Search: “CSIS”

There have been few bills in recent years in this country that have been so debated – and so vilified – as C-51, an ambitious bill passed during the last Parliament by the former governing Conservatives to change how national security is protected in Canada.  The bill became law thanks to the majority Harper government […]

In the Western world we tend to separate out young criminals, or offenders, from older ones.  There is probably a great deal of variation in what constitutes “young”: in Canada, the Youth Criminal Justice Act covers crimes up to the age of 18.  Those convicted are treated differently than adults in keeping with scientific evidence […]

We’ve all heard the phrase “flying while Muslim”,  a reality that underscores the sorry state of affairs in Western societies in the post 9/11 period.  Muslims are disproportionately singled out for special attention at airports and elsewhere.  The genuine concern over terrorism, which is real and not some state-driven campaign to garner support, has given […]

The other week Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS) came out with issue #14 of its premier on-line magazine Dabiq.   There was the usual stir over the appearance of yet another propaganda product from the world’s most worrisome terrorist group as analysts pored over the text to do content analysis and determine whether this edition contained any […]

Now that the immediate horror of what happened to John Ridsdel has passed – not that this heinous act will ever be forgotten – many have turned their attention to what the Canadian government could or should have done to save the life of this Canadian citizen.  Debates of this nature are inevitable as everyone […]

Life is all about making choices, whether this applies at the level of the individual or the state.  Presumably both types of decisions are aimed at contributing to the personal or common good, and both are constrained by resources, financial or otherwise.  Decisions have consequences since electing one path means rejecting another one or several […]

Ottawa has a gang problem.  This should come as a surprise to no one as Ottawa is a relatively large city (more or less  a million people) and most big cities are plagued with similar issues.  We should note that the size of the gang issue in the nation’s capital is not nearly as serious […]

As we strive to learn more about why people adopt violent extremist views and, more importantly in my opinion, try to determine which people pose a real threat to society, we often find ourselves in areas we would not have expected.  We need to exhaust every avenue, no matter how outside the box, for two […]

Canadians are funny people.  I don’t mean funny ha-ha although we do have a pretty good track record of comedians (Jim Carey, Mike Myers, Samantha Bee, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara – I am sure I am missing other great comics).  I mean we want our security and intelligence agencies to stop terrorism but we don’t […]