Corporal Nathan Frank Cirillo, a Canadian soldier, was shot and killed on 22 October 2014, as he stood guard at the National War Memorial. The shooter was later killed inside the Parliament buildings after firing at least 20 shots. The shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a man in his early 30s who was known to Canadian authorities and he was refused travel documents to prevent him from travelling abroad. Zehaf-Bibeau has a record in Quebec in the early 2000s for petty crimes such as possession of drugs, credit-card forgery and robbery. He was also charged with robbery in 2011 in Vancouver. Please click here for a detailed report on the incident is on my blog https://rejinces.net/2014/10/27/o-canada-we-stand-on-guard-for-thee/

Handling of the media in such scenarios and what to cover live, rather most importantly, what not to cover live, needs to be worked out between the public relations officers of the security forces and the media crews. A total blackout of news will only lead to speculation and rumour mongering. Please refer my blog http:/rejinces.net/2015/03/24/terrorism-live/.

After Incident Report by the police authorities on the shooting has raised a few issues about handling such situations in the future. The report must be analysed by all the police forces across the globe, especially in view of the prevailing security environment. The points raised are of at most importance when deploying security personnel on counter-terrorism duties in populated areas. The need for the security forces, police, emergency services, fire force, media crew and bystanders to operate without causing hindrance to each other is of great importance.

Police Response

In response to the shooting, about 310 officers of the Ottawa police responded with many deploying themselves when they heard about the incident. The difficulty of controlling and commanding dozens of self-deploying officers contributed to confusion about how many suspects were involved. It was the largest reactive deployment of officers to an unplanned emergency in the Ottawa Police force’s history. The sheer unprecedented scale of the police response also contributed to the confusion.

The major challenge for the police commanders managing the force’s response was first to account for all the officers who deployed or self-deployed. It was also critical to ascertain as to where each and every officer was. The report has highlighted this challenge and the need for the police forces to device measures for ensuring better command and control of the entire force on the scene.

Police Wearing Balaclavas Caused Concern

Some of the police officers who responded to the shooting wore balaclavas to conceal their identities as they normally work in undercover units. Others were in various states of uniform and some in civilian clothes and this confused the public who, for most of the day, as they did not know how many active shooters or other suspects were involved. Many police officers not in uniform, made it difficult for the public to tell who was a police officer and who may have been an additional shooter. Police officers wearing a balaclava and with a weapon, may be perceived by the public as someone going to inflict harm, especially in a state of crisis. The report brings out the need for the officers who self-deploy to make sure they can be clearly identified as police by their dress.

Eight Hours to Confirm Only One Shooter is Involved

It took only an hour for police to determine that gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was the man responsible for shooting and killing Corporal Cirillo and was killed inside Centre Block on Parliament Hill. Whereas it took Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Ottawa Police about eight hours to confirm that Zehaf-Bibeau was acting alone. The reason was the conflicting eyewitness reports of multiple shooters and suspects, all of which had to be checked out by investigators. Inputs from some witnesses about a second gunman who ran into bushes at the National War Memorial, caused further confusion. It was later confirmed to be the driver of a minister’s vehicle, who ran to hide after the armed Zehaf-Bibeau took command of the vehicle.

Some witnesses also reported seeing multiple people in Zehaf-Bibeau’s vehicle, and others reported seeing what they thought were two suspects with long guns running near the National War Memorial. The second person turned out to be the other sentry who was standing guard with Corporal Cirillo. There was also a 911 emergency call reporting a third shooting scene at a downtown mall, which police reported to the public and later retracted.

All of this contributed to confusion, and it takes a significant amount of time to eliminate that there are no more threats and to announce to the community that things have returned to a state of normalcy.

Communication Between Various Forces

There were communication problems between Ottawa police, RCMP and Parliament Hill security personnel at the scene as they were using different radio frequencies. The RCMP and Ottawa police tactical officers used hand signals to communicate while they were sweeping and clearing buildings on Parliament Hill.

This aspect of ‘communication gap’ between various armed forces, police forces and emergency services at such crisis situations is applicable world over and many countries are yet to device drills and procedures to close this gap.

To remedy the problem, Ottawa police have ordered new radios that will allow communication with other first responder radios during emergency operations. They have also ordered new night-vision goggles, after the force’s tactical officers found that the current goggles did not work well as they were clearing buildings on the Hill, and that there weren’t enough of them.

Terrorist Attack on Indian Parliament

The Indian Parliament at New Delhi witnessed a similar terrorist attack on 13 December 2001. Five terrorists infiltrated the Parliament House in a car with Home Ministry and Parliament labels. The terrorists carried AK47 rifles, grenade launchers, pistols and grenades. The attack led to the deaths of five terrorists, six Delhi Police personnel, two Parliament Security Service personnel and a gardener, in total 14. Afzal Guru was convicted of conspiracy in the plot and sentenced to death by a special court in 2002 and was hanged in Feb 2013.

The events that unfolded in Ottawa in October 2014 was similar to the one that occurred in New Delhi in December 2001. The differences were the self-deploying police personnel and balaclava wearing undercover police officers. The ‘communication gap’ reported in Ottawa would have been faced by the Delhi Police, Parliament Security Service and the National Security Guard (NSG) commandos who ultimately sanitised the area. The information gap would have remained the same, especially regarding the number of terrorist involved and as to whether any terrorist is still holed up.

Despite the event being reported in the international media including live coverage of the operations, the police forces across the globe appear to have not taken any serious note of the event. Rather, they would have never expected it to happen in their own backyards.

Fools learn from their mistakes; wise ones from others’; idiots never.

Pink, as a word to identify a colour was coined in the 17^th century from the flower of the same name. In North America, pink is associated with love, beauty, charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity, romance, etc. By the turn of the 20^th century, pink got associated with anything feminine. It was in fact the clothing manufacturers in the 1940s, who decided on pink for girls and blue for boys. Their intention being that parents would have to buy a whole new wardrobe and set of baby accessories in pink if they had a girl and blue if it was a boy, rather than reusing the one set for both as before.

The pink ribbon was first associated with breast cancer awareness in 1991. The pink ribbon represents fear of breast cancer, hope for the future, and the charitable goodness of people who support the breast cancer movement. It is also intended to evoke solidarity with women who currently have breast cancer.

On Wednesday, 08 April 2015, on seeing our son Nikhil wearing a pink shirt to go to school, I enquired the reason behind in this sudden change in his colour scheme. Nikhil said that on the second Wednesday of April is observed as Anti-Bullying Day and all the students are to wear Pink. On returning home after dropping Nikhil off at the school, I decided to research into the new piece of knowledge I gained from our son.

It all started on the first day of the new school year in September 2007 at Central Kings Rural High School, Cambridge in the Province of Nova Scotia of Canada. On this day, a Grade 9 boy wore a pink polo shirt to the school and the bullies harassed the boy, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up.

In response to Angus Reid Institute survey on bullying in school, three in four Canadian adults said they were bullied while in school. Nearly half of the parents polled said their children have been bullied at some point. Among the 24 per cent who said bullying occurred regularly, often or continuously, 37 per cent said they still think about it and 19 per cent said the events had a serious and lasting impact.

On hearing about the cowardice actions of the bullies, David Shepherd and Travis Price, two Grade 12 students decided to react against this act. They went on line, used emails, social media, and through word of mouth, conveyed their disgust and the need for the student community to raise against the menace of bullying. The two went to a nearby discount store and bought 50 pink shirts, including tank tops, to wear to school the next day.

The next day, Davis and Travis were surprised to find that they ran out of pink shirts in minutes. They had to procure another 100 immediately and some students ran home to change into pink – head to toe. Within minutes, almost the entire school was in pink, a visible statement to the bullies that they were in the minority.

The simple act helped change the dynamic at the school, which saw an end to bullying. Based on the reports of the event, The United Nations declared the official UN Anti-Bullying Day to be May 4 in 2012. The second Wednesday in April is designated the International Day of Pink and is observed in most schools in Canada.

A study by University of Guelph, Canada, on bullying found that 50 percent school children report being bullied, and 45 per cent of surveyed children feeling unsafe when they go to school in Canada. Boys typically engage in more physical forms of bullying; girls tend to do in indirect ways, such as gossiping , excluding and by using passive aggressive behaviour. Some researchers say that every seven minutes someone is bullied in Canada. Another recent survey found that cyberbullying surpassed drugs and alcohol as the top concern among Canadian parents.

Remember that all these media attention and wearing of pink by all the students all over the world, were all started by two teenagers in a remote rural school in Canada. Rather than just giving up by the usual teenage rant that why should one bother about such flimsy matters or the feeling that even if one does something, it will ever have any effect, and so on, the teenagers need to act and demonstrate. One need to make a statement that enough is enough and such acts cannot go on. If the teenagers of the world take up such issues, I am sure that the parents will take not and the world will become a better place for the new generation to live.

All the teenagers must take a leaf out of the actions of Malala Yousafzai for her single handed struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. Today she epitomises the struggle for right to education for girls in the under-developed nations and has been recognised by the world by awarding her the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014.

You Can, You Must all act to Bring in the Change.

Every terrorist attack anywhere on the globe attracts media attention. Every media is vying with each other to prove that they broke the news first and had the most daring and extensive coverage of the incidence. The terrorists on the other hand are very pleased about the coverage they get and the platform from where they can further spread terror in the name of their cause. The Television at your home or workplace has in effect become another gun in the terrorists’ hands to terrorise you out of your minds. The media reporters and anchors become the magazines and their utterances in the grab of informing the people become bullets. These invisible bullets actually pierces through your mind and terrorises.

To further complicate the definitions of a terrorist, the governments across the globe and the media confuses the people with the definitions of a ‘Freedom-Fighter’ and a ‘Terrorist’. Some of the media (with the tacit support of their governments) have been spreading the idea that one person’s ‘terrorist’ is another’s ‘freedom fighter’. This idea should never be accepted by the modern world. The recent bloodbath of innocent Kenyan college students on 02 April 2015, the uprising in Yemen, inhuman actions of IS; all must be classified as acts of terrorism and in no way ever graded as a freedom struggle.

Freedom fighters never segregate people based on their religion and slaughter them like animals; they never attack the school and college students and kill them so as to ensure that the future generations are uneducated and the terrorists can easily plant seeds of terrorism ideology in young minds; they do not take innocent hostages of children and women to terrorise the population, They do all these to ensure that the people under them remain slaves to them and will never question them. This slavery ensures that there is no freedom of thought or action and the best method most of these terrorist groups have adopted is to (mis)interpret the religious beliefs to justify their violent actions. It would be incorrect to blame it on any particular religion as most religions have gone through such upheavals in the past.

During the 09 January 2015 attack on Hyper Cacher, a Paris supermarket, two days after terrorists opened fire on the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, an employee of the supermarket hid six people, including a three-year-old child and a one-month-old baby, in the cold room freezer located at the basement of the store. Hearing shots, these shoppers fled downstairs to the storeroom where they huddled together in near freezing temperatures. Fearing they would not escape alive, they made what they believed would be their last calls to family to tell them they loved them.

Extraordinary pictures emerged in the days after the siege showing the hostages huddled together for warmth amid cardboard boxes of food inside the freezer. One woman is seen cradling her child, while in another image a hostage sends a text message to a loved one. One man with his young son had removed his jacket and wrapped him in it as they cowered in freezer for nearly five hours before the attacker was shot dead.

The families of these hostages have filed a lawsuit against French 24-hour news channel BFMTV, arguing that the live coverage revealed information that endangered their lives. The BFMTV and other networks revealed the location of the freezer where they took refuge. The families argued that had the gunman heard the reports, the hostages would have been in grave danger.

The live coverage by the French media in real time in such situations were tantamount to goading someone to commit a crime. This coverage would have helped the handlers of the attacker to direct the terrorist to the site of hiding of these six people as had happened during the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. One can well imagine the plight of these six people had the terrorist seen the live coverage on the French TV. In all possibility the supermarket might have been streaming live news in the store. The lawsuit charges media with endangering the lives of others by deliberately ignoring security protocols, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a €15,000 fine.

Such dastardly acts are used by the terrorists to seek psychological impact on the unsuspecting population. Psychological effects include fear, intimidation, insecurity, and also deprives faith in governmental institutions like police, intelligence, etc. To optimise psychological impact, terrorists need an audience to terrorise and the media unknowingly provide this readymade for the terrorist.

The terrorists are always in a win-win situation and they achieve a high value media profile, that too at a very low expense. It takes millions of dollars worth of publicity for the soft-drink giants to market their products and squeeze into the minds of its customer base; whereas, it took Al-Qaeda a few air tickets and the cost of training half a dozen terrorists in the basic operation of a commercial jetliner to become well known all over the world. The events that followed the live coverage of the 9/11 attacks infused fear in the minds of the world population, resulting in much stricter security checks, especially at the airports. This only helped to cause extra delay for the passengers and hiking the cost of infra-structure at the airports, which in turn showed up on the air tickets.

Many people are unable to resist news coverage of terrorist attacks. As horrific as they are to watch on television and read about in newspapers and magazines, many still find it nearly impossible to turn away. It is difficult to know why the information is so hard to resist. Some say that people are hoping for information because they are fearful of future attacks and want to be prepared; others say that people are watching and reading in an effort to digest and process the event; still others say the media is intentionally creating seductive and addictive images almost like those seen in an action movie.

The way out now is for the media to impose self-regulation about coverage of terrorist attacks in future. It would be prudent to limit or even completely blackout coverage of terrorist acts. In the post event coverage, the media must make all out efforts to ensure that they do not mention the name of the individuals and organisations responsible for the act and also not to give out the goals and intentions of these organisations. The methodology suggested is to choke the terrorists the ‘oxygen’ the media provides.

Clearly the media plays a critical role in the aftermath of a disaster. The media provides needed information, makes announcements, and gives instructions regarding services that are available to victims and their families. They are a resource for the community and can provide a source of hope. However, too much trauma-related television viewing may have a negative impact on everyone.

Marina and Nidhi, our daughter, decided to fly off to Las Vegas for the Spring Break. Our son Nikhil had his hands full for the spring break with his re-certification programme for the Lifeguard, CPR and First Aid, scheduled during the week. Further, both Nikhil and I never enjoyed the idea of throwing a few bucks at the gambling table, always sure that one is going to lose all of it. I drove Marina and Nidhi to the Toronto Airport by 5 AM and behold – there was hardly any space to even pull up the car on to the kerb at the departure terminal.

The schools in Ontario close down for a week, beginning the second Monday of March. This week is called the March Break or the Spring Break. It is called the Spring Break as it often marks the beginning of the Spring. Modern spring break owes its origin to a New York swim coach who moved his team to the warm Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the 1930s. looking for a warm place to keep his swimmers in shape over the winter. The concept took off in the 1960s with the release of the movie ‘Where the Boys Are’ and marketed using the phrase ‘Spring Break’. The subject movie was about a group of college students from the US Midwest letting loose in Fort Lauderdale.

Spring break is now one of the most popular travel times in Canada and the US with all the airports jam-packed and the Staff at the border crossings over worked. It is the time of year to shed layers of impermeable outerwear in favour of shorts, T-shirts, and sandals.

The March break is an important week for our family as Nidhi, Nikhil and I – all of us have our birthdays during the week. With the children grown up, they seem to have lost the enthusiasm to celebrate their birthdays. They just do not feel like wasting the money as they say. Please refer my blog https://rejinces.net/2014/07/18/how-did-you-manage-it/

The March break coincides with the thawing of the snow. The grass is now visible and the streams and rivers are flowing faster with the water from the melting snow. The city’s crews are busy cleaning up the parks and the walkways, collecting all the plastic that laid buried under the winter snow. They were also seen repairing the fences, the swings and playing equipment in the parks; setting up the benches and the tables, clearing the flower beds for the springing up of the tulips and daffodils.

March break also marks the beginning of the construction season. In Canada we have four seasons – winter, severe winter, winter and the followed by a six month long construction season. March break marks the beginning of the deployment of roads and bridges maintenance crew, shutting down some parts of the road, closing down a few lanes on the highways; all resulting in the vehicles either slowing down or taking a diversion.   Construction of new buildings commence at this time and most of the high-rise buildings have maintenance hanging down on steel ropes, carrying out repairs, cleaning or painting the outer side-walls or the glass windows.

The logic behind having a school break in March always eluded me. The new semester begins in February and logically in case a break is to be given, it got to be in April or May as it would mark the mid-term.

March break also marks the start of the cycling season. The cycles, all stored during the winters makes their appearances on the streets and cycling paths. The number of joggers and walkers also shows a marked increase. Most people, restricted indoors due to the snow and the cold winter now set out to enjoy and welcome the spring. The households become busy with the spring-cleaning of their front and back yards, often with the children helping their parents, to clear the yards of dead plants and shrubs.

The community centres run by the city offers day long activities for children to include swimming, skating, archery, fencing and various coaching classes for tennis, basket ball, soccer etc. There are many outdoor activities conducted for kids during the week like trekking, bird watching, cycling tours, etc. The city and various other youth organisations conduct full day and half day outdoor camps for the kids during the week aimed at learning motor and social skills, improve creativity through play, arts and cultural activities, develop intellectual capacities and concepts through play and many other life skills and above all build greater self esteem and improve their quality of life and health.

The police also utilises the March break to improve the awareness in children and pedestrians with a week-long pedestrian safety campaign called ‘March Break-March Safe.’ The event aims at increasing safety awareness in children during March Break as there are more children and youth walking around on city streets and the police want to make sure everyone stays safe. During the week the Police Officers would be focussing on drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who commit violations that could jeopardize the safety of other pedestrians.

The many museums and libraries offer special programmes for the youth and the young and also many family-friendly activities all week. The Canadian War Museum at Ottawa offers opportunity for children to play strategy board games against opponents. The Ontario science Museum offers kids (age 5-12) an opportunity to carry out exciting science experiments and enjoy exclusive access to the exhibit halls and the speciality is that no parents are allowed to accompany the kids.

When you drive on the roads in the residential areas and find children playing hockey on the roads the entire day, believe it, its March Break and the Spring is here and the warm Summer is not far away.

On 04 March, after an appointment with the Cardiologist in downtown Toronto, I was driving back home. The roads were slippery due to the freezing rain we had the previous day and thus the traffic was moving slow. The traffic light I came upon was not functional and the traffic was further slowed down. After a kilometer, I found the road blocked by a police cruiser and at a distance I could see two fire tenders putting out the flames on the poles that housed the transformers. I took a diversion and then pulled up on the drive-through of the coffee shop, to be welcomed with a bold sign – ‘CLOSED – Due to power failure’.

The transformer fire in the area kindled my brain cells to write about it. As if to vent the vengeance caused by the transformer fires, snarling traffic and the aborted coffee mission, on reaching home,  I decided to research the cause of the fire (which made my day awful).  Thus this article was born.

On 03 March 2015, thousands of homes in Toronto were without power until 04 March evening, after a major power outage struck the city amid a blast of winter weather. The power outage was the result of over 50 electric poles housing transformers catching fire. Pole fires generally occur once every couple of weeks in a normal winter.

What caused this sudden outburst of pole fires now? Toronto area had temperatures of around minus 10 degrees Celsius for a fortnight without any precipitation; either in the form of snow or rain. The temperature on 03 March rose to zero degrees Celsius and there was freezing rain in the afternoon. During a freezing rain, raindrops become super-cooled while passing through sub-freezing layers of air. These drops freezes on impact with any surface they encounter. The resulting ice, called glaze, accumulates to a thickness of several centimeters.

Salt is spread on the roads to melt off the snow in sub-zero temperatures. The salt crystals are powdered under the tyres of the vehicles. This salt dust rises up and gets deposited on the vehicles, poles, pavements, road-signs, etc. This salt had built up on the joints on the transformer terminals throughout the extremely cold winter fortnight. As there was no rain or snow to rinse salt off the power lines, they accumulated, especially at the joints and corroded the insulation.

Once the freezing rain hit these salt covered joints, the salt dissolved in the water, making it a good electric conductor, but the ice ensured that it got stuck to the terminal. Thus the distance between the transformer terminals and the ‘earth’ reduced. This resulted in discharges of electricity (arcing), powerful enough to set the oil-filled transformers on fire.  Normally, the air outside the solid insulator provides additional insulation.

The power outage caused the subway services to be suspended in some areas. The traffic lights in some areas did not function and a few shopping malls, restaurants and businesses closed down until the power was restored by 04 March.

The Winter of January-February 2014 brought with it the polar vortex, where in the cold winds from the North pole swept through Canada. This resulted in heavy snow and temperatures dropping to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Snow and ice weighed on power lines or snapped tree branches, which took transmission cables down with them, causing many power outages.

A freezing rain storm on March 2, 2007, resulted in a layer of ice several centimetres thick forming on the side of the 533-metre-tall CN tower and other downtown buildings. The sun thawed the ice, and winds of up to 90 km/h blew some of it away from these structures. There were fears that cars and windows of nearby buildings would be smashed by large chunks of ice. In response, police closed all the streets surrounding the CN tower. There were a few other cases of falling ice chunks reported in Toronto from the towers and high-rise buildings.

The modern buildings and towers are high-performance structures with double or triple-pane windows to reduce heat loss. The windowpane material is an efficient insulator. This results in no loss or transfer of heat to the outer side of the windowpanes causing the outer surface to be much cooler in comparison to the warmer inner surface. This causes accumulation of snow on these windowpanes. In the older buildings with less-efficient windows, enough heat escapes through the glass to melt the snow on contact. Further, protruding sun shades, end up creating ledges for snow and ice to accumulate.

Many suggestions were mooted to solve the ice-chunk problem of CN Tower – from manually chipping off to using laser or magnification of light to targeted problem areas to melt off the ice. The most practical one appears to be the one developed by Victor Petrenko, a professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. It is a thin film that uses an electric pulse to melt ice and snow in less than a second. It can be applied to any surface, including concrete and glass..   The pulse melts a thin layer of ice right as it meets the surface, forcing the ice to slide off.

The invention is already being used on the cables of the Uddevalla Bridge in Sweden, where built-up ice kept crashing down on vehicles in winter. The problem was solved by wrapping the bridge’s cables with a special stainless steel foil, which is heated with a short pulse of electricity. A transparent electrically conductive film is also being used in Russia to de-ice a huge glass dome over a mall.

The frequency of watermain breaks is greater in the winter months. The watermains are buried at about 10 feet below ground surface (much below the freezing level) to prevent the water from freezing. Low temperatures cause soil to freeze and expand, creating frost loading or force applied on the watermain. Prolonged periods of cold weather will result in an increase in the number of watermain breaks. Leaving a tap slightly open for a very thin stream of water and Insulating pipes that are outside or exposed to an uninsulated wall with foam pipe covers are some suggested methods to prevent watermain breaks. Opening kitchen, bathroom and laundry cabinet doors to allow warm air to circulate around the plumbing will also help.

Environment Canada has said that February 2015 that Toronto experienced, was the first in 75 years in which the temperature did not get above the freezing mark.

Always remember that winter is only temporary and think ahead a few months, the warmth of the Spring is on its way.

Canada’s proposed anti-terrorism bill C51 passed its second reading on Monday, 23 Feb 2015 with a vote 176-87 in favour of its omnibus legislation. The act would empower law enforcing agencies to arrest somebody if they think a terrorist act ‘may be carried out’ and place them in preventive detention up to seven days. The bill recommends maximum sentence of five years in prison for any act that may promote terrorism. It further permits security officials to go online and challenge the communications sent to those suspected of becoming radicalized.

This new legislation would make it easier for police to detain suspected terrorists before they can harm Canadians. It would also assist national security agencies in preventing non-citizens who pose a threat from entering and remaining in Canada. This law would give the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) the ability to intervene against specific terror plots. This new legislation would provide the courts with the authority to order the takedown of terrorist propaganda – to interfere with terrorists’ efforts to radicalize and recruit others. This legislation would also enable the sharing of information related to national security, across federal departments and agencies, to ensure that authorities can better identify those with terrorist links and intentions. It would also stop them from travelling by air for terrorism purposes.

The terrorists attacks of 9/11 changed the way the world viewed terrorism. The first major terrorists act Canada witnessed was the devastating tragedy of the Air India bombing by the Sikh terrorists that killed 329 people, most of them Canadians.

In Canada, the definition of terrorist activity includes an act or omission undertaken, inside or outside Canada, for a political, religious or ideological purpose that is intended to intimidate the public with respect to its security, including its economic security, or to compel a person, government or organization (whether inside or outside Canada) from doing or refraining from doing any act, and that intentionally causes one of a number of specified forms of serious harm.

The first priority of the Government is to protect Canada and the safety and security of Canadians at home and abroad. Building Resilience Against Terrorism. Canada is not immune from terrorism. A number of international and domestic extremist groups are active in Canada—some engage in terrorist activity in Canada, or support terrorism beyond Canada’s borders. Some have worked to manipulate or coerce members of Canadian society into advancing extremist causes hostile to Canada’s peace, order and good government.

Today violent Islamist extremism is the leading threat to Canada’s national security. Several Islamist extremist groups have declared Canada as one of their targets. This includes Al Qaida affiliates and ISIS from abroad to homegrown Islamist extremists posing a threat of violence within Canada.
Threats are also posed by Canadians who support violent conflicts abroad, or by foreigners in Canada interested in using Canada for refuge, financing, recruitment or other forms of support. Canada has listed under the Criminal Code more than 40 terrorist entities that are considered a threat, having either knowingly engaged in or facilitated international terrorism. These entities include the Liberation Tigers of Thamizh Eelam (LTTE), the Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Hamas and Hizballah.

The Canadian laws have been shaped by a deep attachment to democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and pluralism. Canada is an open-minded multi-cultural society which rejects intolerance and violent extremism. Security and laws coded to ensure security of the country will depend upon a respect for these values. When these are compromised, the safety and survival of every citizen would come under threat.

Extremism has many sources – from individuals to a diverse range of groups, who either actively participate in or who support violent extremist activities. Hence there is a need for identifying and isolating such individuals and groups. To achieve this, building partnerships with groups and individuals in Canadian communities must be the first step. This would facilitate in a better understanding of the communities and foster much better confidence in the security agencies. It would facilitate in implementing preventative and intervention methods to stop the process of radicalization leading to violence.

To succeed, the Government’s counter-terrorism efforts cannot be limited to operations to contain these groups or individuals involved in terrorist activities. They must also be reinforced by preventive measures, aimed at keeping vulnerable individuals from being drawn into terrorism. These measures call for a focus on individual motivations, and other factors contributing to recruitment into terrorist activities.

To effectively counter violent extremism, a culture of openness must exist between citizens and government. This will require the Government to share knowledge with Canadians about the nature of the terrorist threat. This would ensure better understanding of the need for these actions and develop better and effective responses. Every citizen has a responsibility to act—a responsibility to work with Government and security personnel, and a responsibility to build strong and supportive local communities. Only when these tasks are shared will a truly resilient Canada be achieved.

Capturing of biometric data, such as fingerprints and photographs, in the visa issuing process will accurately verify the identity and travel documents of foreign nationals who enter Canada. This will enhance the integrity of existing immigration programs by preventing criminals from entering Canada and facilitating the processing of legitimate applicants.

It will never be possible to stop all terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, Canadians can expect that their Government will take every reasonable step to prevent individuals from turning to terrorism, to detect terrorists and their activities, to deny terrorists the means and opportunities to attack and, when attacks do occur, to respond expertly, rapidly and proportionately.

The terrorist threat has evolved over the years, and Canada now faces ever more decentralized and diverse threats. This indicates that Canada’s Strategy must be adaptable and forward-looking—not just to react to emerging threats but to identify and understand emerging trends.

In a landmark judgement, nine member bench of Supreme Court of Canada on 06 Feb 2015, voted unanimously to allow doctor-assisted death for patients suffering ‘grievous and irremediable medical conditions.’ The bench observed that the prohibition on physician-assisted dying infringes on the right to life, liberty and security of the person in a manner that is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. The court suspended its ruling for 12 months to give the Canadian government, medical regulatory bodies and the provinces a chance to draft new laws and policies around assisted dying. It said doctors have the ability to address whether an individual is capable of consent, and said the intolerable suffering can be physical or psychological. In its direct effect on how Canadians are permitted by their government to die (or live); this ruling will always stand out as one of the most remarkable one by the Supreme Court of Canada.

It is pertinent to note that the Honourable Supreme Court had used the term ‘physician-assisted death’ and has not used the term ‘physician-assisted suicide’. This could be because suicide is a criminal offence and so is aiding or abetting a person to commit suicide.

Currently eight jurisdictions permit some form of assisted dying – Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Colombia. The process of legalization began in 1994, when Oregon, as a result of a citizens’ initiative, altered its laws to permit medical aid in dying for a person suffering from a terminal disease. Colombia followed in 1997. The Dutch Parliament established a regulatory regime for assisted dying in 2002; Belgium quickly adopted a similar regime, with Luxembourg joining in 2009. Together, these regimes have produced a body of evidence about the practical and legal workings of physician-assisted death and the efficacy of safeguards for the vulnerable.

Many governments and societies base their laws regarding criminality of suicide and homicide based on a belief that human life is God gifted and no human has the right to take it away. It is a dichotomy that the most countries that legislate a death penalty does not provide for any form of form of assisted dying. It is a crime in these jurisdictions to assist another person in ending her own life. As a result, people who are grievously and irremediably ill cannot seek a physician’s assistance in dying and may be condemned to a life of severe and intolerable suffering. A person facing this prospect has two cruel options; either she can take her own life prematurely, often by violent or dangerous means, or she can suffer until she dies from natural causes. In all the jurisdictions that allow some form of form of assisted dying, the death penalty is not in vogue.

In Canada it all begun with the Rodriguez vs British Columbia case of 1993 and in the judgement, the court upheld the blanket prohibition on assisted suicide by a slim majority. The court ruled that the state’s purpose of banning assisted suicide was legitimate – to protect the sanctity of life. Ms Sue Rodriguez suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and she requested for the right to a physician’s help in ending her life. She in an affidavit said that feared she would suffocate and die struggling for air. She died of an infection in late 2012.

Despite the Court’s decision in Rodriguez case, the debate over physician‑assisted dying continued. Between 1991 and 2010, the Canadian Parliament and its committees debated on six private member’s bills seeking to decriminalize assisted suicide, but none was passed. While opponents to legalization emphasized the inadequacy of safeguards and the potential to devalue human life, a vocal minority spoke in favour of reform, highlighting the importance of dignity and autonomy and the limits of palliative care in addressing suffering. The majority expressed concerns about the risk of abuse under a permissive regime and the need for respect for life. A minority supported an exemption to the prohibition in a given exceptional circumstances.

In case of Ms Lee Carter, she took her mother Kathleen, 89, to Switzerland in 2010 for a doctor-assisted death because of a degenerative spinal condition. Kathleen said in an affidavit she did not wish to live ‘as an ironing board,’ flat on her back, unable even to read a newspaper. Ms Lee Carter said that, after her mother’s death that the entire family were elated as Kathleen got what she wanted. The case of Kathleen led to the court’s decision, which indicates that Canadians have a choice to die with dignity in their own country, surrounded by friends and family.

The timing of the judgement is considered politically explosive. It raises the very real possibility that doctor-assisted suicide could become an issue in the October federal election. The Conservatives led by the incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, clearly oppose doctor-assisted suicide. Federal lawyers had argued unsuccessfully that totally banning assisted suicide shows that all lives are valued and worthy of protection. They also argued that such a ban would protect the vulnerable from being subtly encouraged to end their lives.

The Supreme Court has placed a 12-month delay on the ruling’s effect. Parliament has a year to draft a new law. If that does not happen, the decision takes over, and would allow for physician-assisted death. With the federal elections taking place in October 2015, formation of the new government after the election, all indicate that there is hardly any time with the parliament to pass any legislation. Politically too, the ruling dispensation would never like to touch such a subject during an election year, for obvious reasons.

The Canadian Supreme Court by this ruling has clearly defined the distinction between ‘right to life’ and ‘duty to live’. The ruling is a statement that the current law against doctor-assisted death breaches rights in Section 7 of the Charter of the Canadian Constitution, which protect life, liberty and the security of the person.

(Nikhil’s Assignment : Grade 12 : World Affairs)

Mercenaries are a very old concept which, like all warfare, has undergone a major transformation in the twenty first century. What were once merely violent individuals employed by states against each other have now integrated themselves into modern militaries. Their lack of professionalism, regulation and respect for the law makes them an incompetent fighting force, which present several threats to the very states which hire them.

The rules of war outlined by the Geneva Convention and the United Nations (UN) are supposed to be all encompassing, and yet has gaping holes in it for the use of mercenaries. The UN 1989 mercenary convention identifies mercenaries as people “motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain”[1], but are neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict.” Modern PMCs do fit this description and so are just twenty first century mercenaries, which are outlawed by the Geneva Convention, “A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war”[2]. While the convention illegalizes the use of mercenaries, the modern PMCs do not have to define themselves as such. This is because the primary employers of PMCs (Canada, Great Britain, USA, China) did not sign the UN convention, and so do not call their employees mercenaries. International law is also vague on the division of responsibilities of the employer to control their PMCs, which allows the PMCs to operate unchecked. The parties that “issue the contracts are barely capable of doing much in the way of monitoring, because army officers do not want to discipline private soldiers that aren’t part of its chain of command.”[3] This lack of mandatory control has given PMCs the confidence to operate unscrupulously like they did in Nisour Sqaure in 2007 (refer Appendix A), because there will be no oversight on them. There is also the issue of the rights of employees of PMCs operating in countries that did not hire them, such as American corporation Blackwater operations in Iraq. When Blackwater operatives abused women, and children and tortured civilians as part of counter-terrorism operations in Fallujah, the Iraqi people there killed four of them. This violent reaction has ” been the only justice the employees received for their crimes.” The actions of these Iraqis was also not, strictly speaking, illegal because the PMCs were not military personnel allied with the Iraqi government.

PMCs are supposed to replace real military personnel, but their lack of training and professionalism has made them a hindrance to the militaries they are supposed to support. The modern PMCs are desperate to keep overhead costs low, and so “sources and trains private military personnel from Latin America with minimal education and no military experience”[4] and ” these agents are paid as little as $1,000 per month”⁴. This lack of proper training makes the individual operatives unable to cope with the intricacies of the modern battlefield, and the low pay creates frustration and lack of motivation. There is also a lack of professionalism among PMCs, because they lack reverence for the cause and organisation they are serving with. This has led to a loss of cohesiveness amongst mercenaries, who have nothing to unite them except their paychecks. The fact is PMCs can do jobs like transportation and administration, but cannot replace actual military personnel.

PMCs pose a myriad of dangers to the states that employ them, making them the double edged swords of modern warfare. The financial motivations of these companies, along with their lack of infrastructure and lack of scruples are what make PMCs so poisonous to the countries today. The PMC is a corporation, and so is driven solely by a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. Corporations like DynCorp make three billion dollars, paid mostly before their deployments. This guaranteed payment regardless of quality of work removes the need for self-discipline in DynCorp, this “earned the firm a trigger-happy reputation as its soldiers fought rebel groups in Columbia in the early 2000s.”[5] The other danger of PMCs is their lack of loyalty to a state or ideology, which has led to rogue PMCs conducting illegal operations abroad. There are several documented examples of mercenaries in Africa attempting government overthrows for unknown employers, one “group, led by Nick Du Toit and former SAS member Simon Mann, were planning a coup in Equatorial Guinea.”[6] (refer Appendix B) The greatest threat of PMCs are their ruthlessness when on deployment, which historically has led to several tragedies. When a crowd in Iraq(refer Appendix C) appeared to be getting agitated the PMCs used excessive violence to quiet them, and “Four Blackwater guards have been found guilty of killing 14 people and injuring 17 more in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.”[7] This shows clear the ruthless, and inconsiderate nature of PMCs, and why they present such a problem for professional armies today.

PMCs also pose several latent dangers which, while not obvious now, have the potential to be even more devastating. The possible dangers of the continued use of mercenaries are PMCs making warfare deceptively easy, and lobbying for increased military operations. As of today 468 private contractors have died in Iraq.[8] Yet these deaths are never displayed on news networks or in newspapers, which allows states to wage wars without their citizens becoming concerned. Wars becoming easier will lead to more of them, and a disconnect between the population declaring war and the conflict itself. The second possibility is more alarming because of its inevitability, PMCs paying elected representatives to wage wars and thereby manufacture the need for PMC contracts. “The Defence Contractors, along with the PMCs, are one of the interests groups with powerful control over policy and decision making in the US Congress.”[9] This may lead to a cycle of incessant warfare, where PMCs use their wealth to lobby Congress and other governments to declare a war, and use the profits they generate from that war to lobby for more. The dangers are not obvious now, but evidence does suggest that the PMCs will make them a reality.

Private military companies are abundant today, with the industry worth over $100 billion a year. These companies have fully integrated themselves into the US military, and so have a great deal of control over when, where and why the US wages war. PMCs do reduce the costs of a deployment, so it is impossible for countries to ban their use, nor should they be banned as they serve a useful function. However the use of mercenaries must be strictly monitored, and regulated to ensure they obey the rules of engagement. It is only when these companies operate unchecked that illegal actions occur, and the UN, NATO, ICRC, and various watchdog groups must keep these “dogs of war” on a tight leash.

Footnotes

[1], Todd S. Milliard, Overcoming Post-Colonial Myopia a Call to Recognize and Regulate Private Military Companies. Diss. Judge Advocate General’s School, (United States Army Journal, 2003) 2014.

[2] Additions to Geneva Convention (ICRC, 2014).

[3] Rolf Uesseler, Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict, trans. Jefferson Chase (Brooklyn, New York: Soft Skull Press, 2008) 146.

[4] Private Military Companies:Beyond Blackwater.(The Economist, 2013)

[5], Luke McKenna and Robert Johnson, A Look At The World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Armies (Business Insider)

[6] Adam Roberts, The Wonga Coup: The British Mercenary Plot to Seize Oil Billions in Africa (Egjustice.org, 2009)

[7] Meredith Clark, Blackwater Guards Found Guilty in Nissour Square Massacre (MSNBC ,2009)

[8] Private Military Companies: Beyond Blackwater. (The Economist, 2013)

[9] Mario Zorro, Defence Contractors and Private Military Contractors: Armourers, Mercenaries, and Politics (Mediums.com, 2011)

Works Cited

 “Additions to Geneva Convention.” Icrc.org. ICRC, 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

Clark, Meredith. “Blackwater Guards Found Guilty in Nissour Square Massacre.” Msnbc.com. MSNBC, 22 Oct. 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

Isenberg, David. “Why Fighting Pirates Is Both Good and Bad for PSC.”The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.

Johnson, Luke McKenna and Robert. “A Look At The World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Armies.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 26 Feb. 2012. Web. 17 Sep. 2014.

Milliard, Todd S. Overcoming Post-colonial Myopia a Call to Recognize and Regulate Private Military Companies. Diss. Judge Advocate General’s School, United States Army, 2003. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

“Private Military Companies: Beyond Blackwater.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 23 Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Sep 2014.

Roberts, Adam. “The Wonga Coup: The British Mercenary Plot to Seize Oil Billions in Africa.” Egjustice.org. EG Justice, 2009. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Uesseler, Rolf, and Rolf Uesseler. Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict. Brooklyn: Soft Skull, 2008. Print.

Zorro, Mario. “Defence Contractors and Private Military Contractors: Armourers, Mercenaries, and Politics.” Mediums.com. Mediums, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.