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Why police should be in Canadian high schools

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 […]

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Can Canadians trust CSIS to help keep us safe?

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 […]

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Why Parliament could use a dose of intelligence

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 […]

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The Canadian terrorism compensation industry – part two

Don’t say I didn’t warn you, because I did (here is the blog post in case you did not see it first time). Yet another person is planning to sue the Canadian government for its ‘complicity’ in alleged abuse in connection with a counter terrorism investigation.  An Algerian citizen, Djamel Ameziane, says that Canadian security […]

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Counter terrorism and the ‘compensation industry’ in Canada

Before I start, let me state this, and state it categorically: torture is unacceptable under any circumstance.  While we may disagree on what constitutes torture we can all accept that subjecting anyone to systematic and prolonged severe physical and/or psychological pain in order to extract information (or to fulfill some sadistic sickness) is wrong, immoral, […]

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Takeaways so far from the terrorist attack in Edmonton

It has been a little more than a week and a half since Canada suffered its latest, and thankfully still rare, terrorist attack.  A 30-year old Somali refugee named Abdulahi Sharif hit and stabbed an Edmonton police officer before leading authorities on a race through the city’s streets where he struck four pedestrians before he […]

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Trying to figure out what a ‘terrorism expert’ means

Years ago I attended an International Studies Association (ISA) conference in New Orleans and found myself in a small room at a hotel listening to a former CIA guy give a talk on something or other under the rubric of the ‘Intelligence Studies Group’ (or something to that effect).  I do not remember what his […]

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What we know about the attack in Edmonton and what questions remain

It has now been almost 24 hours since a man in a Chevy Malibu drove up to an Edmonton police officer doing traffic duty outside a CFL game, struck him at some speed, knocking him in the air, and proceeded to stab him several times before fleeing.  The suspect later was stopped in what appeared […]

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Some real questions on ‘deradicalisation’

This post is a little longer than normal.  It is my contribution to a forthcoming paper to be written collectively and coordinated by a friend of mine in Singapore. With the apparent increasing popularity of deradicalisation programmes for convicted terrorists and (perhaps) those on the pathway to violent extremism in a number of countries what […]

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Why do we have anti-terrorism laws if we are not going to use them?

I don’t get it.  We make a big deal of terrorism these days, too big in my opinion, but we have collectively decided that terrorism is a serious threat (which it is) and that we need to deal with it. Part of our response is making sure organisations like CSIS and the RCMP have enough […]