Search: “The Hill Times”

This piece appeared  in The Hill Times on December 18 http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/12/18/war-ism-bad-idea/128951 Last week I was invited to a conference in the UK hosted by the Henry Jackson Society, a US-UK think tank that looks at a variety of issues.  At this particular conference, entitled ‘A wake-up call for all: creating a trans-Atlantic network to battle radical […]

This piece originally appeared in The Hill Times on December 11 (http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/12/11/death-terrorists-necessary-not-necessarily-death/127716) All is fair in love and war, or so the saying goes.  Except that nothing is usually fair in either, especially when it comes to war.  We ought to have learned over the several millennia that we have been killing each other on […]

This article appeared in The Hill Times on December 4, 2017 Canada is a nation of immigrants.  After all, each and every one of us, with the exception of our First Nations, an immigrant or the offspring of immigrants, whether we can trace our families back to the 16th century or the 21st.  Among many […]

Published in The Hill Times November 30, 2017 An awful lot has been happening in Saudi Arabia of late.  There is a new sheriff-to-be in town, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman  – or MBS as he is known – and he is not wasting any time in making changes about the place.  Scores of senior […]

Published in the Hill Times December 4, 2017 We in Canada do not have a lot of experience when it comes to terrorism.  That is, of course, a good thing as the opposite scenario would be tragic.  No, despite the fact that the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) in Ottawa has pegged the threat level […]

This piece originally appeared in The Hill Times on November 27. There is no question that the relationship between the Toronto Police Services (TPS) and the citizenry of Hogtown have been rocky of late.  Whether it is the controversial carding programme or allegations of police brutality and unnecessary use of force, many Torontonians have a […]

This blog appeared in The Hill Times on November 13, 2017 (http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/11/13/real-impact-terrorism-shattered-lives/125186) In the aftermath of a terrorist attack we all go through a typical laundry list of questions.  Who is behind this act and did he act alone?  Are there others out there?  What will he be charged with? What can we do to […]

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 […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on November 16, 2017 (http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/11/16/go-mental-health-terrorism/125792) What is it about terrorism that people fail to grasp?  I’ll put it as simply as I can: there are individuals (and groups) out there that plan and carry out heinous acts of violence we label as terrorism because they really believe in […]

This piece appeared in the online edition of The Ottawa Citizen on November 27, 2017 (http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/gurksi-why-parliament-needs-a-dose-of-intelligence) At long last Canada is getting some serious oversight for its intelligence agencies.  Well behind most of our closest allies, including the US and the UK, the Trudeau government has created the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians […]