This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 24, 2019. Cast a sympathetic eye on Canada’s spy agency, CSIS (when is the last time someone asked that of you?). It is subject to incredibly intense scrutiny from all sides and also to oversight from multiple angles. This is, of course, as it should be […]
Category: Perspectives
Canada’s ‘listed terrorist entities’ program is an odd beast. It only came into force after 9/11 and that is odd in that terrorist groups certainly existed prior to that day. As we all know, however, 9/11 changed EVERYTHING when it comes to our reaction and responses to terrorism and I suppose the list was just […]
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If there is one myth about terrorism and terrorists that is really hard to shake it has to be the belief among many that those who engage in political or ideological violence must be mentally ill. After all, who in their right mind would don a suicide vest or run with a knife towards police […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 17, 2019. It might strike the reader as odd that someone with so much invested in counter terrorism is here making the suggestion that we need to worry less about terrorism. After all, if we stopped spending so much time talking about it, wouldn’t that put […]
How many of you remember when Canadian PM Justin Trudeau greeted Syrian refugees a few years back at Pearson Airport in Toronto with the phrase “You are home”? Some may have seen this as a cynical ploy and there were certainly those who criticised him for telling refugees that Canada would welcome them, especially as […]
In an era, the so-called post 9-11 age, where we are obsessed with terrorism we have a very awkward question to answer, if you happen to be a Canadian (or an American I think): where are all the terrorist attacks? If terrorism is all that prevalent, as we have been led to believe, and it […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 10, 2019. Boy am I ever going to get some flack from this post. I intend to take issue with some of the findings of the Canadian inquiry into the murder and disappearance of First Nations women, more specifically the use of the term ‘genocide’. For […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 3, 2019 Canada had nothing to do with the US decision to use the anachronistic Guantanamo Bay military camp in Cuba as a highly controversial – if not internationally illegal – detention centre for suspected terrorists. That people alleged to have been linked to terrorist groups […]
A lot of people have spent a lot of time and a lot of money especially in recent years trying to figure out how to ‘undo’ terrorism. By this I am referring to programs and efforts to ‘deradicalise’ or ‘disengage’ those who have embraced terrorism and joined terrorist groups, even if not all have participated […]