Study: Research Capacity Falling Behind Threats to Canadian Security

Published on: 2012/02/22 - in Releases

The implications of organized crime, climate change, cyber security and migration raise serious issues for Canadian security in the years ahead, according to a recent report from the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University.

“Canada faces its own, unique national security threats due to our county’s large, sparsely-populated area and no enemy states near our borders,” says Christian Leuprecht, a fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s who co-edited the report. “We’ve been lucky because Canadians haven’t had to pay too much attention to security, but things have changed in the post-Sept. 11 world.”

Many of the transnational threats confronting the world in the 21st century raise different issues for Canada than for other countries, according to the report’s findings. Canada has been overly reliant on research from other countries to inform Canadian policy and should instead be bolstering its own research capacity.

The study is designed to be accessible to practitioners, scholars, politicians and the Canadian public and it aims to stimulate discussion of the way political, economic, demographic, climate and technological transformations are affecting Canadian security. Looming threats include violent political extremism, organized crime, cyber security, and the flow of illegal, illicit or undocumented people and goods. Even Canada’s demographic structure poses a formidable challenge to national security.

Demographically, the world is entering virgin territory due to historically unprecedented changes in the three variables that make up demography: fertility, mortality and migration. There is great cause for concern because population structure is known to affect political stability.

The study called Evolving Transnational Threats and Border Security: A New Research Agenda can be downloaded in English or French.

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Release source: Queen’s University News Centre | Photo (Robert Sutherland Hall): Queen’s University