Search: “The Hill Times”

This post appeared in The Hill Times on May 27, 2019. As noted on many, many (too many?) occasions I am a very devoted Monty Python fan. Some of my readers may not share my taste in humour, but then again they do say that what makes you laugh is very personal. Of all the […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 20, 2019. When I was a kid one of my favourite movies was The Vikings with Kirk Douglas (father of the much more famous, at least today, Michael) and Tony Curtis. It follows the story of a bunch of, well Vikings, in which, and here I […]

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 […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 6, 2019. I do not normally read the obituaries. It is not that I have no respect for the dead: it is just that I don’t take the time to see who has passed on. This non-practice is bound to change as I get older and […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 29, 2019. In the Middle Ages there was in Europe the concept of cuius regio eius religio – Latin for the concept of “the religion of the ruler dictates the religion of the ruled”. In other words, if the king was Catholic, so were all his […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 22, 2019. Pop quiz! How can you tell an election is coming up in Canada? a) the government puts out a report that some identifiable part of our society takes offence to; b) that part happens to be concentrated in several ridings the ruling party currently […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 15, 2019 As all Canadians know, our country has a longstanding relationship with Afghanistan. In the aftermath of 9/11 the government decided to send our military, first special forces, then regular troops, to engage in what began as counter terrorism (CT) and ended as a combination […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 8, 2019. When a massacre on the scale of the terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand hits the news we all engage in examinations of what may have led to events as horrific as this to occur. And this time was no different. There was a […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 1, 2019. If you are like me – and I really hope you are not for many, many reasons! – you probably read the news with a certain slant and through a certain filter. In my case, I read almost everything via a terrorism lens – […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on March 25, 2019. When important events occur this is news. People want to know what is happening as it is happening: that is how reporting the news works. We want to know more, not less, and we want to know it NOW. We want as many details […]