This piece appeared in The Hill Times on August 20, 2018 Is there any less desirable way to travel these days than by air? Long lineups everywhere, intrusive searches, the delicate dance of holding up your pants while shuffling (since you have to remove your belt before you pass through the scanner), trying to figure […]
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Insecurity and security clearances
I was very privileged to work in the Canadian intelligence community for more than 3 decades. My career spanned 17 years with CSE – Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s signals intelligence agency – and 15 with CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. There was not a day when I could not wait to get to […]
Why are we still at ‘war’ with terror 16 years after 9/11? This book looks at a variety of approaches and responses to international Islamist extremism, ranging from military and security/law enforcement action to government policies, community measures and religious efforts, with a goal to determining what has worked and what has not. The examples […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on August 6, 2018 Well, it has been a week since the mass shooting in Toronto’s Greektown and we have been subject to countless voices in the media as to what happened, what could have been done (if anything) to prevent it, and what it all means to […]
Charitable institutions are usually seen as good things in society. Ones we normally think of – the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Canadian Cancer Society, etc. – play a very important role in raising money and spending it on the most needy: people suffering in war zones, prisoners of conscience, those suffering from serious disease. […]
Shortly after I joined CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) in January 2001 I attended a presentation by a friend who was working at the Canadian embassy in Kenya in the late 1990s. He related that he was at home on August 7, 1998 when a massive blast took him and a colleague off their feet […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on July 30, 2018 In the wake of an attack, whether it be terrorist in nature or a mass shooting/stabbing/vehicle ramming incident, we often read comments and statements such as the following: no one saw this coming it was completely unpredictable (and by extension unpreventable) who would have […]
An edited version of this piece appeared in The Hill Times on July 23, 2018 Is Alex Neve, the secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada insane? Full disclosure: I have been a supporter of Amnesty International and its work for decades. I admire the positions they adopt and the advocacy they employ in the interests of […]
Whenever we experience a mass shooting event like the one on Danforth Ave in Toronto’s Greektown on Sunday evening we go through several emotions: fear, shock, anger…and a need to understand why. Why did a man shoot people enjoying a beautiful summer’s night in a part of Hogtown known for its restaurants and ambiance? Was […]
When I was quite young I came across a very old edition of Rudyard Kipling’s Just-so Stories, written in 1902. For those not familiar with this book – you really should be – it is a collection of fantastic accounts of how certain animals acquired their distinctive traits. Among the tales concocted by Mr. Kipling […]