Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingSome potentially disturbing news on the terrorism front came out the other day in Canada. According to reports, four employees at Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport in Montreal (it used to be called Dorval) had their security clearances revoked over concerns that they had become ‘radicalised’. The men had access to restricted areas, one had talked […]
There sure seems to be a lot of hand wringing over travel these days. We have had two bans imposed by the US, one ridiculous (the generic ban on anyone coming from 6 Muslim countries) and one more realistic, albeit still open to question (the ban on electronic devices for passengers boarding aircraft in 10 […]
I see that Martin McGuinness died the other day. Mr. McGuinness was an Irish republican, a member of the Sinn Fein political party and, until he left politics in part because he was stricken with cancer, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to early 2017. He was also, according to some, a […]
I am sure you have all read the stories. In the aftermath of an arrest of a mass murderer (or a terrorist), neighbours, friends and colleagues are interviewed about what they knew about the suspect. Here is what they tend to say: I never saw it coming! He was the nicest guy! I can’t believe […]
It should come as a surprise to no one that in a world apparently awash in terrorist groups and terrorist attacks that any glimpse of success is paraded loudly and widely. We are desperate for a victory in this ill-named ‘war on terror’ and so we celebrate every drone strike that takes out a leader […]
Here we go again, an alleged terrorist plot against planes. We have been there before – far too often. There was 9/11 of course, and the 2002 ‘shoebomber’, and the 2006 liquid plot, and the 2009 ‘underwear bomber’, and the 2010 printer cartridge plot – clearly there is a trend here. As a result of […]
This is a big year for us in Canada. Sure, we are a youngish nation and celebrating 150 years may sound quaint to our older international cousins, but it is a cause for celebration nonetheless. I am looking forward to the commemoration as I was six when we marked our centennial in 1967 and don’t […]
I know that in a world of 24/7 news and intense competition to be first with a breaking story that time is of the essence. Individuals and news outlets feel that they do not have the luxury to wait to publish for fear that another individual or outlet will scoop them. In their haste, there […]
Residents of London have undergone yet another terrorist attack. The nation that survived countless IRA attacks and threats in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and which saw the carnage of July 2005 and the attempted beheading of a military member in Woolwich in 2013 is reeling from yesterday’s events where a man ran over people […]
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 […]