History keeps happening. And with each new twist — each new reminder that the world has been knocked off balance since 2016 — Canada’s political leaders are forced to decide how this country should navigate a precarious new reality.
“There are moments in history,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday afternoon as her government announced new measures to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “when the great struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight in one place, which is waged for all of humanity.”
Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland holds a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
“The West and, indeed, countries around the world are united in standing up for Ukraine — not just for Ukraine, but for the principles of democracy and the rule of law that [have] led to tremendous prosperity and stability in our world over the past 75 years,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters moments later.
That feeling that this isn’t the moment for half-measures might help to explain why the world’s democracies have suddenly drawn such a hard line together in Ukraine’s defence.
On Parliament Hill, reactions to the crisis have been split between short and long-term viewpoints.
In the short-term, the Conservatives want the Russian ambassador expelled. The New Democrats want specific oligarchs targeted for sanctions. Both parties want visa requirements dropped for anyone wishing to come to Canada from Ukraine.
During question period on Monday, Conservatives also demanded a ban on imports of Russian oil. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson stood and reported that no crude oil from Russia had been imported into Canada in more than two years. An hour later, the Liberal government implemented a ban on Russian crude anyway.
The long-term viewpoints are fuzzier.
WATCH: MPs debate Canada’s approach to Ukraine crisis
Federal leaders debate Canada’s support for Ukraine in the House of Commons
1 day ago
Duration 0:44
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, interim Conservative Party Leader Candice Bergen and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh debate steps Canada should take to support Ukraine during a “take note” debate in the House of Commons. 0:44
The Conservatives want to talk about military procurement and a renewed emphasis on the Arctic. The Liberals are already committed to a significant increase in defence spending, but a renewed debate about Canada’s ability to defend itself seems inevitable.
Conservatives also are demanding new efforts to quickly develop and export Canada’s oil and gas with an aim of helping Europe reduce its dependence on Russia’s fossil fuels.
For some politicians, there is no problem that a pipeline can’t solve. But it could be years before Canada has the sort of export capacity such an approach would require.
It also would be short-sighted to focus on production without accounting for any resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever else is going on in the world, climate change is still happening and still threatening to get much worse. In the meantime, Europe could embark on a major push to retrofit its buildings and increase its supply of renewable energy.
WATCH: Canada closes off exports to Russia in response to invasion of Ukraine
Canada halts exports to Russia in new round of sanctions
5 days ago
Duration 2:40
Canada has halted export permits to Russia in its latest round of sanctions, which also target 62 Russian individuals and entities such as major banks. 2:40
Freeland — like the columnist and author she used to be — has for several years now been trying to draw the big picture around world events and has placed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent actions within that frame. On Monday, she said Putin had “attacked the values and the international rules-based order which are the foundations of all of the democracies of the world.”
Freeland’s fears for the “international rules-based order” — her preferred shorthand for the many agreements, alliances and multilateral organizations built after the Second World War to maintain the peace — go back to at least 2017, when she laid out a vision for Canadian foreign policy in a speech before the House.
“Canadians understand that, as a middle power living next to the world’s only superpower, Canada has a huge interest in an international order based on rules,” she said. “One in which might is not always right.”
“We need to summon Yeats’ oft-cited ‘passionate intensity‘ in the fight for liberal democracy and the international rules-based order that supports it,” she said.
At the time, the Liberal government was more than a year into its campaign to salvage as much as it could of the North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration had just claimed “national security” concerns to justify tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Sick children and women with their newborn babies stay in a basement used as a bomb shelter at the Okhmadet children’s hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1. 2022. (AP/Emilio Morenatti)
Six months later, Chinese authorities arrested Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in a barely concealed attempt at hostage diplomacy.
Canadian officials convinced a number of allies to speak out against China’s actions, but it wasn’t until the United States agreed to let tech executive Meng Wanzhou return to China that Kovrig and Spavor were released.
The war in Ukraine is of a different order of magnitude. But the West’s response so far might be something like the “passionate intensity” Freeland was calling for in 2018. Perhaps Canadians and all those who fear a world in which “might makes right” can take some solace in the potential revitalization of the liberal international order.
But even if optimism persists against a backdrop of incredible tragedy in Ukraine, it still might extend only as far as the next American presidential election — the result of which could tip the global order again.
Refugees from Ukraine sit in a bus after arriving at the border crossing in Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. (AP/Darko Vojinovic)
Three years ago, at a meeting of the Senate foreign affairs committee, Freeland was asked if she could identify the biggest threats to the international rules-based order. The biggest threat, she said, was “at home.”
“The greatest threat is if we lose faith in ourselves, and if we ourselves lose faith in liberal democracy and in the idea that liberal democracy works,” she said.
She proceeded to riff on her government’s economic policies and the importance of a strong middle class. But if there’s a connection between the strength of individual democracies and the strength of the international rules-based order, it might be said that the recently departed “freedom convoy” and the fight for Ukraine are at two ends of a very large debate.
That suggests this challenge won’t be solved by banning Russian oil, expelling an ambassador or scrambling to get natural gas to Europe. And it won’t go away even if Ukraine is saved.
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
