Canada safe haven from terrorism

Canada ranks 86 out of 197 nations. The U.S. is at 61, just behind Germany. Norway had been at 112 before the Oslo massacre.

RCMP car in Ottawa

(CALGARY, Alberta) - If you want to feel safe from terrorism, move to Canada. There you will also find stable government, universal health insurance (since 1966) and low unemployment.

The 2011 Terrorism Risk Index, just released by the U.K. risk analysis firm Maplecroft puts Canada as #86 (from 64 in the previous year’s rankings) with the lowest risk of terrorism among the Western nations. The U.K. was the highest at risk among the major Western nations at #38, primarily the result of deteriorating security conditions in Northern Ireland. The worst was Greece at #27.

All the Western nations were in the medium risk range with the U.S. at 61, Germany at 62 and France at 45. There are 197 countries tracked.

The rankings are based on the frequency and intensity of terrorist incidents from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011 and taking further into account the history of terrorism in the country. Norway is ranked at 112 although that rank predated the Oslo massacre of last month.

Extreme risk states

Maplecroft ranks the new state of South Sudan at #1, with Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan making up the top five.

The next fifteen are:

• Yemen 6
• Occupied Palestine 7
• Congo 8
• Central African Republic 9
• Columbia 10
• Algeria 11
• Thailand 12
• Philippines 13
• Russia 14
• Sudan 15
• Iran 16
• Burundi 17
• India 18
• Nigeria 19
• Israel 20

In 2010/11 terrorist attacks were up 15% with 11,954 incidents in the one year period. Deaths were down 7%, from 14,478 to 13,492.

This last sentence is revealing in that it means there were, on average, more than thirty terrorist incidents per day, more than 99% of which never make the Western news.

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Daniel Johnson as a teenager aspired to be a writer. Always a voracious reader, he reads more books in a month than many people read in a lifetime. He knew early that in order to be a writer, you have to be a reader.

Another early bit of self-knowledge was that writers need experience. So, in the first seven years after high school he worked at 42 different jobs ranging from management trainee in a bank (four branches in three cities), inside and outside jobs at a railroad (in two cities), then A & W, factories and assembly lines, driving cabs (three different companies), collection agent, a variety of office jobs, John Howard Society, crisis counsellor at an emergency shelter, salesman in a variety of industries (building supplies, used cars, photocopy machines)and on and on. You get the picture.

In 1968, he was between jobs and eligible for unemployment benefits, so he decided to take the winter off and just write. The epiphany there, he said, was that after about two weeks, “I realized I had nothing to say.” So back to regular work.

He has always been concerned about fairness in the world and the plight of the underprivileged/underdog. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that he understood where that motivation came from. Diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) he researched the topic and, among others, read a book Scattered Minds by Dr. Gabor Maté, an ADD person himself. Maté wrote: "[A] feeling of duty toward the whole world is not limited to ADD but is typical of it. No one with ADD is without it."

That explains his motivation. Hard-wired.

As a professional writer he sold his first paid article in 1974 and, while employed at other jobs, started selling a few pieces in assorted places. He created his first journalism gig. In the late 1970s, when the world was recovering from a recession, the Canadian federal government had a job creation program where, if an employer created a new job, the government would pay part of the wage for the first year or two. The local weekly paper was growing, so he approached the publisher and said this was an opportunity for him to hire a new reporter. The publisher had been thinking along those lines but cost was a factor. No longer.

Over the next 15 years, Daniel eked out a living as a writer doing, among other things, national writing and both radio and TV broadcasting for the CBC, Maclean’s (the national newsmagazine) and a host of smaller publications. Interweaved throughout this period was soul-killing corporate and public relations writing.

It was through the 1960s and 1970s that he got his university experience. In his first year at the University of Calgary, he majored in psychology/mathematics; in his second year he switched to physics/mathematics. He then learned of an independent study program at the University of Lethbridge where he attended the next two years, studying philosophy and economics. In the end he attended university over nine years (four full time) but never qualified for a degree because he didn't have the right number of courses in any particular field.

In 1990 he published his first (and so far, only) book: Practical History: A guide to Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” (Polymath Press, Calgary)

Newly appointed as the Deputy Executive Editor in August 2011, he has been writing exclusively for Salem-News.com since March 2009 and, as of summer 2011, has published more than 150 stories.

He continues to work on a second book which he began in 1998.

View articles written by Daniel Johnson