Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingWe all remember when the Taliban blew up two huge Buddha statues in Bamyan, Afghanistan back in March 2001. These religious objects, almost 1500 years old, were reduced to rubble when the extremists gleefully dynamited them and bragged about their act of demolition. At the time, their crime made headlines around the world and was, […]
Anyone who has seriously studied violent radicalisation knows that it does not happen in a vacuum. The term “self-radicalised” is inaccurate and unhelpful. True, it is remotely possible for some individuals to adopt violent ideologies entirely on their own, but it is so rare as to be inconsequential. Never say never, the old adage goes, […]
I just read in the Ottawa Citizen that the brother of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Alexandre, has called on the Liberal government not to deport alleged Algerian terrorist Mohamed Harkat back to his native land. Recall that Mr. Harkat was subject to a National Security Certificate and found to be inadmissible to Canada under the […]
One of the paradoxes of modern Islamist extremism (including AQ (or IS) inspired terrorists) is that while it is impossible to predict who buys into the violent narrative offered by terrorist groups and engages in extremism, those that end up doing so all look and sound more or less the same when you look at them. We […]
It is often a difficult question for governments to decide which activities to allow and which to ban. There are clear cases where certain actions should not be tolerated, like murder for instance, and we have laws to take care of those. Some argue, however, that governments should just stay out of our lives, that […]
I listened to a fascinating interview on CBC Radio’s The Current this morning (February 25) with former Google executive Wael Ghonim on the role that social media played in the Egyptian uprising of 2011. Mr. Ghonim was the creator of the FaceBook page We are all Khaled Said, named after a young man brutally beaten […]
One of the more interesting promises made by the Canadian Liberal government has been the announcement of the creation of a national Office of Counter Radicalisation to be housed within the Department of Public Safety. Minister Ralph Goodale made reference to this project again yesterday, noting that the office will work with communities and security […]
One of the more controversial laws enacted by the former Conservative government was C-24, a provision of which was the ability to revoke Canadian citizenship for those who are dual citizens (i.e. they hold documentation from another country: under international law you cannot be rendered stateless) and who have been convicted of terrorism, espionage or […]
The CSIS Director and RCMP Commissioner both appeared at a House of Commons public safety committee recently and provided Canadians with some useful information on the nature of the terrorist threat we face (story here). Both agencies understandably work in secret – that is the only way they can do their jobs – but the […]
I have been listening to the debate in Parliament about the Canadian government’s decision to continue the mission in Syria and Iraq against Islamic State (IS) but pull back the CF-18s that have been contributing airstrikes since last year. There have been passionate speeches and what I saw as sincere calls for the government to […]