Street security:
Street
security threats most likely refer to the various crimes that take place on the
streets (e.g. threats, assaults, mugging, car theft, etc.), as well as various
other street dangers such as traffic accidents, accidents stemming from poor
street maintenance (e.g. icy roads), and so on. Such security threats have
always existed, changing little in their nature, over time.
Food and health security:
Many
infectious diseases have existed for millennia and caused countless deaths and
suffering to citizens of innumerable societies. In the 20th century, however,
the prevalence of many such diseases has been greatly reduced, with a few being
completely eradicated in the developed world (Price-Smith, 2002). However, in
the mid 1970s dozens of new pathogens began to emerge, rapidly spreading all
over the world in the following decades. Adding to the threat was (and
continues to be) the development of drug resistance in the long existing
pathogens that have formerly been successfully kept at bay through the use of
drugs (Price-Smith, 2002).
Canadian
Government endorses the definition of food security which emphasizes three dimensions:
access, availability, and utilization (Power, 2008). The access dimension
refers to “the economic ability of individuals and households to purchase food
in the market (or retail) food system.” The availability dimension is
restricted to the supply and production of food. While utilization “is
concerned with Canadians’ ability to make healthy food selections in their
local environments, such as schools and workplaces” (Power, 2008). And according
to McIntyre (2003), though food insecurity in Canada has a long history, it
officially was ‘discovered’ and became a subject of study in the 1980s, “when
food banks began to emerge and children’s feeding programs in schools became
more common.” The problem remains unsolved to this day, despite various efforts
to do so. For example, “a total of 1,800 new food banks opened between 1997 and
2002.” However, these and similar initiatives “have failed to eliminate or even
significantly reduce hunger and food insecurity” (McIntyre, 2003).
Organized crime:
Organized
crime refers to the activities of a group of people, which was formed primarily
in order to commit criminal offences that tend to bring material benefits to
the members of this group. In present-day Canada, organized crime groups range from
highly sophisticated groups involved in securities frauds to street gangs
involved in illegal drug trafficking (CISC, 2010).
A
large variety of criminal organizations started to grow and spread in Canada
starting in the 1970s, gathering speed in the 1980s and 1990s (Schneider, 2009,
p. 343). Starting in the 1980s Canadian organized crime groups became
transnational for the first time. Feeding these developments was the fact that Canada
has long established itself as a prime center for the production, distribution
or sale of illegal and contraband goods, a practice which, not surprisingly,
only grew, developed and diversified from the 1970s onwards (Schneider, 2009,
p. 344).
Border security:
While
there appears to be no consensus on what border security actually is (McCombs,
2011); a simple definition may be something like the following. A border is
100% secure when no ‘unwanted’ people, machines (e.g. aircraft), or goods, as specified
by the state, manage to cross it. Since someone or something always manages to
cross any border, border security has always been an issue; especially for
Canada, with its vast borders and comparatively small national security
agencies.
Infrastructure security:
“Infrastructure
security is
the security provided to protect infrastructure,
especially critical
infrastructure, such as airports, highways, rail transport, hospitals,
bridges, transport hubs,
network communications, media,
the electricity grid, dams, power plants, seaports, oil refineries,
and water systems.
Infrastructure security seeks to limit vulnerability of these structures and
systems to sabotage, terrorism,
and contamination.”[1]
Canadian infrastructure has always been in need of protection, whether from
perceived attacks by Soviet sympathizers or direct attacks by the Soviet Union
during the Cold War, or from international terrorists, more recently.
Terrorism:
The type of terrorism that currently presents a threat to Canadian
security is the post-9/11 type, which is different and has no roots in the
terrorism that plagued Canada in earlier decades and started to break down in
the 1980s (Leman-Langlois & Brodeur, 2005). Hence, the terrorism that
presents a current threat to Canada was not inherited from the Cold War era.
References
CISC. (2010). 2010 Report on
Organized Crime. Retrieved from http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/grc-rcmp/PS61-1-2010-eng.pdf.
Leman-Langlois, S. and Brodeur, J. (2005). Terrorism Old and New: Counterterrorism in
Canada. Police Practice and Research, 6 (2), 121–140.
Retrieved from http://www.crime-reg.com/textes/terrorismoldandnew.pdf.
McCombs,
B. (2011). Border is a clear line; 'control' is a gray
area. Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved
from http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_bfe40b78-ef21-538c-93a3-9017c4163dab.html?mode=story.
McIntyre, L. (2003). Food security: More than a
determinant of health. Policy Options. Retrieved
from http://www.chumirethicsfoundation.ca/files/pdf/FoodSecurity-MorethanDeterminantofHealth.pdf.
Power,
E. M. (2008). Commentary: Conceptualizing Food Security for Aboriginal People
in Canada. Canadian Journal of Public
Health, 99(2), 95-97. Retrieved from http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/jspui/bitstream/1974/1224/1/CJPH%20Aboriginal%20food%20security.pdf.
Price-Smith, A. T. (2002). The Health of Nations. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Schneider, S. (2009). Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada. Mississauga: John
Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
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