What’s your issue? Taxes, climate change, health care top leaders’ campaign pitches this election
With less than a week to go until Oct. 21, there’s been plenty of lamenting over the issues that aren’t being talked about this campaign. So, what have the leaders spent their time spotlighting? And what issues have media definitively brought to the fore? The Hill Times took a look at the issues raised by or with […]
What role, if any, do security issues play in the 2019 election campaign?
OTTAWA—They don’t call Canada “the peaceable kingdom” for nothing. Yes, we have our problems with violence—gun crime is a growing concern, for example—but we are blessedly removed from the levels of extreme violence (i.e. terrorism) that beleaguer other countries. We have had less than one terrorist plot, foiled or successful, per year in this land […]
Distrust in CSIS makes us less safe
OTTAWA—It should come as a surprise to no one that people in many parts of the world lack confidence in important public institutions. Whether we are talking about governments in general or, more specifically, agencies such as law enforcement and security intelligence, there is a substantial cohort that does not believe these are doing the […]
State terrorism is making a comeback
OTTAWA—These days when we read or think about terrorism we tend to go in two directions: either we think about terrorist groups: Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, etc., or we talk about “lone wolves”—even if that term is inaccurate. The former are of course larger, and usually have some kind […]
Despite majority support for a Canadian handgun ban, the politics of doing so may remain insurmountable
OTTAWA—There’s nothing like the gun lobby. Imagine if car manufacturers objected to the registration of automobiles because it was an infringement on the liberties of people with cars. Canadians are rightly reassured, however, that the obsession with these weapons here is nothing like in the U.S., where possessing guns is constitutionally guaranteed, and ownership of […]
Making CSIS ‘smarter’ at counter-terrorism easier said than done
They say that no matter what you do, you can always do it better; there is inevitably room for improvement. Then again, they also say that the perfect is the enemy of the very good; sometimes the search for the ultimate accomplishment comes at such a high cost, with respect to time and resources, that […]
Time has come for Liberals to get a spine on guns in Canada
OTTAWA—Guns are now a mental problem. So says American president Donald Trump, who continues to claim there is “no political appetite” for legislation governing the guns themselves even though he is finally admitting that it might be wise to improve background checks on those who want to purchase them. On this side of the border, Liberals […]
It’s time to take aim at the political inaction on gun control
Every time there’s a mass shooting in the United States, Canadians quickly jump on their high horses to crow about how much better we are than our dysfunctional American cousins. This past weekend was no exception. On Aug. 3, a purported white supremacist, echoing much of the same rhetoric as has been idly spewed by […]
Countering violent extremism in Canada needs better scrutiny
OTTAWA—If there is one buzzword that has gained a lot of ground in Canada and elsewhere in the post 9/11 period it is CVE (which stands for countering violent extremism; sometimes it is also called PCVE—preventing and countering violent extremism). This field of work is the purview of those who claim to be able to […]
Liberals passing the buck on weapons ban
On June 14, The Globe and Mail reported that the Liberal Party has finally decided what it will do about the thorny issue of legal access to handguns and assault weapons. Regrettably, Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair announced that his party has ruled out a ban on handguns, arguing that “we’d […]
