Event Date: April 12, 2021 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: Webinar

Watch the video of the event here.

Presented by CIPS and the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS).

This is a second panel in a series of two events co-sponsored by the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) and the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS). It will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the national security landscape in Canada. 

Speakers:

Dr. Leah West is an Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University and counsel with Freidman Mansour Law. She completed her SJD at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2020, where her research explored the application of criminal, constitutional and international law to state conduct in cyberspace. She is the co-author, alongside Craig Forcese, of National Security Law, 2^nd ed (Irwin Law, 2021). Professor West previously served as Counsel in the Department of Justice National Security Litigation and Advisory Group where she appeared before the Federal Court and the Security Intelligence Review Committee. In 2015, she clerked for the Honourable Justice Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada. Before law school, Professor West served in the Canadian Armed Forces for ten years as an Armoured Officer; she deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. She tweets at @leahwest_nsl.

Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion, and is cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies, at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, and an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. His research interests are in terrorism, radicalization and extremism, diaspora politics, post-war reconstruction, and the sociology of religion. He is the author of Pain, Pride, and Politics: Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada (2015), and the co-editor of Sri Lanka: The Struggle for Peace in the Aftermath of War (2016). He has also written several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has presented papers at over 100 national and international conferences, and has written for The New York Times, The Monkey Case, The Washington Post, CNN, Politico, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs. He has been interviewed on CNN, PBS Newshour, CBC, BBC, and a variety of other media outlets. He tweets at @AmarAmarasingam.

Marc-André Argentino is a Research Fellow at ICSR and PhD candidate in the Individualized Program at Concordia University. His research examines how extremist groups leverage technology to create propaganda, recruit members to ideological causes, inspire acts of violence and impact democratic institutions. He has an MA from Université Laval and a BA from Concordia. Marc-André is a Research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), an associate fellow at the Global Network on Extremism & Technology  (GNET) and an associate researcher at the Centre d’Expertise et de Formation sur les Intégrismes Religieux, les idéologies politiques et la radicalisation (CEFIR).

Dr. Bessma Momani is Assistant Vice President Research and International and Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, D.C. She sits on the board of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and is a member of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group (NS-TAG) to improve transparency of Canada’s national security and intelligence departments and agencies.

Dr. Jean-François Bélanger is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Bessma Momani on questions of cybersecurity and populism. His book project, titled Why Competence Matters: Counter-Proliferation and Deterrence, focuses on the variation in the use of force against nascent proliferators. Using concepts from practice theory and applying them in a strategic setting, the book examines how competence in previous deterrence crises plays an important role in the decision by counter-proliferating state to use force or not to curb proliferation. His broader research examines the role of status inconsistencies in nuclear proliferation, competence and rule-adherence, Coercive diplomacy in light of technological changes, and public opinion survey research related to questions of international security. His research has been funded by the Canadian Defense Security and Defense Funds, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Le Fonds de Recherche Société et Culture. Jean-François received his PhD in Political Science from McGill University in February 2019. Prior to joining the University of Waterloo, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the International Security Studies Center at Yale University from 2018 to 2020.

Chair:

Jessica Davis is a former senior strategic intelligence analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. She now works as an international consultant, is the President of Insight Threat Intelligence, and is a second year PhD student at NPSIA (Carleton University). Her most recent book is Women in Modern Terrorism: From Liberations Wars to Global Terrorism and the Islamic State (2017). She tweets at @jessmarindavis.