Cyber Security and Emerging Threats

Tag‑Swapping at Toronto Pearson: Insider Threats, Cyber‑Physical Airport Systems, and NATO’s Resilience Agenda  

This article will look at the baggage‑tag switching scandal at Toronto Pearson Airport—where insiders allegedly moved passengers’ tags onto drug‑filled suitcases—and use it to show how modern airports have become vulnerable to cyber‑physical systems, not just places with broken conveyor belts.

NATO and Canada

Stay or Leave? The Threat of Russian Influence in Albertan Separatism

What’s in it for Russia? As Russian involvement in the promotion of Alberta separatism comes into sharper focus, Zev Wood argues that it reflects a long-standing strategy employed by Russia aimed at covertly weakening its adversaries. He examines the ensuing implications for Canada’s sovereignty and economy as well as the knock-on effects on NATO.

NATO and Canada

Killing from a Distance: How remote warfare is reshaping accountability, civilian protection, and the future of conflict.

When warfare is designed to distance the soldier emotionally and physically from the battlefield, international humanitarian law pays the price. Giselle D’Anna examines how remote warfare and AI-enabled targeting are eroding civilian protection obligations, and what Canada owes to the future of war.

Environment, Climate Change, and Security

Canada’s Bootprint: An Effort to Mitigate Its Carbon Footprint

Canada has increasingly recognized that climate change is not only an environmental issue but also a growing national and international security challenge. As a founding member of NATO, Canada has aligned its defence policies with the Alliance’s climate objectives by integrating climate considerations into military planning, resilience, and emissions reduction. NATO has committed to reducing Read More…

Centre For Disinformation Studies

Transnational Repression on Canadian Campuses: An Emerging Disinformation Threat

Transnational repression on Canadian campuses is an emerging threat distorting information environments and exposing NATO vulnerabilities. Using a two‑tier framework, Ji Young Kim shows how foreign coercion silences dissent and can lead institutions to reinforce false consensus.

Tessa McDermid Women in Security

LeadInSecurity: How NATO’s New Accelerator Can Deliver on Its WPS Commitments

NATO has just launched LeadInSecurity, its first Alliance-wide leadership accelerator for women in defence and security. In this article, Tessa McDermid explores how the program offers NATO an opportunity to close the sector’s gender gap and uphold its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) commitments. Since LeadInSecurity has no internal track record to draw on, she looks to comparable programs to argue that its long-term success depends on outcome tracking, integration into NATO’s existing accountability frameworks, setting numeric targets, and running as a recurring, multi-year initiative rather than a standalone initiative.

Previous Events

2026 Virtual Policy Hackathon Report: Calibrating Canada’s Defence Posture With Comparable NATO Allies

Although Canada achieved its 2% NATO target, it still struggles to turn that spending into modern, ready, and deployable military capability. With the new 5% pledge, Canada must rethink how it budgets and delivers defence investments to generate usable and efficient military power.

Morgan Singer Women in Security

The Mission Beyond the Meeting: Actualizing Conversations at the Ankara Summit

The 2026 NATO Summit in Ankara presented a unique opportunity to uphold the importance of NATO’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda in the pursuit of collective security. Growing concerns over Turkey’s domestic humanitarian record underscored a deeper importance to this conversation. Nonetheless, at a time where confrontation is often chosen over conversation, the Summit offered a reminder of the importance of the willingness to gather. Through an examination of key discussions on gender-responsive security at the Ankara Summit, this article contends that the willingness to gather must be matched by a willingness to act. The Alliance’s greatest strength lies in its continued capacity to choose diplomacy, have hard conversations, and hold one another accountable for transforming dialogue into durable action.

Centre For Disinformation Studies

Democracy and Disinformation, Part 3: The Cost of Comfort

Canada has the institutions, the reports, and the warnings about disinformation. What it lacks is a population that feels the threat. In this article, Dominique Arseneau-Bruneau looks at how Canada’s lack of urgency affects its response to disinformation through the lens of legality, legitimacy, and speed, and what the cost of that comfort may ultimately be.