LONG BEFORE ALL the publicity concerning the $-billion-plus security measures for this weekend’s G8 and G20 summits, we witnessed far too many examples of conduct that’s antithetical to Canadian traditions.

Only last week we got the report by John Major on the failed investigation of Sikh terrorists living in Canada who were responsible for the bombing of an Air India jetliner 25 years ago that took 329 lives.

Days earlier, we saw in Brampton the appropriate sentencing to life and 18 years of parole ineligibility of a Muslim father and brother in the “honour killing” of a 16-year-old Mississauga schoolgirl who had rebelled against her family’s traditions in favour of Western garb and Western ways.

And even today we await the trials of the final two among the “Toronto 18,” some of whom actively contemplated blowing up Canadian landmarks and storming Parliament as a show of support for Afghanistan’s Taliban terrorists.

Clearly, the common theme in all this is the presence in Canada of relatively recent immigrants who refuse to adopt traditional Canadian values and our way of life.

Part of the problem may lie in our refusal to adopt the “melting pot” theory embraced in the United States in favour of the concept of a “Canadian mosaic,” in which immigrants are encouraged to keep their traditions.

However, a significant part may lie in the failure of our current immigration policies to screen out potential troublemakers.

As we see it, any would-be immigrant should be required not only to read literature on what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour in Canada, but to submit to grillings on the subject, supported by lie detectors. (And yes, admittedly polygraphs aren’t reliable enough to be used in our criminal justice system. But they would still be a useful tool in this context.)

Certainly, Mr. Major’s far-ranging report provides a much-deserved rebuke to those who obtusely treated what he termed “a Canadian atrocity” as merely an offshore “Indian” affair.

Among other things, the report outlined the “error, incompetence and inattention” of Canada’s police and security services, whose turf wars had not only sealed Air India’s fate but led to them bungling the investigation and prosecution. Throughout, they had refused to share information, failed to see the danger of Sikh extremism and were complacent about air security.

Of more concern is the former Supreme Court of Canada judge’s conclusion that even today gaps and shortcomings exist that continue to erode security. He says the federal government still fails “to recognize what went wrong, why, and what should be done today,” and calls for better co-operation between the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other federal agencies.

Clearly, there is much to be said for his chief recommendation, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s national security adviser, Marie-Lucie Morin, oversee the security services, by supervising and co-ordinating their activities and resolving any disputes.

Similarly, most will applaud the report’s call for Ottawa’s appointment of a dedicated Director of Terrorism Prosecutions, a streamlining of court process in terror cases and improved witness protection.

However, we think that in the long run the best way of preventing “homegrown” terrorism will be to find appropriate means of convincing a lot more Canadians that it has no place in our society.

In the circumstances, it’s interesting to note the various groups listed in last Saturday’s Toronto Sun as expected to be among those demonstrating during the G20 summit in Toronto.

The list included such diverse groups as the “Black Bloc,” self-described anarchists who were last seen at the Vancouver Olympics, and the Zeitgeist movement, described as holding to beliefs that modern economics is a fraud, global debt will crush us and that in a futuristic society computers will control the world.

However, the protesters were also expected to include groups and concerns foreign to most Canadians, whose demonstrations are to be directed against the attendance of foreign dictators such as Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

If nothing else, the massive security arrangements, that will turn downtown Toronto into an armed camp, should underscore the need for public education on the importance of our traditional values.

It will perhaps never be known whether those security measures, including a truly massive police presence, were all needed, and whether a university setting, with strict limits on attendance, would have eliminated the need for most of them.

However, the fact that those in charge saw such measures as necessary is surely an indication that far too many Canadians have little or no belief in law and order, let alone traditional Canadian beliefs, one of which has been in the need for protests to be peaceful.