Borealis Threat & Risk ConsultingThis piece appeared in The Hill Times on December 17, 2018. There has been an awful lot of news lately on privacy in the digital space. Facebook in particular has been in the hot seat over what it does with our data – data that we willingly provide every time we post a photo or […]
Spain has been the target of two significant jihadi attacks in the post 9/11 period. In what has become known as 4-11, four bombs went off on the Madrid transit system in 2004, killing 191 and injuring more than 1,800. Al Qaeda (AQ) was responsible for that act, despite initial the Spanish government’s initial awkward […]
Photo ops by leaders of states with the military are no-brainers I suppose. The president/prime minister/king/grand poobah gets on plane, flies to Lower Slobovia to meet his/her country’s soldiers serving to maintain a war/keep the peace in a faraway land, thanks them for their service, assures them that what they are doing is right, acknowledges […]
Tis the season, as they say, and at the Walsh-Gurski household Christmas movies are a tradition, no matter how many times they have been viewed. Me, I like A Christmas Carol, the 1951 British version with Alistair Sim as Scrooge: I have viewed it every Christmas Eve for I don’t know how long. My wife […]
I am sure you have all heard the term ‘the folly of war’. There was even a book with that title written years ago by a historian named Donald E. Schmidt: The Folly of War: American Foreign Policy, 1898-2005. With this being 2018 (almost 2019) and all you would think that humans would have realised […]
In so many ways Canada and the US are very similar. We are both largely Anglophone, former British colonies, and Western liberal democracies. On the other hand we are also very different. Whether we are talking about gun laws, the role of religion in society or baseball vs. hockey there are distinctions that apply at […]
When you work for an intelligence service like CSIS you don’t get a fair shake. Your activities are mistrusted, you are seen as engaging in illegal acts, you are seen as bullies, you are seen as too secretive, you are blamed when things go wrong (i.e. terrorist plots succeed), the list goes on and on […]
When it comes to terrorism we all have a role to play. Citizens have a responsibility to call authorities when they see suspicious behaviour (‘See it, Say it’ is one such campaign) or notice those on the possible pathway to violent extremism and get in touch with those who have CVE (countering violent extremism) programs […]
In recent days I have been slammed on social media (LinkedIn and Twitter) for blogs I have written on terrorism. The one had to do with whether CSIS has a right to investigate terrorism on university and college campuses (answer: YES!) and the other was on the threat from Sikh extremism in Canada. The criticism […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on December 19, 2018. July 1 is, of course, our national day. Whether you celebrate it like we do here in Ottawa with a series of events centred on Parliament Hill capped by the awesome fireworks display or in your own local way (at the cottage, in your […]