Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism at Home and Abroad - Perspectives on the Key Challenges

摘要

Like many of you, my background is in defence science. However, in the past few years since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, I have been working with the Canadian public safety and security community to examine how the nation's science and technology capabilities can be brought to bear on Canada's public security challenges, in particular those deriving from the terrorist threat to the nation. Today I want to share with you some of my observations on the challenges for science and technology in general - and defence S&T in particular - in today's public security context, with a focus on counterterrorism issues. I'll approach this in three parts. First, I'll provide some personal views on the current context for counterterrorism S&T. I'll then present you a few examples of how S&T is being applied to the public security and counter-terrorism priorities in Canada. Finally, I'll summarize with some views, as promised, on the S&T challenges, drawing largely from recent experiences in the establishment of a new collaborative S&T program between Canada and the US in the context of our mutual homeland security. Perhaps to position your expectations, I view these challenges are more than technical, but I do think they play well into the mandate of the SCI Panel. I will begin with a few remarks regarding today's context.