Categories
Perspectives

3D printable guns and threats to national security

It is never a good idea to get into a debate on the US Constitution’s Second Amendment – the one that talks about the ‘right to bear arms’ – because it is pointless.  Gun advocates seldom have any interest in discussing their God-given freedom to carry a weapon, any weapon including some very powerful automatic […]

Categories
Perspectives

The Canadian threat to US national security: the rise of an old canard

One thing has always fascinated me, i.e. how stories that have no basis in fact defy all attempts to discredit or defeat them.  Some such fantasies, even if they are held only by those on the peripheries of public opinion,  include the belief that the moon landings were faked, the conviction that vaccinations cause autism, […]

Categories
Perspectives

How NOT to protect national security

That we live in a time obsessed with threats to national security and what to do about those threats is beyond question.  Whether we are talking about terrorism, gun crime, migrant flows, climate change or other risks to the planet and its constituent nations the conversation and debates surrounding the best approaches to meet and […]

Categories
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 […]

Categories
Perspectives

Canada Day reflections on national security

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 […]

Categories
Perspectives

The constant struggle between press freedom and national security

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 29, 2018 As Canadians we expect the authorities tasked with keeping us safe to do as they are mandated.  We spend a lot of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on law enforcement and national security agencies and we demand an efficient use of those dollars.  We want results, […]

Categories
Perspectives

Robbing Peter to pay Paul in national security

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 23, 2018 Way back when I was an analyst at CSE I recall a conversation with an workmate about who was more important to the organisation (we were both young and full of piss and vinegar).  He worked on the ‘Soviet problem’: I was assigned along […]

Categories
Perspectives

Is terrorism in Canada really a national security threat?

The other day I had lunch with an old friend who, like me, worked in the Canadian intelligence community.  We had  a wide-ranging chat over a number of issues – Donald Trump, what each of us was up to these days – but as inevitably happens when two people with our backgrounds get together the […]

Categories
Perspectives

A good day for Canadian  justice and a good day for national security

Canadian courts are showing themselves to be prudent and worthy interpreters of the law of the land when it comes to terrorism.  A number of cases have now worked their way through the system and in the majority of them the Crown has successfully made its argument that a small number of Canadians are guilty […]

Categories
Perspectives

The two solitudes of national security

One of the great Canadian novels of the 20th century was Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan.  It is the story of the troubles between Canada’s two European founding nations – the French and the English (both had been preceded by the First Nations thousands of years earlier).  The phrase “two solitudes” has entered Canadian English […]