world order

Wednesday March 23, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 23, 2022

What the Liberal-NDP deal could mean for ‘aggressive options’ on defence spending

September 23, 2021

The prospects for a significant increase in Canadian defence spending in the coming federal budget looked a little less likely as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was set to head to Europe after announcing a stunning political deal with the New Democrats.

The Liberal government had been hinting that it was looking at aggressive options for injecting more money into the Canadian military in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Canada has been under heavy pressure to meet the NATO military alliance’s target, set in 2006, of spending at least two per cent of its national gross domestic product on defence, as a growing number of allies have since promised to do.

Trudeau was largely noncommittal on Tuesday as he announced the new confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, which will see the fourth-place party support the Liberal minority government through to 2025 in exchange for new investments in other areas.

Those include the creation of a dental-care program for lower-income Canadians, national pharmacare, affordable housing and phasing out subsides for fossil fuels, among others.

Wednesday June 7, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 7, 2017

Canada faces new world order in the face of dramatic change, says Chrystia Freeland

Canada is facing a new world order threatened by climate change, Daesh extremists, Russian aggression and the reality that many Americans want to “shrug off the burden of world leadership,” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday.

November 12, 2016

In what was billed as a major speech on Canada’s foreign policy priorities, Freeland sketched out the challenges the country faces today and the role it aspires to play.

She acknowledged the dramatic changes unfolding in Washington under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pulled out of a global climate change pact, assailed NATO alliance for not pulling its fair share and talked up protectionist trade barriers.

While Freeland called the United States the “indispensable nation” in the postwar world order, those times may be coming to an end.

In laying out Canada’s foreign policy priorities, Freeland said that Ottawa will “robustly” support the rules-based international order and its institutions.

February 10, 2017

Those include G7, the G20, APEC, the Commonwealth and La Francophonie, NATO and the UN, she said.

In those forums, Canada will promote Canadian values that include feminism, and the promotion of the rights of women and girls, Freeland said.

Freeland also pledged that the Liberal government will boost investments in the military “to not only redress years of neglect and underfunding, but also to place the Canadian Armed Forces on a new footing—with the equipment, training, resources and consistent, predictable financing.”

October 20, 2016

The third pillar of Canada’s foreign policy will be trade, starting with the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and renewed efforts to diversify trade worldwide,” she said.

Freeland highlighted Canada’s past roles on the world stage, in diplomatic circles and battlefields, from Europe to Korea to Afghanistan.

But the global order is changing in unprecedented ways, she said, with the emergence of the global south and Asia, notably China. That brings the need to integrate these countries into the world’s economic and political system “in a way that is additive, that preserves the best of the old order that preceded their rise, and that addresses the existential threat of climate change,” she said. (Source: Toronto Star)

 

Thursday April 6, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 6, 2017

Donald Trump’s response to Syria gas attack: blame Obama

The scale and horror of Tuesday’s gas attack on civilians in Idlib highlighted the vacuum in the Trump administration’s foreign policy making: the incident was met first by silence, then by criticism of Barack Obama.

 

April 10, 2012

Donald Trump described the attack, which killed scores of victims, including many children, as a direct “consequence” of his predecessor’s Syria policy.

 
“These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration’s weakness and irresolution,” he said in a statement. “President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a ‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing.” 
 
The reflex illustrated Trump’s enduring sense of being in his predecessor’s shadow, reinforcing the impression given by his obsessive tweeting of unsubstantiated claims that Obama wiretapped him.
 

September 13, 2014

As with healthcare, Trump’s policy on Syria has been defined by the desire to unpick Obama’s legacy – without a clear picture of what would replace it.

 
In the absence of a clear vision, the initial response to on Tuesday was silence. 
 
The Idlib attack was swiftly condemned by western capitals and congressional leaders, but the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson – who was visiting neighbouring Jordan at the time – ignored a press question about it, retaining his customary silence in the face of daily world events.
 
He recently described himself as “not a media press access person”.
 
On Tuesday morning, Trump addressed a builders’ conference, but made no mention of the attack.
 
It was only later in the day that the White House spokesman read out a statement from the president, in which Trump used the occasion to score a domestic political point against the Obama administration. (Source: The Guardian)