Rarely has the world intruded so viscerally — and with so little apparent effect — upon the great national conversation that we call a federal election.
Launched just as two decades of nation-building efforts in Afghanistan were collapsing, the election (which produced a Parliament strangely similar to the one dissolved in August) also saw what some observers have described as a strategic snub by Canada’s closest allies: the establishment of a new U.S.-U.K.-Australia alliance to contain China.
And yet, questions about Canada’s current place in the shifting sands of the global order barely rated a mention on the campaign trail.
That could change quickly as the new (old) Liberal government faces a bevy of pressing international commitments and crises, ranging from the benign but significant gathering of world leaders at the United Nations to the slow-rolling humanitarian disaster afflicting Afghan refugees.
The newly re-elected minority government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have to hit the ground running. On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden mapped out a strategy for confronting authoritarian states without triggering a new Cold War.
He did so a week after surprising the world with a new security alliance — AUKUS — involving two of Canada’s closest Commonwealth allies, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Events in the world beyond our borders did come up during the 36-day campaign. More often than not, however, they were used by campaigning leaders as a cudgel with which to beat down their opponents.
Some would say that’s what election campaigns are all about. Seasoned pols will tell you there are no votes to be won in Weyburn, Saskatchewan with talk about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
But many experts say the reluctance of Canada’s campaigning leaders to address the changing geopolitical landscape and the threats it may produce is myopic and dangerous — especially now, with the country slowly recovering from a foreign-spawned global pandemic that brought life as we knew it to a standstill.
‘The world is a pretty angry place’
Those experts say they’d hoped the alarming world events of the past 18 months would force the campaigning parties to think and talk about national security and how Canada can protect its interests globally. It didn’t happen.
“We’re coming to this realization that the world is a pretty angry place,” said Aaron Shull, managing director and general counsel at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation.
“Countries don’t have friends. We have alliances and strategic interests, but we are now coming to the realization that we have to make our place in the world.”
A nuclear-powered Type 094A Jin-class ballistic missile submarine of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is seen during a military display in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018. (Reuters)
Shull and University of Ottawa historian Wesley Wark are co-leading a project that hopes to re-imagine Canada’s national security strategy.
Wark is one of the country’s leading intelligence experts and has been a vocal critic of Canada’s failures in pandemic preparation. He examined the foreign policy planks of each major party and found all of them wanting.
Vague, scattershot approaches to foreign policy
The Conservatives produced the most exhaustive list of promises but they were scattered and unfocused, said Wark.
“None of the parties have a central coherent statement on national security. What is it? What does it mean to us?” said Wark. He summarized the Liberal government’s position as status quo, while saying the NDP made some general pledges without a lot of specifics.
The Liberal platform contained no dedicated national security section — a puzzling omission, given the fact that the previous Trudeau governments spent enormous amounts of time and energy dealing with the fallout from external events: the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the pandemic.
A health worker takes a nasal swab sample of a Kashmiri to test for COVID-19 in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. (Dar Yasin/Associated Press)
Still, said Wark, a lot of thought is being given within government to reorganizing the national security framework. He said there is some “enthusiasm” on the part of senior bureaucrats for the project.
He said he hopes that revamped framework includes climate change and pandemics in a new definition of what represents a threat to this country’s interests.
Reacting after the fact
Shull pointed out that, unlike other nations, Canada does not have a permanent cabinet committee to deal with national security matters.
“We tend not to treat national security issues with seriousness at the political level in the public discourse,” he said.
“The pinnacle of national security in this country is the incident response group. It’s an ad hoc committee of cabinet that meets on a periodic basis, but here’s the thing — incident response by definition means you’re already on your back foot. It means something is happening and you’re responding.”
Put simply, Shull said, what he and Wark are proposing is a new national security council, or some other body that would allow Canada “to lean into the world and not always be responding.”
Afghan refugees are shown in an Italian Red Cross camp in Avezzano, Italy, on Aug. 31. (Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press)
He said the Trudeau government needs to ask itself what Canada’s “core interests” are and how best to protect them.
Canada has not had a national security strategy since 2004. Shull said that means Canada doesn’t have a current strategy.
AUKUS might be the catalyst that starts those discussions in Ottawa, Wark said — but first they’ll have to overcome the widely-held belief in government circles that the Canadian public doesn’t care about national security.
“It is a belief that is convenient to political cadres because national security discussions are often hard and complex,” he said.
But COVID-19 itself was an external threat in the beginning. If anything, the pandemic might serve to convince Canadians that the time to have this conversation is now, Wark said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
