Yes,  there does appear to have been a major surge in Islamist terrorist attacks in 2014 and 2015. For example, the 2015 massacre at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo drew understandable, world-wide revulsion. Certainly this murderous attack would seem to offer a more reasonable explanation for the apparent spike in hate crimes against Muslims in Canada in 2015 than Harper's niqab and "barbaric cultural practices" initiatives.  One wonders why the columnist failed to mention it. Was it simply because it failed to support her highly questionable narrative?