Search: “CSIS”

Here is an extract from the CSIS Act for those who have not memorised it. It is from section 2, the section which outlines what CSIS has the authority to investigate: (b) foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a […]

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 […]

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 […]

We appear to be surrounded by ‘experts’ these days. And that is a good thing, right? After all, if there are all those amazingly bright, capable people out there we should benefit from their experience and smarts to solve all kinds of problems and make the world a better place. Who would be against such […]

If you have been following the news/analysis cycle over the past few years with respect to terrorism you will already know that there is a massive debate going, especially in the West, on which bunch of terrorists poses a greater public safety threat to our societies: Islamist extremists or far right ones. There are proponents […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 13, 2019. If there are any people at Public Safety Canada (PSC) who do not already dislike me, perhaps intensely, I am confident that this column will quickly lead them to the vast majority who have already PNGed me from the department (full disclosure: I worked […]