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Vancouver Sun
3 days ago
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
From hotels, to wine and candy: Canada spent $170K to bring back women who joined Islamic State
The federal government spent more than $170,000 to bring Canadian women and their children back to the country after they went overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, documents show. As first reported by Global News , the documents, which were released under access to information legislation, contain details of the costs incurred when eight women, along with their children, were brought home from Syria. They include costs for business class air travel and hotel bills in Montreal that include wine, candy and chocolates. A number of the women have since been charged with terrorism offences. On Friday, the Conservatives called for an investigation into the expenditures in a letter addressed to Jean-Yves Duclos, the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Global News reported. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'With Canadians lining up in food banks in record numbers and struggling with housing costs, the Liberal government must answer for why they spent $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals,' the letter reportedly says. The Conservative party did not respond by press time to National Post's request for comment. The first round of repatriations, completed in October 2022, cost $10,863, according to the documents from Global Affairs Canada. Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned to the country in that operation. Polman is facing terrorism charges and Chouay pleaded guilty last month to one charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group . The second operation, which occurred in April 2023, cost $132,746 in expenses for government staff and those returned to Canada. Not all the expenses are detailed in the documents, but the total cost includes $20,331 for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott hotel at the Montreal Airport, including room-service bills and a catering tab of nearly $3,000. At the time, four Canadian women — three of whom were arrested upon arrival — and their 10 children were returned to Canada, The Canadian Press reported . Among that group was Edmontonian Aimee Lucia Vasconez, who was married to two different ISIS fighters, according to an affidavit filed in court by an RCMP officer. Another, Ammara Amjad, was also arrested and faces a terrorism charge . Individual bills show that one room cost nearly $1,100, driven up from the original room cost of $638 by purchases of $95 worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87 worth of items from the hotel gift store, including chocolate, chips and drugs such as Benadryl and Reactine. That same room tipped $7 on an $8 coffee. Another room ordered $15 worth of children's ice cream, and a third ordered white, red and sparkling wine at $25 apiece. One room's food bill included two $24 smoked meat dishes. The third repatriation operation, done in early July 2023, cost more than $27,500 and saw a government of Canada employee purchase snacks, including goldfish and granola bars, from Costco, and Timbits from Tim Hortons, for the operation. Hotel rooms in Montreal cost a bit more than $2,300. Two Edmonton women, Dina Kalouti and Helena Carson, were among that group. Both have been sentenced to six-month peace bonds and they are required to continue counselling with the Edmonton-based Organization for the Prevention of Violence (OPV), which provides programming for people seeking to leave extremist groups. The documents redact a number of details, and 50 pages were not released, as they are under consultation. The documents do not appear to account for the costs of actually flying to Syria to get the women from detention camps; they include only the costs of transferring them within Canada. Global Affairs Canada did not respond to National Post's requests for comment by press time. A number of Canadian women travelled to the Middle East when the Islamic State seized territory in Iraq and Syria more than a decade ago. However, the terrorist group lost much of its territory, and Canadians who had been living and fighting with the Islamic State were held in detention camps. This led to a major push, particularly from the United States, to have nations repatriate their citizens who were held in Syria. In 2023 alone, the U.S. state department reported under then U.S. president Joe Biden, 14 countries — Canada among them — repatriated 3,500 citizens from where they were detained. Overall, the administration reported that nearly 7,000 family members of foreign fighters had been repatriated by 30 countries. The U.S. bureau of counterterrorism warned in December 2023 that more than half of those held in camps were under the age of 12 and if they remained, they would become vulnerable to ISIS recruitment, perhaps fuelling a resurgence of the terrorist group. — With addition reporting by the Edmonton Journal and The Canadian Press Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .
Edmonton Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- Edmonton Journal
From hotels, to wine and candy: Canada spent $170K to bring back women who joined Islamic State
The federal government spent more than $170,000 to bring Canadian women and their children back to the country after they went overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, documents show. Article content As first reported by Global News, the documents, which were released under access to information legislation, contain details of the costs incurred when eight women, along with their children, were brought home from Syria. They include costs for business class air travel and hotel bills in Montreal that include wine, candy and chocolates. A number of the women have since been charged with terrorism offences. Article content Article content Article content On Friday, the Conservatives called for an investigation into the expenditures in a letter addressed to Jean-Yves Duclos, the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Global News reported. Article content Article content The first round of repatriations, completed in October 2022, cost $10,863, according to the documents from Global Affairs Canada. Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned to the country in that operation. Polman is facing terrorism charges and Chouay pleaded guilty last month to one charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. Article content Article content The second operation, which occurred in April 2023, cost $132,746 in expenses for government staff and those returned to Canada. Article content Article content Not all the expenses are detailed in the documents, but the total cost includes $20,331 for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott hotel at the Montreal Airport, including room-service bills and a catering tab of nearly $3,000. At the time, four Canadian women — three of whom were arrested upon arrival — and their 10 children were returned to Canada, The Canadian Press reported. Article content Individual bills show that one room cost nearly $1,100, driven up from the original room cost of $638 by purchases of $95 worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87 worth of items from the hotel gift store, including chocolate, chips and drugs such as Benadryl and Reactine.
Calgary Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
From hotels, to wine and candy: Canada spent $170K to bring back women who joined Islamic State
Article content The federal government spent more than $170,000 to bring Canadian women and their children back to the country after they went overseas to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, documents show. Article content As first reported by Global News, the documents, which were released under access to information legislation, contain details of the costs incurred when eight women, along with their children, were brought home from Syria. They include costs for business class air travel and hotel bills in Montreal that include wine, candy and chocolates. A number of the women have since been charged with terrorism offences. Article content Article content Article content On Friday, the Conservatives called for an investigation into the expenditures in a letter addressed to Jean-Yves Duclos, the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Global News reported. Article content Article content 'With Canadians lining up in food banks in record numbers and struggling with housing costs, the Liberal government must answer for why they spent $170,000 on lavish costs to repatriate reported ISIS criminals,' the letter reportedly says. Article content The first round of repatriations, completed in October 2022, cost $10,863, according to the documents from Global Affairs Canada. Canadians Kimberly Polman and Oumaima Chouay were returned to the country in that operation. Polman is facing terrorism charges and Chouay pleaded guilty last month to one charge of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. Article content Article content The second operation, which occurred in April 2023, cost $132,746 in expenses for government staff and those returned to Canada. Article content Article content Not all the expenses are detailed in the documents, but the total cost includes $20,331 for 23 hotel rooms at the Marriott hotel at the Montreal Airport, including room-service bills and a catering tab of nearly $3,000. At the time, four Canadian women — three of whom were arrested upon arrival — and their 10 children were returned to Canada, The Canadian Press reported. Article content Individual bills show that one room cost nearly $1,100, driven up from the original room cost of $638 by purchases of $95 worth of wine, a $105 room-service meal and $87 worth of items from the hotel gift store, including chocolate, chips and drugs such as Benadryl and Reactine.
CBC
22-07-2025
- CBC
Montreal woman who joined ISIS as a teen convicted of aiding a terrorist group
Social Sharing Oumaima Chouay, who fled her home in Montreal nearly a decade ago to join ISIS in Syria, is the first person in Canada convicted for providing family support to a terrorist entity as a spouse. Chouay was sentenced Monday to one day of custody, in addition to the 110 days she served in pretrial detention, according to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC). The 29-year-old also received a three-year probation order. The sentence was a joint recommendation from the Crown prosecution and Chouay's lawyer, Dominique Shoofey. PPSC director George Dolhai said in a statement that the sentence reflected the steps "Ms. Chouay has taken to demonstrate remorse, take responsibility, commit to fundamental change and a rejection of extremist ideology." Reached by phone Monday evening, Shoofey declined a request for an interview. Chouay was one of several Canadian women repatriated by Global Affairs in 2022 from two detention camps in northern Syria for the wives and children of ISIS fighters. She and another other woman, Kimberly Polman, who lives in British Columbia, were arrested by the RCMP as soon as they disembarked from their respective planes. Polman is awaiting trial for a charge of leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group, and one of participating in the activity of a terrorist group. Chouay was accompanied at the time by her two daughters, now aged nine and seven, who were born in Syria, according to La Presse. Facing justice in Canada Chouay's sentencing marks the end of a more than 10-year ordeal outlined in an agreed statement of facts filed in court. According to the statement, as a teenager, Chouay travelled to Syria to join ISIS, "knowing that her expected role would include marrying an ISIS fighter and raising children under the ISIS doctrine." She is not believed to have participated directly in terrorist activities or combat. After arriving back in Canada, Chouay underwent "depolarization therapy" and has been evaluated with a "very low" risk of recidivism. The RCMP determined she does not pose a significant risk to society. "At least she's not dying in a detention camp in Syria," said Lawrence Greenspon, an Ottawa defence lawyer who advocated for the repatriation of six Canadian women and 23 children held in Syrian detention camps, including Chouay and her daughters. "She's faced justice here in Canada as it should be." WATCH | Holding Canadians in Syria 'contrary to human rights,' lawyer says: 'It's just not Canadian to let these people rot over there': lawyer 3 years ago 'It is totally contrary to human rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, international covenants to which Canada has been a signatory and it's just not Canadian to let these people rot over there,' said lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who is representing 23 Canadian men, women and children who are being held in ISIS detention camps in northeastern Syria. Greenspon looked into their plight after the Toronto relatives of an orphan held at one of the camps reached out to him over five years ago. He won a case forcing Global Affairs to bring the child, known as Amira, to Canada, calling it "the thin edge of the wedge" that eventually led another Federal Court judge to order the women in detention to be repatriated as well. Few of them faced charges due to difficulties in obtaining evidence, or a lack of evidence that they had committed terrorism-related offences — all the more reason, Greenspon said, to bring them back to Canada. Greenspon kept in touch with that first family for a while, chatting over the phone with the child who was learning English. The lawyer cited a Jewish teaching that "if you save the life of one person, it's as if you saved the lives of so many."
