On Monday, a 27-year old man -- born in Montreal to Somalian immigrant parents -- attacked and stabbed several members of the Canadian military in a Toronto recruiting center.

The attacker now faces a total of nine charges, including three counts of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated assault, three counts of assault with a weapon, and one count for possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

During the attack, Toronto police confirm that the individual called out “Allah told me to do this. Allah told me to come here and kill people.”

However, at a press conference discussing the attack, Toronto police chief Mark Saunders told his audience the following: “Don't go to that Islamophobic nonsense.”

Given how the attacker invoked “Allah” in the cause of attempting to kill Canadian soldiers, the case is clearly one of Islamic terrorism.

While the Canadian media is, in its typical politically-correct manner, treating Saunders' unprofessional comments about “Islamophobic nonsense” with kid gloves, the police chief's off-the-cuff public statements in an official capacity warrant his immediate dismissal from a leadership role.

The Canadian public is rightly concerned about acts of Islamic terrorism on its soil, and -- in this case -- there is reliable evidence that the attacker himself sought to communicate to others around him at the time of the attack that the attempted murder was being done in the name of Islam.

For the police chief of Canada's largest city to ridicule such associations as “Islamophobic nonsense” demonstrates a clear bias against, and a failure to display adequate sensitivity to, valid public concerns on a core national security issue, thereby undermining public confidence in his ability to protect the public from further attacks motivated by the Islamic faith.

If Saunders offers a public apology and an immediate resignation as police chief, he should be allowed to continue in a lesser nonleadership capacity within the force. However, if he refuses to display remorse for his ill-advised “Islamophobic nonsense” comments in a timely fashion, his employment in the Canadian public-sector police service should be terminated in its entirety.