Episode 307 – Can diplomats play a key part in intelligence gathering?
When we think of intelligence we normally go to spy agencies, be they those which run human sources, collect signals, or do surveillance (on the ground or in the air/space). And yet the people we send abroad as diplomats have access to a lot of information as well. Can this be used to keep us safe and what are the guard rails that need to be kept in place? I talk with a former Canadian diplomat who served in some very interesting countries.
Spotify link
Substack link
About my guest
Peter G. Bates is a retired veteran Canadian Foreign Service Officer who served in Canada’s embassies in Moscow (1991-94), Washington D.C. (1996-2000), Tehran (2000-02 and 2011-12), Kyiv (2006-09) and Cairo (2009-11). During his career he witnessed the end of the Soviet Union on Red Square in Moscow in December 1991 and the Egyptian Revolution on Tahrir Square in Cairo in January 2011. In Ottawa, from 2002 – 2005 he was the first Deputy Director for Counter-Terrorism in
the International Crime and Terrorism Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade. From 2014 to 2019 he was the Canadian political advisor to the Commander North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In that capacity, he provided strategic policy advice to senior Canadian and US military officers and defence
officials and contributed to the strategy, plans and policies of this unique binational
command.
Canadian Intelligence Eh
In a world of multiple voices and opinions it can be very hard to know where to turn. One choice is to look to those who actually worked in counter-terrorism and other threat areas in the national security world.
In these half-hour podcasts, 32-year Canadian intelligence veteran Phil Gurski is joined by a fascinating array of individuals with something meaningful to say about these issues as they provide insight into what they mean and what we need to do about them.
About Phil Gurski
Phil worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation. From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East. He also served as senior special advisor in the National Security Directorate at Public Safety Canada from 2013, focusing on community outreach and training on radicalisation to violence, until his retirement from the civil service in May 2015, and as consultant for the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti-Terrorism Section (PATS) from May to October 2015. He also ran Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting from May 2015 to May 2025.
He was the Director of Security and Intelligence at the SecDev Group from June 2018 to July 2019 and the Director of the National Security Programme at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute from 2020-2022. He has also taught on national security issues at George Brown College, the University of Ottawa and Georgian College. Mr. Gurski has presented on violent Islamist-inspired and other forms of terrorism and radicalisation across Canada and around the world and is actively sought by Canadian and international media on national security and intelligence issues. He has written hundreds of op-eds on these matters for several Canadian media since 2016
He is the author of The Threat from Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), The Lesser Jihads: Taking the Islamist fight to the world (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), An end to the ‘War on Terrorism (Rowman and Littlefield 2018), When Religion Kills: How Extremist Justify Violence Through Faith (Lynne Rienner 2019), The Peaceable Kingdom? A history of terrorism in Canada from Confederation to the present (self-published: 2021, republished by Double Dagger in 2022), and the forthcoming The Fenians: Brotherhood of fools or Canada’s first terrorist threat? (Double Dagger: 2025). He regularly blogs and podcasts (Canadian Intelligence Eh!), and posts on Bluesky (@borealissaves.bsky.social) on terrorism and intelligence matters.
