By Ashley Carver
Abstract
In the wake of 9/11, many nations, including Canada, sought to modernize domestic anti-terrorism legislation. Perhaps the most challenging for legislators was to legally define terrorism. This topic is not completely unfamiliar territory to academics who have been debating the definition of terrorism for decades. For the Canadian government, on the other hand, this was new and uncharted territory. It is unclear, however, if academic voices, particularly critical voices, played any role in the development of the government’s new definition of terrorism enshrined in the Anti-terrorism Act (2001). In order to measure the influence that critical academics had in this time of crisis, this paper will seek to distinguish Critical Terrorism Studies from Orthodox Terrorism Studies and then attempt to identify whether either or both perspectives were present at legislative hearings and which voices were successful at influencing legislators.