Author: Phil Gurski

Humans like to have neat, obvious lines drawn around everything.  We do not do well with uncertainty or fuzziness.  Something is either black or it’s white.  We don’t like grey.  Once we have made a decision based on this dichotomy we stick to it and it takes a lot to change our minds. We also […]

If you had to come up with a recipe for a terrorist attack or an extremist movement what would you include? To my mind there are a number of ingredients that must be there in order for the finished product to succeed.  These are, among other things, a sense of grievance/anger, an identified target (meaning […]

This article appeared in The Hill Times on February 12, 2018 We get a peek at what security intelligence services do all too rarely in this country.  In contrast, the recent leaking of an FBI memo on the investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election is but the latest example of many on […]

I am enjoying a relaxing weekend at my brother’s house in London, Ontario, a welcome respite after a number of speaking engagements in a variety of places recently.  This is where I was born, where I grew up, where I went to school – elementary, secondary and university – and where I will always consider […]

Every year many Canadians flock to Trinidad and Tobago to escape the harsh winter climate.  In addition, there are some 70,000 Canadians of Trinidadian stock, including one of the hosts of CBC’s The National, Ian Hanomansing, and pop singer Amanda Marshall.  The ties between the two nations run deep. Alas, these ties also extend to […]

There is not a lot left to say about what happened in a Florida school yesterday on Valentines’s Day of all days. Another mass shooting, this time with at least 17 dead, in a country where mass shootings are all too common (one of my colleagues tweeted that this is the 18th school shooting in […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on February 12, 2017 http://www.hilltimes.com/2018/02/05/fine-line-hate-terrorism-murder-murder/132949   We in Canada have, thankfully, few dates that will ‘live in infamy’ to cite former US President Roosevelt in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor (9/11 would fit into this category as well).  When it comes to Canada I suppose many […]

I have, thankfully, never been on trial.  My appearances in Canadian courts have been limited to a brief stint as a court interpreter many, many years ago and my role as an expert witness in several national security certificate cases. I have never been charged with an offence for which I would find myself before […]

I am a parent (and now even a grandparent – how the hell did I get THIS old?).  As a parent I helped to raise three children, all of whom are now young adults. As all parents know, our kids do (or did) things we had a problem with and there were times when we […]

If there is one thing I learned over three decades in the intelligence business it is that decisions on how to do intelligence are best left to intelligence professionals.  Agencies responsible for intelligence are of course subject to the democratic governments we elect and they cannot (and should not) ‘go rogue’, engaging in activity that […]