Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingPhil 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.
These past couple of months have not been good for Canada’s spy service. First, the Federal Court ruled that CSIS has been negligent in informing it of a programme whereby it ‘illegally kept’ data (which it had collected legally under warrant) on Canadians. Then there is the criticism that the Service shared questions with the […]
The announcement that Canada has reached a settlement with three citizens who claim that information shared by CSIS with Syria led to their arrest and torture is big news. We don’t know, at least not yet, what this compensation amounts to but we do know that the Trudeau government has apologised for “the role Canadian officials […]
I can’t imagine what it feels like to see your child arrested. My children were no different than most I suppose, occasionally doing things they should not have, but nothing too serious, nothing that warranted police attention. Thankfully, I was never placed in that position. Now imagine that authorities arrest your child after you called […]
We seem to be having a hard time figuring out what to call our struggle with terrorism. Leaving aside the belief, held by me and others, that framing counter terrorism in terms of war is a bad idea, it is clear that we keep changing our minds about what we are really involved in. […]
One of the most oft-cited ‘push factors’ for why people become radicalised and join terrorist groups is the nebulous idea of ‘alienation’. Read any story or academic paper on the subject and you are bound to come across a phrase something like “the most vulnerable to radicalisation are alienated (NB or marginalised) youth”. Go ahead […]
I know that I need to stop carping about the proliferation of ‘alternative facts’, otherwise known as lies. I am obsessing about pointing them out all with the full knowledge that there are far too many and they are coming in too fast and furious to keep up. I suppose I want to provide an […]
We have developed a wonderful system in the West where everyone has the right to a fair trial and to see the evidence collected against them. Defence lawyers are in many cases tireless defenders of all. We – well at least most of us that is – have also set in place generous refugee acceptance […]
On rare occasions I pick up a copy of the National Enquirer or World Weekly News when I shop for groceries. It’s not that I am particularly a fan, but they are strategically located at the checkout counter with their flashy, outrageous headlines. Some are truly unbelievable – I think my all-time favourite was ‘Titanic […]
Edward Snowden is painted as a courageous whistleblower and maybe hr are. Yet there is little in life that is uniquely positive and this goes as well for the smashers of secrets.
In a democracy that prides itself on the rule of law, no one in Canada is above the law, even – and especially – those charged with enforcing it, i.e. law enforcement agencies and their members. Nothing subverts the faith a society has in its legal institutions more than the belief that laws are not […]