Search: “CSIS”

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 […]

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 […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on December 3, 2018. Way back in medieval times there was a concept known as sanctuary.  Under this notion, those who had committed crimes could place themselves beyond the long arm of the law by hightailing it to a church or monastery, where supposedly divine law trumped the […]

If you were to ask most Canadians about our intelligence services the first response would very likely be “Wait!  We have intelligence services??” I am being only slightly facetious.  I imagine everyone knows about CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (where I worked for 15 years) – and maybe a few recognise CSE – […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on July 16, 2018 There are times when you read something that makes your blood boil and demands a response.  One such time occurred to me last week within the pages of this very Hill Times in an op-ed by Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council […]

This piece was published in The Hill Times on July 2, 2018 Here is a fundamental question for Canadians: what do you want from your security intelligence service?   What are your expectations of CSIS, an agency of several thousand civil servants which has been plying its trade for more than three decades in the […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 4, 2018 Carrying out a terrorism investigation is not easy.  The stakes are high since many (erroneously) see terrorism as an existential, pervasive threat and no one is willing to accept failure as an option: dead bodies in our streets are not something anyone wants to […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 7, 2018 Pop quiz!  What is Canada’s ‘national game’?  Duh it’s hockey of course (or ‘ice hockey’ as the rest of the world knows it as if it needed to be distinguished from ‘field hockey’).  What with the NHL playoffs on and one Canadian team still […]

This article appeared in The Hill Times on February 12, 2018 We get a peek at what security intelligence services do all too rarely in this country.  In contrast, the recent leaking of an FBI memo on the investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election is but the latest example of many on […]

This blog appeared in The Hill Times on November 20, 2017 (http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/11/20/can-canadians-trust-csis-help-keep-us-safe/125620) This piece was never going to be an easy one to write.  The organisation where I proudly worked for over 15 years – CSIS – is now the subject of a $35 million lawsuit by five employees alleging racism, Islamophobia and homophobia. Canadians […]