It's hard for me to buy into this situation for a number of reasons.
First of all we have the cry wolf situation. TV, papers, movies, politicians etc: Terrorism! Terrorism! Terrorism!
2) More specifically, these terrorists were set up. The police sold the materials to them leading me to believe they were more or less encouraged to do what they did.
3) Items shown by the police were also set up. There was a bag of fertilizer as a piece of evidence, the problem being that the fertilizer was not from the terrorists. It was put there to show to the media by the police however, they failed to inform anyone that what they were seeing was not actually from the terrorists. This is an elaborate PR stunt. Those images are placed in people’s heads, and they think "holy shit".
4) The police also said that the internet was a vital part in capturing the suspects. This paves the way for increased monitoring and regulation of the internet. And if you don't think governments or companies would want to monitor the internet, you might want to think again.
The most disturbing thing I saw was when I was browsing
http://www.calgarysun.com
On the front page of the paper it says "Be on Guard" in huge type further increasing the propaganda.
And obviously it worked because if you look at the poll on the page:
Would you be willing to give up some of your civil liberties in the interest of fighting terrorism in Canada?
Yes 54%
No 46%
We also see the result of this. Mosques in Toronto being vandalized and middle eastern people being abused verbally. People become suspicious of each other and are encouraged to guard against terrorism in their daily lives.
I see this as a convenient ploy to guild the voting public to secure Mr. Harpers majority. It's the same technique used by Bush, Howard and Blair. It's nothing new. There will be an election in Canada soon, as Harper has already stated, and he wants the citizens of this country to ask him to protect them from all the bad things out there. And it will work.