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Perspectives

An ugly side to Canada that does nothing to make us safer

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 […]

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Perspectives

Contrary to accepted wisdom, terrorism CAN be detected early enough to prevent

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 […]

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Perspectives

An insane suggestion regarding immigration to Canada that undermines security

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 […]

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Perspectives

No, CSIS does not ‘target’ Muslims with no accountabilty

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 […]

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The UK and Canada: polar opposites when it comes to the terrorist threat

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 11, 2018. All is takes is a cursory glance at the news on any given day to conclude – erroneously as I hope to show – that Islamist extremist terrorism is a daily event that threatens us all.  We read of bombings in Afghanistan, beheadings in […]

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Why wasn’t the Air India terrorist attack prevented?

This article was posted in The Hill Times on July 9, 2018. A week ago a relatively small crowd in Vancouver’s Stanley Park commemorated the single greatest terrorist attack in history (as determined by deaths) prior to 9/11. And Canada featured prominently in it.  I refer of course to the downing of Air India flight 182 […]

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Perspectives

CSIS is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t

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 […]

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Perspectives

The implications of the US-Canada tiff for national security

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 25, 2018 Canada and the US cooperate on many issues in many forums: the G7 (even with last week’s horror show thanks to the US President), the G20, the UN as well as a whole host of international bodies, in addition to numerous bilateral councils and […]

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Perspectives

An uneventful G7 – from a security standpoint

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 18, 2018 Well, the G7 in La Malbaie, Quebec, is over and some would say ‘Thank God!’  It would be hard to imagine a weirder summit than the one Canada just hosted.  The group of seven powerful economic and political nations usually gathers to talk shop, […]

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Perspectives

The debate on allowing CSIS data to be released in court cases

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 […]