In this podcast, Stephanie sits down with Gerry Butts, vice chairman and a senior advisor at Eurasia Group, to talk about recent developments in Europe and what the war in Ukraine means for global stability. In particular, they discuss problems relating to energy, food and whether or not the West can stay united in what is increasingly becoming a p…

Diplomacy goes well beyond diplomats – so what is the role of a defence attaché (or in the case of a Commonwealth country, defence advisor) anyway? In this episode Stephanie speaks with UK Brigadier General Doug Gibson about his role in Canada, UK-Canada defence cooperation, the 2021 UK Foreign Policy and Defence Review (linked below), NATO expansi…

Craig and Stephanie are joined by former National Security and Intelligence Advisor Vincent Rigby and uOttawa colleague and frequent INTREPID contributor Thomas Juneau to discuss a May 2022 report on reforming Canadian national security. The uOttawa Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) convened a task force of former senior g…

In this episode, Stephanie is joined by Intrepid contributor, Thomas Juneau, Major-General Michael Wright, Chief of Defence Intelligence and Commander of Canadian Forces Intelligence Command (CFINTCOM), and Ms. Christine Kennedy, Assistant Chief of Defence Intelligence. The four get into a detailed discussion of what CFINTCOM does, how it is struct…

In this episode Craig and Stephanie sit down with Intrepid Podcast contributor, Thomas Juneau, and Dominic Rochon, senior assistant deputy minister for the national and cyber security branch of Public Safety Canada. Thomas and Dominic are co-chairs of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group. Together, the four look at their latest report …

Stephanie sits down with her former NPSIA colleague Jez Littlewood, a specialist in weapons of mass destruction, and Craig Forcese to discuss the rules governing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their use. They then address questions arising from the conflict in Ukraine, including recent concerns that Russia may use such weapons.…

In Ep 174, Stephanie and Craig discussed many of the international issues raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They did not, however, address the “laws of armed conflict” (LOAC) (also called “international humanitarian law”) governing how armed conflicts are supposed to be fought, and creating the concept of “war crimes”. In this episode, Stepha…

The honking may have stopped in Ottawa, but the debate over the Emergencies Act is far from over. Following the invocation of the Act, there is a requirement for two reviews to take place – one by Parliamentarians, and the other a broader look at government actions. Hopefully, this will contribute to a better understanding of what happened, why, an…

Intrepid podcast continues to grapple with too much history in too short a time. Today, Craig Forcese joins Stephanie to discuss Russia’s illegal and tragic invasion of Ukraine. They walk through the international law issues raised by this act of aggression (a war crime), as of the morning of 24 February. They focus especially on Russia’s “lawfare”…

In this brief episode, Jessica Davis, President of Insight Threat Intelligence, provides us with an overview of everything that has happened with finances around the Convoy since the GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign was closed. From the collapse of other crowdfunding campaigns, to Emergencies Act legislation that targets the personal and corporate ac…

This episode was recorded at 2pm on Friday February 11, 2022. As the Convoy currently occupying Ottawa continues into third week, and its supporters attempt to spread the movement across major Canadian cities and ports of entry, is solving this crisis a problem of law or enforcement? Mike Nesbitt joins Stephanie through some of the proposed legal o…

**Note: This podcast was recorded before the news that GoFundMe shut downpayments to the Convoy organizers. As noted in the podcast, organizers have other options to raise funds. We'll look to update listeners on these developments sometimes next week.** As we recorded this episode, the streets of Ottawa were occupied with trucks from a so-called “…

In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Fatima Syed, journalist with The Narwal and host of The Backbench at Canadaland. They discuss covering ongoing violence against the Muslim community and the challenges in covering national security issues in Canada. Importantly, throughout the interview, Fatima discusses her approach to her work, and emphas…

In this mini-episode, Stephanie hosts a quick chat with Phil Lagassé about Canada’s new governor general. They also reflect on the impact of having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the role for so long (circling back to their discussion in Ep 152). Please note, this episode was recorded on 13 July 2021. You can read some of Phil’s commenta…

What was supposed to be a committee examining the relationship between Canada and China has turned into something of a constitutional crisis. Opposition MPs on the ad-hoc Canada-China Committee are demanding access to classified documents to find out the reasons two scientists were fired from the National Microbiology Lab. The entire affair has led…

In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Jessica Davis and Michael Nesbitt to discuss recent developments in terrorism cases in Canada. First, in the wake of the tragic attack in London, Ontario, Crown Prosecutors have brought terrorism charges, possibly the first ever against an individual motivated by far-right extremism. What are the challenges…

In the late spring of 2021, University of Toronto Press released Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada’s National Security, by Stephanie Carvin. This episode features the introduction to the book which presents the evolving context in which threats to the security of Canada are manifesting and evolving. Carvin argues that rather than respon…

In this episode, Leah talks with Chris Parsons and Bill Robinson of Citizen Lab to discuss NSIRA’s latest review of CSE’s practice of sharing incidentally collected Canadian information with government agencies and the Review Body’s suggestion that CSIS hasn’t been frank with the Federal Court about what happens with the foreign intelligence CSE he…

When news of the Toronto-18 Case broke in 2006, Canadians were stunned. It seemed as though the “War on Terror” had been brought to Canadian soil as a group of young men, allegedly inspired by Al Qaida, were accused of a serious bomb plot in downtown Toronto. After a high-profile news conference, however, a series of publication bans descended on t…

Please note, this podcast contains references to sexual assault. In this episode, Stephanie and Amar sit down with Leah and guest LGen (retd) Mike Day who served with Joint Task Force Two (JTF2) and Canada’s Special Operations Forces Command. The four discuss the issues surrounding the long-standing issue of sexual assault in the military. How did …

Last week, the Ontario Court of Justice issued a decision holding that Iran engaged in a terrorism offence in downing Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 in January 2020, and therefore is civilly liable under Canada’s Justice for the Victims of Terrorism Act (JVTA) (and related provisions in the State Immunity Act). Craig invites Thomas Juneau, Leah West…

Stephanie and Craig are back with the latest discussion of key court decisions affecting national security law. Here, we take a quick look at how Charter section 7 “fundamental justice” has created expectations about the “substance” of government conduct in select national security cases. We discuss Operational Dismantle (and the application of the…

Stephanie and Craig are back with the latest discussion of key court decisions affecting national security law. Here, we take a quick look at the thorny issue of disclosure of information by the government in criminal cases, governed by several key section 7 cases. We discuss Stinchcombe and O’Connor. And then segue into how national security confi…

In this episode of Intrepid Podcast, Leah and Stephanie sit down and speak with Shelly Bruce, Chief of the CSE about the organization she is responsible for in an era of changing legislation, threats, review and, of course, a worldwide pandemic. The trio also speak about a number of topics, including Shelly’s career, cyber attribution, cyber defenc…

The Intrepid crew start a new series, discussing the leading court decisions in national security law. We keep dropping case names. So we figured we should do a walk through. We’ve organized this cases in progressions, mostly built around Charter rights. In this first episode Craig and Stephanie focus on section 7 of the Charter, and those cases de…

During the pandemic we have heard a lot about state actors engaging in threat-related activity. But what are non-state actors up to? In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Alex Wilner and Casey Babb to discuss their forthcoming chapter on this very question. Wilner and Baab identify three major activities that non-state actors are engaging in on…

Her Majesty in Right of Pod returns to ask: How well has Parliament fared in the pandemic? Stephanie sits down with Phil Lagassé to discuss whether or not the fears expressed in last year’s Ep 122 over the challenges of running a legislature during COVID-19 came true. But there are other issues to discuss as well, especially Parliament’s weak perfo…

President Biden came into office in January 2021 with promises of holding Saudi Arabia accountable for the death of Jamal Khashoggi, but also to turn the focus of US foreign policy away from the Middle East and towards the Asia-Pacific. Six weeks later, he released a damning intelligence report, but took few other steps to hold Prince Mohammed bin …

Since December 2020 there have been six attacks against Black Muslim Women in Edmonton, Alberta where they were threatened, and verbally and physically assaulted. While Edmonton Police have now made an arrest in connection with these cases, the way these incidents were handled by law enforcement and politicians raises questions about how well Canad…

Canada has a 5G and Huawei dilemma – but what is it, exactly? Is it technical risk? A matter of economic national security? Geopolitics? In reality, it is all of the above, but conflating these issues is hindering Canada’s ability to respond. Stephanie sits down with Christopher Parsons, a Senior Research Associate at the Citizen Lab at the Munk Sc…

In this episode, Stephanie and Leah sit down with Bill Robinson, Citizen Lab Fellow and one of Canada’s leading national security researchers, to discuss the first reports by two of Canada’s new intelligence review and oversight bodies, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and the Intelligence Commissioner (IC). The three ma…

This episode of Intrepid Podcast examines some recent developments with regards to CSIS. First, Stephanie and Jessica discuss the public speech that the CSIS Director gave on Tuesday February 9 at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Next, Stephanie sits down with Leah and the long-lost Craig Forcese to discuss to recent Federal Cour…

Should Canada do more to counter hate online? This is a question currently before the House of Commons Heritage Committee. A new survey conducted in January 2021 on behalf of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation find that 93% are in favour of doing so. Stephanie sits down with Mohammed Hashim, the new Executive Director of the CRRF to discuss the…

In this episode, Michael Nesbitt interviews Jessica Davis about her recent article in Lawfare, “Rethinking Global Counterterrorist Financing” where she identifies the challenges that new terrorist and extremist movements and groups pose for counter-terrorist financing, and argues that we need to stop thinking of the end goal of counterterrorism fin…

In the wake of the riot (often described as an insurrection) at the Capitol Building in Washington DC on January 6, there have been calls for the government of Canada to do more to combat far right terrorism. This includes listing the Canadian-founded Proud Boys, a far-right, chauvinist and neo-fascist organization. It is alleged that members of th…

In this episode, Jessica Davis interviews Michael Nesbitt about a recent case out of Halifax where an individual was found not guilty of breaching Canadian sanctions on Syria. The two discuss Canada’s sanction regime and the challenges in enforcement. Turns out while Canada may have many sanctions laws on the books, we do not have much in the way t…

In this podcast, Stephanie converses with Navaid Aziz of the Islamic Information Society of Calgary. Navaid has been described as a “bridge builder” between the Muslim community, and the Canadian national security community. He is also actively engaged in community-based intervention and prevention. In their conversation, the two discuss bias in Ca…

In this episode Leah sits down with the co-chairs of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group, Dominic Rochon, Assistant Deputy Minister of National and Cybersecurity at Public Safety Canada and Thomas Juneau (Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, and Intrepid Podcast editor) to discuss their first report, the group’s first year…

We continue with a series theme we began in the summer: diversity and inclusion in the security and intelligence sector. In this episode, Jessica Davis speaks with Dr. Rachel Schmidt on her recent International Journal article “Investigating implicit biases around race and gender in Canadian counterterrorism”. As the two discuss, this is not about …

In Part 2 of our look at the 2020 National Cyber Threat Assessment, Leah sits down with two of the people responsible for producing this year’s report, JP Racicot and Tyler from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, to talk about what goes in to writing the NCTA, five key trends and what they mean for Canadians, and what they hope readers will ta…

Leah sits down with Dr. Christopher Parsons of Citizen Lab to dig into the biggest cyber security threats facing Canada in Part 1 of our discussion of the Canadian Cyber Centre’s 2020 National Cyber Threat Assessment (NCTA). Leah and Chris cover threats to critical infrastructure, ransomware, encryption, hackback, online foreign influence and disin…

Once again, Leah, Jess and Mike sit down for Part II of catching up on a busy summer of national security criminal cases. They look at: the ongoing case against Cameron Ortis; a guilty plea in a terrorism case out of Kingston (did we ever figure out what that RCMP plane was doing?); and an update in the Via Rail case where the conviction of one of …

After the inevitable “beginning of the academic year” pause, Season 4 of INTREPID continues. In this episode, Leah West, Jess Davies and Mike Nesbitt begin to go through a busy summer’s worth of national security cases. They start with the Abu Huzayfah terrorism hoax charge, then two travel-related cases (resuscitated from 2014!) in Calgary and, br…

We’re back with Carissima Mathen and the last of our special summer series of “explainers” on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Today, Carissima walks us through two last issues: the equality rights in section 15 of the Charter; and the two remedies sections, section 52 of the Constitutional Act 1982 and section 24 of the Charter. The te…

We’re back with chapter 5 of our Muskoka Chair Chats on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In this episode, Carissima Mathen from the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, guides us through the Charter “legal rights”, with a focus on sections 9 to 14 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These read as below. She also examines some of the controve…

Stephanie and Craig are back with the third part in the INTREPID special series on diversity and inclusion in Canada’s security and intelligence community. They are very pleased to welcome to the show Michelle Tessier, Deputy Director of Operations, at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). We discuss Ms Tessier’s career, and her ex…

This spring, Amnesty International issued an updated report on Chinese harassment of Chinese human rights critics in Canada. This report and accompanying issues were featured last week in the Globe and Mail. Joining Stephanie and Craig to discuss the report and the issue of Chinese-sponsored harassment are Alex Neve, Secretary-General of Amnesty Ca…

In just a few years the QAnon movement has gone from a fringe online conspiracy theory to a movement that is now present in up to 54 countries worldwide. Given its links to several attempted attacks, there is growing concern that QAnon may be inspiring some individuals to mobilize to violence. But is QAnon really a national security threat? If so, …

We’re back with an episode focusing on a recent development: the Federal Court’s holding that the “safe third country” refugee agreement with the United States is unconstitutional. In fact, it violates section 7 of the Charter — the very right we explored on Chapter 4 of our Muskoka Chair Chats in Ep 129. (Listeners may want to listen to that expla…

We’re back with Carissima Mathen in our “Muskoka Chair Charts,” our summer series on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Today’s topic is section 7 of the Charter, a major right with huge implications in national security space and elsewhere. We walk through when section 7 is “triggered” — the concepts of life, liberty, or security of the person — …