Christianne Boudreau, seen at her former home in 2014 in Calgary, has moved with her teenaged son to France.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
A Calgary woman whose son was killed while fighting for the Islamic State in Syria has left Canada, saying she was labelled "the mother of a terrorist" and unable to find full-time work.
Christianne Boudreau said she moved to France two months ago, hoping to escape what she called the stigma linked to the activities of her oldest son, Damian Clairmont, 22. His reported death in January, 2014, prompted Ms. Boudreau to ask questions in hopes of understanding his slow slide into extremism. She has done multiple media interviews and spoken with researchers delving into radicalization.
She also needs to work again to pay the bills that piled up during her bereavement. In search of a full-time job, Ms. Boudreau said she was met with a recurring theme: She would call for an interview and leave her name, only to be told there was nothing available – a possibility given Alberta's slumping economy. But when she did secure an interview, she was told hours later that the company had changed its mind.
Ms. Boudreau hired a headhunter to find her work in Calgary and elsewhere across the country, but the results were no better.
"The headhunter told me it was because I was seen as the mother of a terrorist. [Companies] would say, 'Something's come up. We'll call you back later.' They'd be, 'Yes, we know who you are. We've heard you on the radio,'" Ms. Boudreau said. "I never went through anger with that. I think it was more fear and frustration, not knowing where to turn next."
What did happen was most unexpected. Ms. Boudreau was contacted by Eileen Thalenberg, a writer/director at Stormy Nights Productions in Toronto. She was looking to do a documentary on how young Canadians were being recruited to renounce their heritage and take up arms with the Islamic State or other smaller militant groups. In the pursuit of her story, Ms. Thalenberg looked to the families for answers. The only person who would talk was Ms. Boudreau, who is a central figure in an upcoming television documentary called A Jihadi in the Family. It airs Thursday night on CBC's Firsthand.
"I started looking at questions: How vulnerable are we? What are we talking about, the number of kids going over there?" Ms. Thalenberg said. "And I went and looked at who I could speak to in terms of families, and nobody would speak to me, except Christianne. She is the only Canadian from the families who has spoken out about their kids going overseas."
Amarnath Amarasingam, a University of Waterloo social scientist specializing in terrorism and radicalization, was asked about Ms. Boudreau's willingness to fight for answers concerning her son's death. "I think it's fairly typical … in terms of what all mothers are going though," he said. "What's not typical is a mother of a white convert being as involved as Chris. There are mothers who don't talk to journalists. They stay quiet because they have other kids and they don't want to be found."
It's not known exactly how many young Canadians have left the country to immerse themselves in militant groups such as the Islamic State. But Michel Coulombe, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told The Globe and Mail last month that Canada's spy agencies estimate about 180 Canadians are involved in "threat-related activities" with terrorist organizations overseas. "In Iraq and Syria, we are probably talking close to 100."
Dr. Amarasingam said that in Alberta, he knows of 14 or 15 from Calgary, and seven or eight from Edmonton.
In the documentary, Ms. Boudreau travels to Belgium with Dr. Amarasingam and meets other mothers whose sons left home and never returned. As one mother put it, "We just survive. We're really not alive any more." Being able to associate with those women and talk openly about their shared pain helped shape Ms. Boudreau's plan to leave Canada with her teenaged son and settle with her parents in France. For how long, she isn't sure.
What she does have are examples of why she was ready to leave Canada.
In search of a death certificate for her son, Ms. Boudreau called and left messages with her Calgary MP, Deepak Obhrai, for months. He finally listened to her story but provided no answers. At the provincial level, Ms. Boudreau was informed she could get a presumed death certificate at a cost of $8,000. Even at that price, there was no guarantee she would receive a certificate because she had no physical proof of Mr. Clairmont's death.
"I've had to take some deep breaths along the way," she said. "I was fortunate to have just received a beautiful handcrafted box from Aleppo [Syria's largest city] containing sand from there from a journalist in Italy. That's the best I have to closure of any sort."