Russia’s President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony inaugurating the TurkStream pipeline on Jan. 8, 2020.
Alexei Druzhinin/The Associated Press
Nina Khrushcheva is a professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York. She is the co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones.
Over the past year, predictions of serious struggles for Russian President Vladimir Putin – or even his political demise – have been increasingly frequent. A recent article in The Economist, “An Awful Week For Vladimir Putin,” is just one example. But it is Putin biographer and New York Times correspondent Steven Lee Myers whose assessment rings most true: “Putin,” Mr. Myers has repeatedly said to me, “always wins.”
Maybe “always” isn’t quite true. Russia’s economy is expected to grow by only 1 per cent this year, owing to lagging export diversification, large-scale capital flight and low levels of foreign direct investment linked to Western sanctions imposed after the country’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
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But 61 per cent of Russians still rate Mr. Putin’s performance positively. Most democratic leaders can only dream of such favour with the public. Fewer than 43 per cent of Americans approve of U.S. President Donald Trump, for example. In fact, the same incoherent and combative U.S. policies toward Europe, China, Turkey and others that have contributed to Mr. Trump’s unpopularity have fuelled Mr. Putin’s popularity by handing him a series of tactical victories.
For example, a lack of effective U.S. engagement in Syria has pushed Turkey into Russia’s arms. In particular, in October 2015, the United States withdrew its Patriot missiles from southeastern Turkey, which had been deployed after the country appealed to its NATO allies to guard against missile threats from neighbouring Syria. In 2017, the U.S. offered to sell Patriot missiles to Turkey but without the underlying technology.
So Turkey reached a multibillion-dollar arms deal with Russia instead, despite the outrage of its NATO partners. But Turkey knows that it is Russia, not the U.S., that is shaping the Syria conflict and will play a leading role in the country’s potentially lucrative reconstruction effort, making it a much more desirable partner there. Strengthening the bilateral relationship further, Mr. Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are about to inaugurate the TurkStream gas pipeline connecting their two countries.
Russia has also launched a massive new gas-pipeline project with China, worth US$400-billion over 30 years, and is negotiating another. Here, too, the Trump administration’s actions – in particular, its bitter trade war against China, which may well continue, despite the two countries’ recent “phase one” agreement – created a lucrative opening that Mr. Putin was quick to seize.
The pipeline project, according to Mr. Putin, takes bilateral “strategic co-operation in energy to a qualitative new level” and supports progress toward the goal, set with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “of taking bilateral trade to US$200-billion by 2024” – the year Mr. Putin’s “final” presidential term ends. Perhaps he hopes that the fruits of such engagement will strengthen his position enough to enable him to remain in power, whether as president or in another position.
Although fears of being under Mr. Putin’s thumb fuelled the protests that ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014 – leading directly to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russia-backed separatists’ takeover of eastern Ukraine – the fear of confronting Russia alone is even greater.
This doesn’t mean Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is going to roll over for Russia. He agreed with the Kremlin on an exchange of 200 prisoners in the continuing war in eastern Ukraine – the second prisoner exchange this year. The recent pipeline deal can also be considered a win for Ukraine; Gazprom had previously insisted on a one-year deal, because it already has the Nord Stream-1 pipeline, which crosses the Baltic Sea to Germany, and will soon complete Nord Stream-2.
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But Russian negotiators eased their position, perhaps partly in the hope of easing resistance to the Nord Stream project. That resistance includes sanctions, included in the 2020 U.S. defence budget, on companies working on Nord Stream-2, which the U.S. argues would give Russia too much leverage over America’s European allies, as well as those working on TurkStream.
Russian officials have said that Gazprom has already lined up other companies prepared to take over. There is “nothing to worry about,” claims Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, especially given the gas-transit arrangement with Ukraine. As in the Middle East and China, Mr. Putin knows that a moment when Europe’s relationship with the U.S. is severely strained is the ideal time to strengthen its position vis-à-vis its neighbour.
Mr. Putin may not have a winning long-term strategy to save Russia’s economy, but his pipeline politics have led to a series of impressive foreign-policy victories. This approach may give him enough prestige to continue his long winning streak.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
