Episode 235 – Why it is important to hear from former security intelligence professionals
We are inundated with ‘spy’ stories – books, films, etc. A lot of these accounts are not that tied to reality (spolier alert: most spies do not sleep with gorgeous women and kill them). Yet, the profession is an interesting one and needs to be talked about more. Borealis talks to a retired CSIS intelligence officer about his career.
About my guest
Marc Laferriere is a native Montrealer who joined CSIS as an Intelligence Officer in the late 1980s, where he worked on a variety of counterintelligence and countertereorism investigations as well as a myriad of other national security tasks, both at the working level and in management. He retired as Chief of Internal Security in Ottawa after thirty years of service to Canada. He is the author of D’Ici À Là
Upcoming book launches:
Very casual/relaxed autobiography launch sessions in Gatineau, Ottawa and in the Montreal area:
Gatineau: La Cage Plateau jeudi le 19 septembre de 1230-1330 heures et de 1830-1930heures
Ottawa: East Side Mario’s Gloucester, 1829 Ogilvie Road Friday September 20 from 1230-130pm and 300-600pm
Montréal: La Cage Spheretech à ville St-Laurent samedi le 21 septembre de 1200-1300heures et La Cage Solar à Brossard de 1930 à 2030heures
Canadian Intelligence Eh
In a world of multiple voices and opinions it can be very hard to know where to turn. One choice is to look to those who actually worked in counter-terrorism in the national security world.
In these half-hour podcasts, 30-year Canadian intelligence veteran Phil Gurski is joined by a fascinating array of individuals with something meaningful to say about these issues as they provide insight into what they mean and what we need to do about them.
About Phil Gurski
Phil worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation. From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East. He also served as senior special advisor in the National Security Directorate at Public Safety Canada from 2013, focusing on community outreach and training on radicalisation to violence, until his retirement from the civil service in May 2015, and as consultant for the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti-Terrorism Section (PATS) from May to October 2015.
He was the Director of Security and Intelligence at the SecDev Group from June 2018 to July 2019 and the Director of the National Security Programme at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute from 2020-2022. He has also taught on national security issues at George Brown College, the University of Ottawa and Georgian College. Mr. Gurski has presented on violent Islamist-inspired and other forms of terrorism and radicalisation across Canada and around the world and is actively sought by Canadian and international media on national security and intelligence issues. He has written hundreds of op-eds on these matters for several Canadian media since 2016
He writes at www.borealisthreatandrisk.com.
He is the author of The Threat from Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), The Lesser Jihads: Taking the Islamist fight to the world (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), An end to the ‘War on Terrorism (Rowman and Littlefield 2018), When Religion Kills: How Extremist Justify Violence Through Faith (Lynne Rienner 2019) and The Peaceable Kingdom? A history of terrorism in Canada from Confederation to the present (self-published: 2021, republished by Double Dagger in 2022). He regularly blogs and podcasts (Canadian Intelligence Eh!), and tweets (@borealissaves) on terrorism and intelligence matters.
