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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Pity the poor ex head of state, whether that person is a prime minister, a president, a monarch or a dictator, who settles for retirement, although I’ d wager that many former dictators never get that far. At one time you are cock of the rock. Everyone listens to you. You get really cool perks […]
If you were to listen to enough news these days you’d think that Canadians have little, if anything, to celebrate this day, our 151st birthday as an independent nation. An ‘epidemic’ of shootings in Toronto. A trade war with our neighbour and (erstwhile?) closest ally. Yet another year and no Stanley Cup winner among Canada’s […]
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Score one for the good guys
Well this was a day of opposites in Canadian news. This morning the Globe and Mail reported that a man convicted almost 20 years ago in a murder case that was secured thanks to a ‘Mr Big’ operation wants the Supreme Court to re-open his case. That same court ruled in 2014 that this tactic, […]
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A good day for anti-extremist forces
Sometimes you just have to applaud the police. Yes, I know that they are often accused of, and even involved in, things that are not right, such as brutality or profiling or bias and these are issues that indeed must be identified and rectified. Police officers are human after all and hence fallible but as […]
When we turn our attention to terrorism – of the Islamist extremist variety – our focus tends to be concentrated in areas we all know to be frequently beset by attacks. These regions would include Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria for most as an initial cut. Those who watch terrorism more closely would throw in […]
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Sometimes a bomb is just a bomb
OK, so what were YOU doing at 545 Friday morning? Sleeping soundly I sincerely hope. As for me, I was getting ready to go on a Toronto talk radio programme to weigh in on an incident at an Indian restaurant in Mississauga Thursday evening when two men wearing disguises left a bomb that exploded, wounding […]
As a former intelligence analyst with more than three decades in national security and someone who has chosen to go public with my knowledge, perspective and experience I have attracted a lot of attention. Some of it is praiseworthy (“Thanks for your service”), some appreciative (“I like what you wrote”) and some not so good […]
It is a little past 7 PM on Monday, April 23 as I pen this op-ed in Ottawa. A little more than 5 hours ago a rented van appeared to jump a curb and run down pedestrians near the corner of Finch and Yonge streets in North Toronto. A man is in custody following an […]
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The white face of violent extremism
As readers of my blog and books will well know I consider myself, and am considered by some, an expert (I prefer specialist) in terrorism. More specifically Islamist extremism as that scourge was the topic of my four books thus far as well as my career at CSIS. Indeed, I have studied many aspects of […]