Canada says it will move soon on tough anti-terrorism legislation

Canada will introduce tough anti-terrorism legislation soon that could include measures designed to preempt attacks and limit speech that might incite violence, the country's justice minister said on Friday.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the moves, which come after the killing of two soldiers this week, will go beyond measures in a bill the government was already working on. That bill was set to strengthen the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), enhancing the spy agency's ability to track terrorists when they travel abroad, and ultimately leading to their prosecution.

"We want to build on those elements of the Criminal Code that allow for preemptive action, specifically in the area of terrorism, but not to rule out areas in which we think we can prevent crime," MacKay told a news conference.

Canada was jolted by a fatal hit-and-run attack on a soldier in Quebec on Monday and by the shooting death of a second soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday.

The CSIS bill had been ready to go days ago, and MacKay signaled the government would probably proceed with the bill with some changes to make it stronger in light of the attacks. He said he did not think the government would turn it into an omnibus bill, suggesting other legislation would be needed to deal with other aspects, but he added he was not ruling anything out.

"This isn't just specific to one of our security services," he said. "This applies to our ability to give the police the tools that they need to track certain activity and our system's ability to respond appropriately in a preventative, preemptive way."

He said the government was looking at British laws against encouraging terrorism as "the UK and other countries do have more specific legislative responses to the incitement of hatred and violence."

Such measures are particularly important in light of increasing online activity, he said.

"Young people are particularly vulnerable," MacKay said. "We know that some of the radicalization that contributes to violence is happening very much on that venue, so we're examining that closely and we'll have more to say about that in the coming days."

(Additional reporting Randall Palmer and David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson; and Peter Galloway)