Jan 21 2021 — Kevin G. Cai — Policy Magazine — It has been two years since the two “Michaels” were detained by Chinese authorities in response to Canada’s detention of Meng Wanzhou. Her arrest came at the request of the Trump administration under the Canada-U.S. extradition treaty. The consequence of these mutual detentions has been the derailment of Canada-China relations over the past two years. […]
Jan 20 2021 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — In measuring presidential inaugural addresses of the last century, there are two standards of excellence, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 and John F. Kennedy in 1961. Roosevelt came to power during the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in American history, which from the stock market crash of 1929 had doomed his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, […]
Jan 20 2021 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — That massive whooshing sound you heard Wednesday just before noon was the collective sigh of relief heard around the world as Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States. It was a moment that turned the page on one of the darkest chapters in the epic of American history and marked the climax […]
Jan 19 2021 — Fen Osler Hampson — Policy Magazine — Canada faces a major dilemma with Joe Biden’s ascension to the U.S. presidency. It will be dealing with two Joe Bidens: Biden the internationalist, committed to multilateral institutions, alliances and global security, and Biden the old-fashioned Democrat intent on protecting the American worker and America’s economic interests.
Jan 14 2021 — Policy Magazine — The United Nations marked its 75th anniversary in September, and with the milestone has come scrutiny – yet again – of the relevance of multilateral institutions (including the UN and other institutions). Experts have long criticized multilateral systems for their high budgets, excessive fragmentation across agencies and hegemony of a few members. Supporters of such […]
Jan 13 2021 — L. Ian MacDonald — Policy Magazine — With his impeachment by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, Donald Trump became what’s known in the news business as a “standing head.” And a bold faced, all-caps banner headline at that, on the front of the New York Times, America’s daily journal of record. Such a standing head has never been published before […]
Jan 12 2021 — John Delacourt — Policy Magazine — You could say it began with the mystery of the mandate letters. For those of us following the Trudeau government’s moves closely since prorogation, the signal that there might be some cabinet-level changes was starting to flash by late November, set off by one pressing question: what was delaying the release of the government’s mandate […]
Jan 6 2021 — Policy Magazine — Years from now, the Adventures of Rod Phillips will be a COMMs 101 case study in optics mismanagement. For one thing, there was the sheer stupidity of the finance minister of Canada’s largest province, responsible for every nickel spent by Ontario, going on holiday outside the country in the middle of the biggest health, employment […]
Dec 29 2020 — Lisa Van Dusen — Policy Magazine — As a new year dawns and we magically attribute yet another dumpster fire in the rear-view mirror to a retreating anno domini rather than a confluence of largely manmade dystopian trends, hope is making a comeback. There is hope that an incoming American president who doesn’t serve as a walking, howling, tweeting indictment of democracy […]
Dec 22 2020 — Don Newman — Policy Magazine — When Don Newman couches his predictions with qualifiers about how predictions are for suckers, we advise readers to recall that he predicted that Donald J. Trump would win the 2016 election. With all due respect to the theme of this issue of Policy, predicting the year ahead can be a mug’s game. One year ago, […]
Dec 21 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Policy Magazine — It’s usually unwise to choose an untested personality as a party leader. There are occasional exceptions that prove the rule—Rachel Notley, Barack Obama. Then there is the much larger club: Andrew Scheer, Michael Ignatieff, Boris Johnson, Brian Pallister. One might have put Jagmeet Singh in the bigger group if Justin Trudeau had not handed him […]
Dec 21 2020 — Geoff Norquay and Yaroslav Baran — Policy Magazine — It is a truism of electoral politics in Canada’s four-party system that governments get elected when they reach the 36 to 38 percent threshold in the popular vote. With the Liberals lately averaging roughly 36 per cent in support, the Conservatives constantly at around a third of the vote and the NDP at 17 per […]
Dec 21 2020 — John Delacourt — Policy Magazine — The year 2020 has been defined for Canada’s Liberal minority government by variations on tragedy and crisis response. As a high-ranking Conservative put it to me, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has earned the grey in his beard. How many ways can events converge to break the spirit of a country? Air tragedy, mass murder in […]
Dec 19 2020 — Stéphanie Chouinard — Policy Magazine — It has been several years since official languages have been as hotly debated in the House of Commons as they were in the last few weeks of 2020. Indeed, parliamentarians have recently focused on the status of both official languages, as well as whether, and if so, when, the government would present its plans for […]
Dec 19 2020 — Lori Turnbull — Policy Magazine — On November 30, 2020, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland delivered a long-awaited fiscal update to a skeptical House of Commons. In her statement, she proposed a range of measures aimed at economic stabilization and recovery in the short, medium, and long terms, including $100 billion in stimulus spending, extensions of the […]