Quick, what is the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word ‘Buddhist”? The Dalaï Lama? Saffron robes? One hand clapping? I would wager though that the last thing that comes to you is violent extremism. Maybe it should. I cannot claim to know a lot about Buddhism (a gap I intend […]
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.
We spend a lot of time worrying about terrorism in this country – disproportionately to the actual threat level in my honest opinion – and the flavour of terrorism that occupies most of our attention is Islamist extremism. This is of course for very good reasons since the vast, vast majority of plots, successful or […]
I am far from the only one to label the recent trip by our Prime Minister to India a disaster. Several media outlets have called it so and I will leave it to the reader to follow up on those. What I wish to pursue is the Jaspar Atwal affair. For those Canadians living in a parallel […]
Hands up anyone who uses Google. Or FaceBook. Or Twitter. Or LinkedIn. Or just about any other social media platform. Now, hands up anyone who has to pay for the use of those sites. Not too many I would imagine. Why do you think that these platforms give you access for free? Is is because […]
In the aftermath of what many are saying was a disastrous Prime Ministerial trip to India – official snubs, ridiculous wardrobe choices – the one issue that is still on the minds of Canadians is why our government – and our leader – elected to invite a convicted terrorist to dinner. Jaspal Atwan was convicted […]
There are a few things that hold a place of note in my memory whenever I think back to the start of my career in intelligence in 1983. As a wet-behind-the-ears multilingual analyst fresh out of university I had joined CSE – Canada’s SIGINT agency – with little to no clue as to what intelligence […]
I would like to announce the creation of a fund for Canadian pedophiles. Not those in prison or getting treatment but those languishing in squalid jails pending trial in southeast Asia after they were caught abusing young children, having traveled intentionally to that part of the world with the sole intention of having sex with […]
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The post tragedy blame game
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 […]