- Stay Connected
Follow us
Reg Whitaker is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at York University, and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria. He has published extensively about Canadian politics; security, intelligence, and politics of information issues. Show full bio
CSIS Watchdog Misbehaves, Government Shrugs
On November 9, the Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), Dr Arthur Porter, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper concerning allegations published in the National Post…
When Governments Take a Leak, it Can Smell Very Bad
The recent leak to La Presse of an alleged CSIS document implicating Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik in a plot to bomb an airliner raises the most serious issues. These…
Missed Opportunities for National Security Reform as Parliament Falls
Now that the Conservative government has been defeated in the House of Commons and an election called for May 2, we can take stock of the status of national security…
Canada Missing in Action in The Egyptian Revolution
Most Canadians watched the Egyptian revolution unfold with a mixture of delight and admiration. The courage of the young demonstrators and their unflinching faith in peaceful, non-violent protest, even in…
Air India: Still A Policy Debacle After All These Years? Part 2 of 2
In fairness to the government, it must be said that even before Major, improvements have been made in the way national security is protected, many of them in fact reflecting…
Air India: Still A Policy Debacle After All These Years? Part 1 of 2
It is now a quarter century since an Air India flight from Canada to India exploded over the Atlantic off Ireland with the loss of 329 lives, most of them…
Bad Summer For Top Ottawa Secureaucrats
It’s been a bad summer for top Ottawa ‘secureaucrats’ – senior public servants in charge of the agencies with lead responsibilities for national security. First, CSIS Director Richard Fadden jumped…
Has the Detainee Document Deal Gone Sideways?
On April 27, Peter Milliken, Speaker of the House of Commons, ruled that Parliament had the right of access to unredacted documents in the Afghan detainee issue, in order to…
Will Preventative Arrests And Investigative Hearings Arise From the Dead?
On April 23, the Minister of Justice introduced in the House of Commons a bill to reenact the two most contentious powers in the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act: investigative hearings and…
Afghan Detainee Torture: The Issue That Grew, and Grew, and Grew
Since 9/11, the question of Canadian complicity in torture has bedeviled the Ottawa security intelligence community. Unlike Canada’s closest ally, the United States, Canadian officials have never been implicated directly…
Follow us
