Search: “9/11”

If you had to come up with a recipe for a terrorist attack or an extremist movement what would you include? To my mind there are a number of ingredients that must be there in order for the finished product to succeed.  These are, among other things, a sense of grievance/anger, an identified target (meaning […]

Every year many Canadians flock to Trinidad and Tobago to escape the harsh winter climate.  In addition, there are some 70,000 Canadians of Trinidadian stock, including one of the hosts of CBC’s The National, Ian Hanomansing, and pop singer Amanda Marshall.  The ties between the two nations run deep. Alas, these ties also extend to […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on February 12, 2017 http://www.hilltimes.com/2018/02/05/fine-line-hate-terrorism-murder-murder/132949   We in Canada have, thankfully, few dates that will ‘live in infamy’ to cite former US President Roosevelt in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor (9/11 would fit into this category as well).  When it comes to Canada I suppose many […]

This article appeared in The Hill Times on January 29, 2018 http://www.hilltimes.com/2018/01/29/link-immigration-terrorism/132069 Canada is a nation of immigrants, of that there is no question.  Our historical openness to those around the world has made us the country we are, warts and all.  And while immigration waves have varied over the centuries – my own family was […]

In January 1842 the British army suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in its history, a defeat memorialised in a painting entitled Remnants of an Army (shown above).  The British were massacred in retreating from Kabul in what is now known as the First Anglo-Afghan War, part of the ‘Great Game’ between Imperial Russia […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on January 15, 2018 There are many reasons why citizens dislike City Hall.  You might have a beef over the taxes you pay. Perhaps you are not happy with snow removal or garbage collection.  You may even have a bone to pick with a parking ticket you received.  […]

I have a confession to make: I hate going through a metal detector whenever I attend an Ottawa Senators’ hockey game.  It isn’t that it takes too long (it doesn’t), or that the staff are mean (they are actually quite nice, very Canadian), or even that sometimes the line backs up out the door and […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on January 3, 2018 http://www.hilltimes.com/2018/01/03/need-ignore-jihadi-propaganda/129769 In the lead up to New Year’s a lot of people were very nervous that festivities would be interrupted by a terrorist attack.  To be fair, the fear was not completely unfounded as at last year’s celebration in Turkey a gunmen opened fire in […]

It stands to reason that senior officials, be they civilian leaders or military officers, want to provide the public with good news.  Whether it is to gain votes or to instill pride in a country’s armed forces, these individuals see the benefit of telling the (voting) population that success is at hand or that whatever […]

When I was growing up in London (Ontario) there was a famous quasi-mythical family that lived near the town of Lucan, about a half-hour away, in the 19th  century.  The Donnellys, or the ‘Black Donnellys’ as we were taught about them, were Irish immigrants who were killed by a mob in 1880 in a feud […]