Brik's first jobs was to get a shortwave radio – a Hallicrafters SX-71 – to receive Morse Code transmissions in the middle of the night. The documents had been seized when the family returned to Russia during the Depression. The KGB had provided him with the identity documents of a young Canadian man born to Russian parents in Toronto. His training to work in Canada included perfecting his spoken English, reading Canadian newspapers, and learning Morse Code and techniques for exchanging information. Brik was trained by the KGB as an undercover intelligence operative, and was in his early 30s when he arrived in Halifax on a steamship from Marseilles. presidential election.Īccording to the book, Mr. Allegations of Russian hacking, blackmail and influence operations have sullied the U.S. The book arrives as persistent espionage campaigns by Russia against the West are in the news. The Soviet Union broke apart in the early 1990s. Parts of this tale have been told before, but Shattered Illusions is an exceptionally detailed account by a former Canadian intelligence official intimately familiar with the case. Mulroney wrote in a secret memo quoted in the book. "Every consideration will be given to this man who was betrayed by the cowardice of an RCMP officer," Mr. The federal government of Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney undertook the operation in 1992 to make amends to Mr. The book was written by Don Mahar, a former CSIS officer who befriended the former spy after he returned to Canada for good. Shattered Illusions tells the story of Yevgeni Brik, a spy who betrayed the Soviet Union and the KGB, and in turn was himself betrayed by a Mountie who worked for the RCMP's intelligence unit, the forerunner of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Details of the Canzuk Union can be found here.Canada's spy service retrieved a Soviet double-agent who had worked for this country during the Cold War from his homeland to live out his days in Ottawa, a new book reveals. Prof Andrew Roberts is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the CANZUK Union Institutes. CANZUK is an idea whose time has, thanks to Brexit, finally come again. A common head of state, a majority language, legal systems based on Magna Cara and the common law, Westminster parliamentary tradition, military structure, and a long history of working together including in the proudest voluntary military collaboration in human history, resisting Nazi aggression.Īll we lack is geographical proximity, which is becoming less and less important in the modern world. We CANZUK countries together have far more of the potential for successful state-building than do any four member-states of the EU. Sir Roger Scruton’s famous dictum that “A nation-state is the widest span at which it is possible to be meaningfully good” can be inverted with no loss of truth, for if there are a set a peoples who effectively share an idea of what public good is, then they will probably be candidates for a state, at least a federal one.
The Crown countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (CANZUK) need to form a new federation based upon free trade, free movement of peoples, mutual defence, and a limited but effective confederal political structure.Īs one of the leaders of the nascent CANZUK project, James Bennett, points out in his new book A Time For Audacity: New Options Beyond Europe: “In the era of the internet and cheap global air travel, common language, law, history and traditions of government count far more than geographical proximity.” Now it is time for the last – CANZUK – to retake her place as the third pillar of Western Civilization. The first and second blocs – the USA and a United State of Europe – are already in place. Winston Churchill’s great dream of a Western alliance based on three separate blocs might one day live again, thanks to Brexit. Of all the many splendid opportunities provided by the British people’s heroic Brexit vote, perhaps the greatest is the resuscitation of the idea of a CANZUK Union.