Juno News - February 05, 2019


True North's Newest Fellow： Leo Knight


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

173.62817

Word Count

848

Sentence Count

60


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, welcome to True North. I'm really excited to announce a new addition to our team at
00:00:10.340 True North. Our latest contributor and fellow is Leo Knight. Leo, welcome to the show and
00:00:16.100 welcome to True North.
00:00:17.880 Thanks very much, Candice. I'm happy to be with you.
00:00:20.200 So Leo has a very impressive background, everything from law enforcement to private sector security
00:00:26.340 to being a prolific writer and contributor on the topics of sort of public policy and security.
00:00:34.480 So Leo, why don't you talk a little bit about your background and what you've done throughout
00:00:38.740 your career?
00:00:40.140 Sure. My career started actually before I got into policing. I was a police reporter for the
00:00:46.040 Montreal Star back when it existed in the 70s. I then went from that to the RCMP and then from
00:00:53.000 the RCMP to Vancouver Police. And throughout my law enforcement, I worked in a variety of
00:00:58.480 sections, everything from organized crime investigations to general patrol to homicides,
00:01:04.240 did a whole lot of different things.
00:01:06.900 And then from there, you moved on and had a pretty successful bout in the private sector.
00:01:11.680 What is it that you worked on?
00:01:12.800 Yeah, I took everything I learned in that and then got into business and started building
00:01:16.620 a private security company with my business partner. And we built the largest privately held
00:01:21.300 security company in Canada with offices from Victoria to St. John's. And it was very,
00:01:27.200 very fulfilling. And I retired a couple of years ago.
00:01:30.060 That's great. And so throughout this whole time, you've kind of maintained a presence as
00:01:34.440 a public policy commentator and a columnist. So why don't you talk a little bit about your
00:01:40.100 writing as well? You maintain a really excellent source, resource, which is your website,
00:01:45.260 primetimecrime.com. So why don't you tell us a bit about that as well?
00:01:49.200 I've been doing the website for about the last 15 years. One of the things, when I got
00:01:54.520 out of policing, when I was in policing, I couldn't continue writing and expressing my
00:01:58.420 opinion. They frown on that sort of thing. So once I got into the private sector, I got
00:02:02.900 back into freelance writing and doing columns for all manner of publications. And I've been
00:02:08.960 doing that for the last 30 years alongside with my private sector career.
00:02:12.800 And then what about primetime crime? What is the focus on? And what's the point of that website?
00:02:19.540 Primetime crime is just to bring focus to crime stories that interest me, crime stories that
00:02:26.620 government can affect, crime stories that are interesting. There's a reason why police shows
00:02:32.200 are interesting on TV and why they get good ratings is that people are interested. If there's a particular
00:02:37.700 interesting murder, like the serial killer in Toronto, Bruce MacArthur, people want to know
00:02:42.940 about it. They want to read about it. They've got an interest. So I try and bring that to them.
00:02:46.480 And I try and bring videos on a daily basis, too, that show them what happens in real policing world.
00:02:53.540 Great. Yeah, I love your website. And it's a great resource. So as you know, at True North,
00:02:58.500 we're mostly focused on a lot of overlapping topics, but we're mostly focused on national security,
00:03:04.180 immigration security, and terrorism. And then you have the background in sort of law enforcement
00:03:10.140 generally, but I'm sure you dealt with these kind of issues all the time, you know, in your career,
00:03:15.440 various factions.
00:03:17.200 Well, yeah, I mean, I've been around long enough, Candace, that my first assignment in the RCMP
00:03:23.280 was on the Prime Minister's security detail. And the current Prime Minister was just five years old
00:03:29.080 at the time.
00:03:30.880 Wow.
00:03:31.340 Around the block a few times.
00:03:33.200 Wow. So you've probably seen it all. So what is it that you hope to focus on with your work in True North?
00:03:40.680 And what do you think are some of the biggest, most pressing issues for law enforcement in Canada right now?
00:03:47.280 There's two primary threats to this country.
00:03:51.280 One of them has been around for a long while, and that's organized crime. And it's how,
00:03:56.720 unfortunately, government does not do enough to fight organized crime. And that is one problem.
00:04:02.800 And the other problem is really a post-9-11 problem, where geopolitics have created terrorist
00:04:11.800 situations in many countries around the world. And people for years would say that Canada was not
00:04:18.420 at risk. And I would argue that, no, we're very much at risk, and we need to focus how we protect
00:04:24.340 ourselves, how we protect our public events, how we protect our leaders. All has to have one eyeball
00:04:30.440 on security in the international threat assessment chart.
00:04:33.940 Absolutely. We have to remain constantly vigilant to the threat of terrorism and the global jihadist
00:04:40.820 emergency.
00:04:41.880 Well, Leo, we're really excited to have you as part of our team. We're really lucky,
00:04:44.880 and we're looking forward to all of your future videos and reports. So thank you so much for
00:04:49.200 joining me, and thanks for joining us at True North.
00:04:52.000 Perfect, Candice. You're welcome.