Juno News - February 05, 2019True North's Newest Fellow： Leo Knight
Episode Stats
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Summary
Leo Knight is a prolific writer and commentator on the topics of public policy and security in Canada. He has worked in law enforcement, private sector security, and public policy for over 30 years, and is now part of the True North team.
Transcript
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Hi, welcome to True North. I'm really excited to announce a new addition to our team at
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True North. Our latest contributor and fellow is Leo Knight. Leo, welcome to the show and
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Thanks very much, Candice. I'm happy to be with you.
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So Leo has a very impressive background, everything from law enforcement to private sector security
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to being a prolific writer and contributor on the topics of sort of public policy and security.
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So Leo, why don't you talk a little bit about your background and what you've done throughout
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Sure. My career started actually before I got into policing. I was a police reporter for the
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Montreal Star back when it existed in the 70s. I then went from that to the RCMP and then from
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the RCMP to Vancouver Police. And throughout my law enforcement, I worked in a variety of
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sections, everything from organized crime investigations to general patrol to homicides,
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And then from there, you moved on and had a pretty successful bout in the private sector.
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Yeah, I took everything I learned in that and then got into business and started building
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a private security company with my business partner. And we built the largest privately held
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security company in Canada with offices from Victoria to St. John's. And it was very,
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very fulfilling. And I retired a couple of years ago.
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That's great. And so throughout this whole time, you've kind of maintained a presence as
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a public policy commentator and a columnist. So why don't you talk a little bit about your
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writing as well? You maintain a really excellent source, resource, which is your website,
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primetimecrime.com. So why don't you tell us a bit about that as well?
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I've been doing the website for about the last 15 years. One of the things, when I got
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out of policing, when I was in policing, I couldn't continue writing and expressing my
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opinion. They frown on that sort of thing. So once I got into the private sector, I got
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back into freelance writing and doing columns for all manner of publications. And I've been
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doing that for the last 30 years alongside with my private sector career.
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And then what about primetime crime? What is the focus on? And what's the point of that website?
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Primetime crime is just to bring focus to crime stories that interest me, crime stories that
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government can affect, crime stories that are interesting. There's a reason why police shows
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are interesting on TV and why they get good ratings is that people are interested. If there's a particular
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interesting murder, like the serial killer in Toronto, Bruce MacArthur, people want to know
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about it. They want to read about it. They've got an interest. So I try and bring that to them.
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And I try and bring videos on a daily basis, too, that show them what happens in real policing world.
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Great. Yeah, I love your website. And it's a great resource. So as you know, at True North,
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we're mostly focused on a lot of overlapping topics, but we're mostly focused on national security,
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immigration security, and terrorism. And then you have the background in sort of law enforcement
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generally, but I'm sure you dealt with these kind of issues all the time, you know, in your career,
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Well, yeah, I mean, I've been around long enough, Candace, that my first assignment in the RCMP
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was on the Prime Minister's security detail. And the current Prime Minister was just five years old
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Wow. So you've probably seen it all. So what is it that you hope to focus on with your work in True North?
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And what do you think are some of the biggest, most pressing issues for law enforcement in Canada right now?
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One of them has been around for a long while, and that's organized crime. And it's how,
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unfortunately, government does not do enough to fight organized crime. And that is one problem.
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And the other problem is really a post-9-11 problem, where geopolitics have created terrorist
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situations in many countries around the world. And people for years would say that Canada was not
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at risk. And I would argue that, no, we're very much at risk, and we need to focus how we protect
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ourselves, how we protect our public events, how we protect our leaders. All has to have one eyeball
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on security in the international threat assessment chart.
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Absolutely. We have to remain constantly vigilant to the threat of terrorism and the global jihadist
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Well, Leo, we're really excited to have you as part of our team. We're really lucky,
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and we're looking forward to all of your future videos and reports. So thank you so much for
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joining me, and thanks for joining us at True North.