Canada Among Nations

Last night I attended a panel on international relations held at U of T's Munk Centre for International Affairs. entitled:

DEBATING THE HEADLINES

Minorities and Priorities in Canadian Foreign Policy:

Harper vs. Dion

With a title like that how could Cicero in Pants NOT attend? It was in support of the latest Canada Among Nations volume of essays which is co-edited by Dane Rowlands, a favorite NPSIA professor of mine who is currently Assistant Director there. It was great to be back in a pure academic foreign affairs milieu. I've missed it. Unfortunately I can't do a coherent blog post summarising the event because the discussion was all over the map. Instead I'll just go through some basic bullet point observations.

On the Speakers

• Professor John Kirton- He likes that Harper fella a lot. Is also thrilled that Dion won the Liberal leadership. I think that, much like me, Kirton likes the idea of dueling policy wonks of demonstrated integrity. Seems hard for Canada to lose this way. Kirton thinks Harper's foreign affairs plan is coherent and well executed. He would, I think, take considerable exception to Jeffrey Simpson's poo-pooing of the record.
• Professor Wenran Jiang isn't so sanguine. He thinks the Conservative's China policy is a disorganised mess.
• Professor Ann Denholm Crosby reveals a secret: according to her, Canada is already doing everything the US wants it to do on Missile Defence. The only thing we aren't doing is giving it a public endoresement.
• Cicero in Pants really needs to do some reading to figure out why "Weaponisation of Space" is apparently such a "Very Bad Thing". Is it just because a priori war is bad and guns are bad? If you can suggest a source to get my reading started please send me a link through my comments section.

On the Audience

• An audience microphone and the word "Harper" really brings out the angry rambling kooks. People - if you need to rant that badly do something self indulgent like, oh I don't know, give yourself a silly nickname and start a blog! A captive audience in an auditorium is not being impressed by you.
• Young urban Canadians hate Tories reflexively even when they are running to the left of the Liberals. Demonstrated by one young man's rant about Canada's "disgusting most neo-conservative government ever" which segued into the importance of China policy focussing on human rights instead of trade. (by the way, young man, technically this is Canada's only neo-conservative government ever. )
• Apparently both the failure of China to become a liberal democracy in the last twelve months and the length of time it took to achieve a cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah are direct personal failures of Stephen Harper. Apparently, he should be ashamed.
• Martha Hall Findlay was at the event. She didnt speak. Just listened. This is a useful time for me to say this though: What she's said and done over the last two years - and particularly during the Liberal Leadership race - demonstrates that she's the kind of person we need more of in Canadian political life. I would encourage anyone who can to support her however they can, wherever they can regardless of their political leanings.