Borealis Threat & Risk Consulting

We’ve had a tough time coming up with a name for our fight against terrorism. Leaving aside the ill-considered “crusade” that was used right after 9/11 (who the hell thought that was a good idea?), we have cycled through the Global war on Terror (GWOT) to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE) – what […]

I just realised that the title of this blog is a little ambiguous.   For the purposes of this entry I don’t mean using legislation to deal with the effects of radicalisation (passport seizure, peace bonds, arrests, etc.).  No, here I mean using law enforcement personnel to help stop radicalisation before it starts. We know […]

We know that terrorism is an all too common occurrence these days.  It seems sometimes that there are attacks everywhere all the time.  In the past ten days alone we saw successful plots in Istanbul, Jakarta and Burkina Fasso – in the latter two seven Canadians were killed. In light of all this, what is […]

In the wake of the attacks in San Bernardino the gun debate veered down the usual path. Guns are bad. Guns are good. Obama wants your guns. We need new laws.  We need to apply the laws we already have.  We should get rid of all laws.  Etc.  Etc. Etc. As well, calls for better […]

For those who missed it, the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS) held its annual conference on Friday at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.  The CASIS conference has been around for quite some time and I remember attending 2-3 day events back in the 2000s where hundreds of participants signed up.  CASIS […]

The new Liberal government sure has made some rapid changes to the practices of the previous Conservative government.  The long-form census  has been restored.  Scientists have been unmuzzled.  And there is a sense, as stated by the PM himself, that “Canada is back”, meaning that the ideas and values most often associated with the majority […]

The  other day a young Muslim in Marseilles attacked a Jewish teacher with a machete.  The victim was able to fend off some of the blows with a copy of the Torah and suffered only minor injuries.  Attacks on French Jews are of course not new: last year’s siege of a Jewish grocery in Paris […]

I was listening to CBC’s Writers and Company earlier today while driving down the QEW towards Niagara.  This particular programme dealt with Shakespeare’s works and the differences in the plays he wrote during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.   The interviewee, James Shapiro, did an amazing job of situating some of his plays in contemporary […]

Two recent attacks in the West have gotten a lot of press attention.  A man in Philadelphia shot a police officer in his vehicle before being shot himself and arrested.  He claims to have acted on behalf of Islamic state (see story here).  Across the “pond”, police in Paris were able to neutralise a man […]

Despite all the legal opinions, academic papers and government policies, we still have a hard time deciding what is terrorism and what isn’t.  Was the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks a terrorist act? Was the 2015 attack on an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina?  Justin Bourque’s armed rampage in Moncton in […]