Imagine the following scenario. The weather outside is awful. It has been snowing for three days now and a lot of the white stuff has accumulated on the ground. In addition, the temperatures have hovered around zero (Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit) so there is a real risk of ice on the roads. Every TV station, […]
Author: Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. Phil is a 32-year veteran of CSE and CSIS and the author of six books on terrorism.
When you are a child your first instinct is to hit back at others who have hit you or with whom you are frustrated (I see this a bit with my 19-month old grandson). We have to be taught not to lash out at others – in other words to resist our natural reactions. This […]
I am not a “I told you so” kinda guy. I have been wrong enough times in my life, even as an intelligence analyst, to know that thinking I am always right is not a good strategy. Not too mention annoyingly arrogant. Still, I want to return to the attack on Yonge Street in Toronto […]
As I continue to read and hear more about yesterday’s horrific terrorist attacks across Sri Lanka I find I am left with more questions than answers. I am supposed to be a terrorism ‘expert’ – how I dislike that term since it appears that just about everyone (and everything, including my dead cat) seems to […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 15, 2019 As all Canadians know, our country has a longstanding relationship with Afghanistan. In the aftermath of 9/11 the government decided to send our military, first special forces, then regular troops, to engage in what began as counter terrorism (CT) and ended as a combination […]
If there is one nation that for many of us evoked the spectre of terrorism at one time in recent history it could be Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist organisation that fought what it saw as egregious Sinhalese domination in the country (most Sri Lankans – 67% – are […]
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The terrorist who took his time
If you are really seized with an issue – and I mean really, really burning with zeal and a desire to right a perceived wrong – would you not want to put your commitment to the test as soon as you could? Would you not want to show the world that what you fervently believe […]
For this blog I had to consult my eldest daughter, who is a Carleton University journalism grad. I wanted to confirm, as I had suspected, that those who write articles are not necessarily the same ones who write headlines. She also added that when it came to online news stories headlines are constructed to garner […]
There are times I read something and stop suddenly, asking myself “did I read that right?”, or “did I somehow get the message wrong?” Perhaps I skipped over the text and missed some detail (like yesterday when I thought I had a conference call that day which is actually taking place May 1). Maybe I […]
Last week a devastating fire broke out in the popular Byward Market area of Ottawa and caused significant damage to several restaurants, including one of my favourites. The fire took hours to get under control in part due to the connectedness of the structure and the fact that some of the buildings date back to […]