Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi is surrounded by heavy police security as he exits court on Oct. 31, 2022, in Amritsar, India. Canada listed the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity in September, 2025.

Published January 2, 2026

A formal review of Canada’s processes for designating terrorist groups is needed, say national security experts, warning that recent decisions to list organized crime groups could distract counterterrorism officials from their core work of preventing mass attacks.

Law experts further warn that any findings of a lack of rigour in Canada’s listing process could potentially expose the entire federal Anti-Terrorism Act to significant court battles.

Created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Public Safety Canada’s designated list initially included mostly Islamist extremist groups such as al-Qaeda. Over the past five years, federal cabinet ministers responsible for the list have also added several violent white-supremacist groups and nihilistic online entities.

Then, in 2025,Canadian notions of what is legally considered terrorism appeared to change. On Feb. 20, both Canada and the United States designated the same seven drug cartels,predominantly from Mexico, as terrorist entities. U.S. President Donald Trump had just returned to office and was mounting a trade war against Canada, citing unsubstantiated allegations that fentanyl was flowing into his country over its northern border.

In October, Ottawa listed the India-based Bishnoi Gang after regional politicians, including Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, pressed the federal government to take this step. Mr. Brown said in an interview that he did this hoping such a listing might curb the group’s alleged violent extortion rackets within Canada’s South Asian communities.

The federal government’s power to designate an entity as a terrorist organization under the Criminal Code is a significant measure. In Canada, it gives banks the power to immediately seize a group’s assets. Listings can also encourage law-enforcement, intelligence and border agencies to redirect resources, launch probes or step up scrutiny of suspected members.

Experts say, however, that there has been little public explanation from officials in Ottawa as to precisely why they appear to be altering a national-security power in order to take aim at organized-crime groups.

“I am concerned that it has become what I would call ‘vibes-based policy,’ as opposed to the process that has traditionally existed,” says Carleton University professor Stephanie Carvin, who specializes in national-security issues.

Intelligence watchdogs in Ottawa should scrutinize the federal government’s most recent listings of terrorist groups, Prof. Carvin said. “This does, at the end of the day, still need to be an evidence-based process,” she said. “What those review bodies are good at is pointing out is where there’s a lack of standards.”

Brian Phillips, a former U.S. Marine who teaches security at the University of Essex in England, said that expansions of the legal definition of terrorism can have unpredictable, or even dangerous, consequences.

“If Canada loses its focus on more traditional terrorists, like Islamist terrorists or white supremacists, this could have serious implications for Canada’s national security,” he said.

Prof. Phillips said in an interview that counterterrorism measures are often ineffective against crime gangs. He added that Canada’s cartel-listing measure appears to have been purely intended to ward off the Trump administration’s tariff threats.

Along with Britain, New Zealand and Australia, Canada and the United States are part of what’s known as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – an exceptionally close security partnership forged after the Second World War. However, Canada and the U.S. are the only two countries in this group to have designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.

Government officials in Ottawa say that the new designations of organized-crime groups are justified. “The decision to list an entity under the Criminal Code follows a rigorous, evidence-based process,” said Simon Lafortune, spokesman for Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree.

“Public statements accompanying listings are necessarily limited in detail due to national security and privacy considerations,” he added.

The February decision to list seven drug cartels, including the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, was made under then-prime-minister Justin Trudeau. The public safety minister at the time, David McGuinty, issued a statement alleging these cartels “facilitate terrorist activity by taking hostages, attacking civilian and critical infrastructure, and working to diminish the ability of local governments.”

Mr.Anandasangaree issued a statement in October saying he was designating India’s Bishnoi Gang because it “generates terror through extortion and intimidation.”

One independent watchdog that has the power to review the federal government’s counterterrorism measures is the National Security Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA).

“Terrorism listing is not something that we’ve scrutinized thus far,” said Craig Forcese, NSIRA’s vice-chair. In an interview, he said that while his agency has the mandate to look at Public Safety’s designated list, it is struggling with a substantial workload and looming budget cuts.

Michael Nesbitt, a law professor at the University of Calgary, says it is important that politicians adhere to the strictures surrounding the listing process.

One reason for that is because the list is an important thread in the overall fabric of the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, a broader statute passed in 2001 that enables a variety of criminal, border and intelligence actions today.

The listing process “is now very vulnerable to constitutional challenge, which I think should be a huge national security concern,” Prof. Nesbitt said.

He explained that courts would start to ask hard questions if a cartel member ever appeared in a Canadian court to try to reclaim a seized asset or to fight a terrorism charge.

If that happened, the government would be forced to try to prove its anti-terrorism actions are reasonable and constitutional, Prof. Nesbitt said. And if it could not, then “you’re left with a civil-liberties concern that groups are being listed based on political imperatives.”

Security officials in Ottawa say they are assessing the changes to the terrorism list.

“Assets have been seized as a part of investigations into listed entities,” said Marie-Eve Breton, an RCMP spokeswoman. She said federal officials are assessing how the listing of transnational organized crime groups will affect enforcement.

Public Safety Canada spokesman Max Watson said that it is a legal prerequisite that any group that is on the list must be found to have carried out “terrorist activities, as defined by Canada’s Criminal Code.” He said federal Justice Department lawyers independently review listings to ensure they meet this threshold.

Ottawa added 12 new groups to the designated list in 2025, which now comprises 90 entities.