the name of all sorts of political ideologies, all sorts of religious ideologies, ethnic identities, and national associations,” he said.
TSAS describes the database as a “living document,” and invites national security professionals, researchers, and graduate students to submit information they believe it’s missing. Kilberg is in charge of vetting these submissions.
As for who will utilize the database’s publicly accessible contents, Ellis said its user group will probably be broader than most would expect. Though its core audience will be national security researchers and government analysts, Ellis has seen travel agents, insurance agents, and mathematicians use this kind of security data in their own lines of work.
Littlewood added that in regards to the Carleton community, he imagines students, faculty, and journalists would also wish to take advantage of this wealth of free data.
