The four men arrested by the RCMP and charged with facilitating terrorism were members of Facebook groups for enthusiasts debating and reselling tactical gear.The Canadian Press
A company selling night-vision devices says it parted ways with a Canadian soldier right after police raided his home, 18 months before he was charged this week in connection with an alleged terrorism case.
Corporal Matthew Forbes, 33, from Pont-Rouge, Que., faces 11 criminal counts, including unauthorized possession of firearms and military-grade night optical devices. The RCMP arrested him Tuesday along with three other men from the Quebec City area who were charged with facilitating terrorism.
The Mounties confirmed that the case is connected to a number of raids conducted in January, 2024, in the Quebec City area where weapons and ammunition were seized.
The company operates online under the name Northern Tactical Defense. It said in a statement on its website that it severed ties with Cpl. Forbes as a result of the 2024 police operations.
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However, archived versions of the website show that as late as March of this year, Cpl. Forbes was listed as a contact person with an e-mail address with the company name. In the frequently-asked-questions page, for example, customers who wanted to make a warranty claim were told to contact either Cpl. Forbes or Julien Thibault.
Mr. Thibault identified himself as the owner of Northern Tactical Defense when he sent The Globe and Mail an e-mail on Wednesday saying that the company followed all laws and regulations.
He did not address follow-up questions that The Globe sent Thursday, asking why Cpl. Forbes’s e-mail address was still on the website this year.
On the company’s website, the statement said it is federally incorporated as Northern Lights Instruments Inc. It did not say what role Cpl. Forbes played at the company when it says it cut ties with him after the police operation.
“Northern Lights Instruments Inc. became aware of an active law enforcement investigation involving Mr. Forbes following judicially authorized searches conducted in January 2024 at Mr. Forbes residence,” the statement said.
“Upon confirmation of his association with the matter, Mr. Forbes was promptly and permanently removed from all roles and responsibilities related to the company.”
The statement added that Northern Lights Instruments didn’t make any public comments about Cpl. Forbes until now because the company itself was not under investigation and it did not want to compromise the police probe.
According to the Quebec corporate records, Défense Tactique du Nord Inc. was registered provincially September of 2023, listing Cpl. Forbes as its president and majority shareholder, while the only other officer was Mr. Thibault, who was identified as a shareholder and vice-president. The registration also indicates that another name for the corporation was Northern Tactical Defence.
In November of 2023, Northern Lights Instruments Inc. was incorporated federally, with Mr. Thibault as its sole officer.
For its online sales of night optical devices, Northern Lights Instruments says it adopted the name Northern Tactical Defense, a slightly different spelling of the English version of Défense Tactique du Nord Inc. “It was a legacy name used temporarily for brand transition purposes only,” the statement said.
Two months after Northern Lights Instruments’ incorporation, on Jan. 9, 2024, presiding justice of the peace Nicole Martin authorized a series of search-warrant applications by the RCMP.
In the following days, local media started reporting that the police were executing searches at multiple residences in the region. The RCMP didn’t disclose the properties’ addresses.
The four accused were members of two Facebook groups for enthusiasts debating and reselling tactical gear.
On Thursday, one of the group’s administrators, Ziming Wan, who owns Opfor Night Solutions, a retailer of night-vision devices, posted that all four had been banned.
Cpl. Forbes’s lawyer, Maxime Guérin, said his client had no comments to make.
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Thursday, Defence Minister David McGuinty said extremism is not a problem unique to the Canadian Armed Forces.
“The question of extremism is something that’s throughout Canadian society. This is not something that is unknown to armed forces around the world,” Mr. McGuinty said in his first comments since the arrests.
The minister said he finds the case “deeply concerning,” but added that he couldn’t comment on whether the extremism suspects represent an anomaly in the Canadian Armed Forces.
“We reject completely this kind of behaviour, these beliefs, this system, these activities.”
The other men arrested Tuesday were Corporal Marc-Aurèle Chabot, an active Canadian Forces member, Raphaël Lagacé, a former civilian cadet instructor, and Simon Angers-Audet, a former soldier.
The RCMP alleges that the trio were conspiring to create an extremist militia and that police seized from them firearms, high-capacity magazines and military gear such as smoke grenades, laser sighting devices and night-vision goggles.
The charge sheets say that Cpl. Forbes was illegally in possession of American-made military-grade gear, including a third-generation BNVD-Fused night-vision device.
Experts told The Globe that such items cannot be sold to individuals and can only be imported from the U.S. under special licensing and approvals from American government officials.