The Atlantic: Moral Perfection Can Wait

 Over the past six years, he has compiled an admirable policy record, but this has been overshadowed by a number of political and ethical scandals. Trudeau got into an entirely unnecessary turf battle with his own attorney general over a criminal prosecution involving corruption at a major Canadian company. (The prime minister was found to have broken conflict-of-interest rules, his second violation of ethics laws.) During the 2019 election, photos of Trudeau in blackface surfaced. His Liberal Party lost seats in Parliament and the popular vote. It still managed to hold on to power, but not by much. The outcome this time around could be worse. Whether the Liberal Party hangs on to government comes down to whether progressives rally around Trudeau, abandon him for less flashy alternatives on the left, or, disenchanted, stay home entirely. [...]

These questions are not abstract; they carry serious consequences. If the other side wins, then all our cherished progressive policies go out the window. At the same time, we cannot be completely amoral, the way, for example, many supporters of Donald Trump are—evangelical voters and country-club Republicans alike who looked past Trump’s financial and moral shortcomings because he promised to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices or cut taxes for the wealthy. A line has to be drawn somewhere. Progressives must demand integrity from our leaders—especially on issues such as diversity, respect for women, and corruption. [...]

One common occurrence on the left is the search for infallibility in our politicians. We want ideological purity and an unimpeachable record clear of misdeeds. In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama warned progressives about “circular firing squads,” in which people who agreed on most issues took morbid pleasure in pummeling one another. This is perhaps the greatest failing of the modern left: We seek moral perfection in a world of politics where compromise is the cost of doing business. Run afoul of progressive dogma or say the wrong thing, and one is liable to get canceled.

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Politico: U.N. vote deals Trudeau embarrassing defeat on world stage

Despite being a founding U.N. member and part of the G-7 and G-20, Canada’s size and history once again counted for little: the government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was defeated by Portugal in 2010, even as the former colonial power was in the midst of the humiliating EU bailout. [...]

With Norway, Ireland and Canada all taking similar approaches to such core global issues as climate change, multilateralism and peacekeeping, Canada’s relatively late entry into the race — as well as stumbles like Trudeau’s brownface scandal — hurt Canada’s ability to stand apart and make its case.[...]

The Canadian government shelled out roughly $1.7 million and employed 13 full-time campaign staff, compared to Norway’s $2.8 million budget and Ireland on $1 million. Ireland splurged on U2 and Riverdance tickets for diplomats, and Canada on Céline Dion tickets, BBC reported, in addition to giveaways such as greeting cards, chocolates and Canada-branded facemasks.

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BBC4 Analysis: China's Captured "Princess"

If you want to understand the global reach of a rising China, visit Vancouver. Canada has been sucked in to an intractable dispute between the US and China after the arrest on an American warrant of Meng Wanzhou, an executive with the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. Beijing’s furious response caught Canada off guard. Two Canadians have been detained in China – seemingly in response, precipitating an acute foreign policy crisis. Canadian journalist Neal Razzell examines what could be the first of many tests both for Canada and other nations, forced to choose between old allies like America and the new Asian economic giant.

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AJ+: Naomi Klein: Trump Is A Shock Machine & The Climate Crisis Can’t Wait

War with Iran, the climate crisis and supremacist ideologies: Naomi Klein explains how they’re all linked together – and how to fight them. Klein is the award-winning author of several books, including “The Shock Doctrine.” In it, she explains how natural and man-made disasters are used to impose unpopular economic policies. In this interview with AJ+’s Sana Saeed, she says President Trump is a constant ‘shock machine’ and talks about why she wants Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to win the next U.S. election.

The Guardian: Justin Trudeau: the rise and fall of a political brand

One of the extraordinary things about Trudeau is that he is famous in part because he is Canadian – a remarkably rare kind of fame. Most Canadians who are famous outside of the country have been processed through Hollywood or the US-dominated recording industry. Part of Trudeau’s appeal within Canada, then, is that he assuaged a dual sense of cultural insecurity and superiority, especially with regard to the country’s belligerent southern neighbour. (The majority of Canadians see Trudeau’s fame as a net benefit to the country, according to the Angus Reid Institute.) On the global stage he presented a sort of ideal form – likable, handsome, virtuous – in which the country could see its best self. [...]

As Trudeau took office, his focus on optics was on full display. The often sedate swearing-in of a new government was thrown open to the public and turned into a highly stage-managed, live-streamed event. Trudeau was due to arrive by coach at the prime minister’s official residence, 24 Sussex Drive, where he spent his childhood. (The house has been under renovation since Trudeau took office, and he and his family have been living in a 22-room guest house nearby.) To avoid any inelegant photos or video – “Getting off a bus is such an ugly shot,” Trudeau told his communications director that morning, in comments captured by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – Trudeau’s team misled the media about where they should meet the new prime minister, ensuring that the first images the press got were of him strolling from 24 Sussex to the governor general’s official residence, Rideau Hall, where the ceremony would take place. At another point that morning, Trudeau and his team were preparing to respond to the question of why he was appointing a gender-balanced cabinet. “I think just calling people’s attention to the year is all you really need to say,” Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s right-hand man, told him. The advice yielded one of Trudeau’s most internationally famous lines: “Because it’s 2015.” [...]

A vital part of Trudeau’s brand was the contrast between him and the far-right politicians gaining ground around the world. In the US, Trump was on a journey that in some ways echoed Trudeau’s, parlaying his celebrity status into political power. When it came to optics, though, “Trump was a gift” for Trudeau, says Philippe Garneau, a corporate branding executive whose brother Marc ran against Trudeau for the Liberal leadership and is a minister in Trudeau’s cabinet. “I remember being worried. I said: ‘How can we put a man who has a degree in teaching and [who taught] drama, sit him down with Angela Merkel and across from Putin?’ And in walks Potus and upsets the whole apple cart,” Garneau went on. “So Trudeau got lucky. He was never shown to be the youngest, newest, greenest member at the table, but rather some sort of version of youthful exuberance, enthusiasm, optimism and a lack of cynicism.”[...]

Caesar-Chavannes gave me a number of examples of this sort of policymaking. Trudeau’s government legalised marijuana but rebuffed a call to expunge the records of those convicted of simple possession, even though prosecutions had disproportionately targeted people with low-incomes and Canadians of colour. Trudeau appointed a gender-balanced cabinet, but refused to reform the country’s electoral system, which would have paved the way for more female lawmakers. He promised a “total renewal” of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous communities, but his government has done little to address the mould-ridden housing and lack of clean drinking water that has left many Indigenous communities living in “Haiti at -40C”, as a politician from the New Democratic party has put it. After vowing to prioritise the fight against climate change and criticising Saudi Arabia’s treatment of human rights advocates, Trudeau’s government bought a C$4.5bn (£2.8bn) pipeline to better transport Alberta’s landlocked bitumen to international markets and signed off on the sale of more than 900 armoured vehicles to Riyadh. And, after much of the international hype over its welcoming stance on refugees had died down, the government quietly introduced legislation this April that makes it harder for some migrants to seek asylum. Advertisement

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The Guardian: Canada will ban 'harmful' single-use plastics as early as 2021

Trudeau said his government is drawing inspiration from the European parliament, which voted overwhelmingly in March to impose a wide-ranging ban on single-use plastics to counter pollution from discarded items that end up in waterways and fields. Legislatures of the EU member states must vote on the measure before it takes effect.

Trudeau announced the move from the banks of a lake in Gault nature reserve in Quebec less than five months before a national election in which climate change and pollution are among the top campaign issues. [...]

Less than 10% of plastic used in Canada gets recycled. The government said that 1m birds and over 100,000 sea mammals worldwide are injured or die each year when they mistake plastic for food or become entangled.

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NBC News: Saudi Arabia's explosion at a Canadian tweet shows how rules have changed

“The difference with him is that he is presenting absolute power as the eternal end of everything," said Abdullah Alaoudh, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. "This clashes with liberal democracy, with the idea of sharing power at all, even if it is half-democracy or quarter-democracy.” [...]

He added: “The message the crown prince is sending is, ‘We don't have to be a liberal democracy to be allies. And at the same time we are not going to be a liberal democracy at any point in the future so forget it. So let's talk about strategic interests and oil and things like that.’” [...]

The question now is whether Europe and the U.S. will support Canada's call for improvement in the kingdom's human rights record, or will remain silent in the face of the country's economic muscle. So far, the official response from the European Union and the U.S. has been muted. [...]

There are signals, however, of the Trump administration's preferences. President Donald Trump has publicly bashed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while Saudi Arabia was the site of the president’s first overseas trip. [...]

“To borrow the Chinese phrase, this is killing a chicken to scare the monkeys,” Freeman said. “The idea is that nobody else is going to mess with Saudi Arabia.”

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Politico: Trump’s wet kiss to Putin seals a new world order

The president’s regard for Putin — who on Monday affirmed his preference for Trump in the 2016 election — contrasted sharply with his increasingly tough talk toward Europe, language that chips away at international order, to still unclear affect. A similar dynamic played out last month in Singapore, when Trump left flustered allies, including Canada, behind after departing the G-7 summit to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he called “tough” and “very smart.” [...]

For Trump, who often expresses his views on trade and economics as a zero-sum game, his friendliness toward a country or region can be measured by the degree to which they are seen as an economic threat to the U.S., experts noted. By that measure, Europe and Canada are far scarier than Russia — despite it being at the center of years of Republican attacks on Democrats over security issues. [...]

“We can no longer completely rely on the White House,” Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, told the Funke newspaper group. “To maintain our partnership with the U.S.A we must readjust it. The first clear consequence can only be that we need to align ourselves even more closely in Europe.” [...]

Trump opened Monday blaming American “foolishness and stupidity” and the investigation into Russian election meddling that he dismisses as a “rigged witch hunt,” for historically strained relations with Russia. Despite earlier listing Russia in his list of adversaries, his Europe trip seemed to give Putin few reasons to be displeased overall.

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The Washington Post: Toronto medical official calls for decriminalizing drugs as opioid overdoses skyrocket in Canada

In a report released Monday, Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s chief medical officer, urged the city’s board of health to pressure the federal government to eliminate legal penalties for the possession of drugs and to scale up “prevention, harm reduction and treatment services.”

The report also recommended assembling a task force “to explore options for the legal regulation of all drugs in Canada,” which she hopes would destroy an illegal drug market contaminated with fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 100 times more potent than morphine — and other drugs like it.

“When we criminalize people who take drugs, we inadvertently contribute to the overdose emergency,” de Villa said. “It pushes people into unsafe drug use practices and creates barriers for people to seek help.” [...]

In response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has embraced a number of “harm reduction” measures, including supervised injection sites, prescription heroin programs for those with severe addictions and even vending machines that dispense prescription opioids. [...]

Canada’s New Democratic Party this year became the first major political party to endorse decriminalization. And at a Liberal Party convention in April, backbenchers and members of the party’s grass roots voted to make decriminalization a top policy priority during the 2019 federal election campaign. (Those votes are nonbinding.)

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IFLScience: Canada Votes To Legalize Cannabis For Recreational Use

The new bill, known as The Cannabis Act, controls and regulates how the drug is grown, distributed and sold. It means that Canadians can now legally grow up to four plants in their own household, and carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis for personal use. Anyone found to be carrying more than this amount, or providing it to minors – anyone under the age of 18 or 19 depending on the province – will be breaking the law. [...]

It means that Canada now joins Uruguay as the only two countries in the world where recreational cannabis is now legal, as technically it is still illegal in the Netherlands although the law is not actually upheld. In Portugal, which famously relaxed its drug laws, the possession and use of the drug is decriminalized, but not legal.

The move by Canada is likely to cause a headache south of the border, and twist an already strained relationship with the current US government. Currently, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, with nine of those going the whole way and opening it up to personal use. But there have been previous suggestions that the White House may try and stem the recreational use by enforcing federal laws to override individual states.

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The Atlantic: America Alone?

There are a number of ways to interpret Trump’s response. It may signal his preference to upend global alliances because of his feelings about Trudeau. Trump has also never cared much for multilateral forums like the G7, where he is one among several world leaders trying to achieve a compromise. He prefers the go-it-alone style of negotiation, of the sort he is engaged in with North Korea, for which, if it’s successful, he will get sole credit. This could explain part of his preference for bilateral trade agreements—which few nations in the world are keen on—over multilateral ones with large trading blocs. Trump is also trying to infuse some unpredictability into the atmosphere ahead of his summit meeting Tuesday with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. The American president honed his skills in the world of New York real estate. Perhaps he thinks it’s better to go into a meeting with Kim—until recently, viewed as the world’s most unpredictable leader—after making it clear that he won’t think twice about abandoning his own closest allies, even after committing to a communique with them. This has been referred to as the so-called “madman theory.”

But for each of those explanations, there is a counter-explanation. Consider the rationale for Trump’s response to Trudeau’s news conference. Macron’s office issued a statement that said “international cooperation can not be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks.” In other words, this wasn’t merely a difference of opinion over policy. It was personal. When you factor in Trump’s preference to go it alone, the issue becomes even more complicated. U.S. allies, as I have written, have little choice but to go along with Trump’s seemingly erratic behavior. They have no other allies. Trump has made his own preferences clear, praising China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin while bizarrely seeking Russia’s inclusion in the G7, a grouping from which it was suspended following its invasion in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimea. [...]

Trump’s view of U.S. alliances has been consistent from the start. U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s charitable notion that there is a “method to [Trump’s] … madness” appears to be marked by a clear absence of a method. Trump views America’s allies as freeloaders who have relied excessively on the United States for decades while treating it unfairly. While there may be something to this, with the U.S.-created global order under major strain and U.S.-Canada relations at perhaps their lowest point in modern times, Trump’s reaction to Trudeau undermines the idea that alliances are forged between democratic nations, not their leaders.

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The Atlantic: Trudeau Reaches His Breaking Point With Trump

Trudeau’s politics and worldview might not align with Trump’s, but he was among the first world leaders to congratulate the U.S. president on his election victory, noting Canada has “no closer friend, ally, and partner than the United States.” It’s a message he carried to Washington where he endured an awkward handshake with Trump, and had what was generally billed as a positive meeting with the American president. When it ended, the two men spoke warmly of each other, and Trump even said he was prepared to tweak NAFTA instead of withdrawing from it. [...]

“In closing, I want to be very clear about one thing: Americans remain our partners, friends, and allies. This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail,” he said in the type of language that successive U.S. administrations have used to describe recalcitrant regimes such as Iran. “But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration.” [...]

NAFTA is being renegotiated by the three countries, but the pact looks set to go the way of the Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The advisers who advocated for Trump to remain in those multilateral pacts have long left the administration and those who remain say they support Trump’s worldview. Indeed, Wilbur Ross, the Commerce secretary, said Thursday the tariffs on Canada were being imposed because of insufficient progress on talks to renegotiate NAFTA.* Just days earlier, investors were optimistic that the three countries were close to an agreement. No longer.

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Jacobin Magazine: Is Corbyn the Future of the Left?

Indeed without the partial Americanization of the British Labour Party’s leadership election Corbyn would never have become leader. Influenced in part by the model of the US primary system, his predecessor, Ed Miliband, had abolished an electoral college in which parliamentarians, union affiliates, and rank-and-file members each had a third of the vote, and replaced it with a system of one vote for each member or supporter. Anyone who paid £3 (later increased to £25) could sign up as a supporter, and well over a hundred thousand did. Paradoxically, this reform was urged by Tony Blair and his supporters. In the wake of an alleged instance of union malpractice in the selection of a candidate in one particular constituency — an infraction for which the union was subsequently cleared — Ed Miliband, whose own leadership was constantly being destabilized by some of Blair’s supporters, felt he had to show he was being tough on the unions. So consumed was Blair with antipathy towards the unions — organizations which for more than a century had regularly underwritten the control of the Labour right — that he promoted a reform that was bound to produce a more radical intraparty electorate by increasing the pool of activist electors and strengthening the influence of their votes.

But it would be a mistake to overstate the similarities between Britain and the United States. In most respects, British party politics remained fundamentally different. The Labour Party is not merely a label (or a brand) which enables supporters to engage in candidate selection, but an ongoing membership organization for which the unions that founded it continue to provide vital ballast. And the parliamentary nature of the political system in which it operates leaves Corbyn in a far stronger position than a defeated candidate in the United States, by giving him a clear, ongoing, constitutionally recognized role as leader of the opposition (the Prime Minister in waiting) at the head of a government in waiting (the Shadow Cabinet). Moreover, at present this influence is further accentuated, both within the Labour Party and in parliament: within the party because Labour’s unexpectedly strong electoral performance in 2017 has stabilized Corbyn’s position among previously hostile MPs; and within parliament because the election has left the governing Conservative Party, even after reaching an agreement with the small Northern Ireland Unionist Party of the late Ian Paisley, with an extremely narrow parliamentary majority. [...]

There are some similarities in all the English-speaking countries. But they are not a function of Trump and Brexit or Sanders and Corbyn. In each case there has been some shift to the left in political demands — with greater emphasis on economic inequality and corporate malfeasance. In Australia, for example, the trade union movement — which there, too, forms the bedrock of the Labor Party — has launched a huge public advertising campaign arguing that “big business has too much power” and that “it’s time to change the rules.” And, in each case, the long-standing electoral parties of government on the Left are either in power or in reach of power and remain the focal point for the electoral efforts of progressives. But in most cases, their leaders do not hail from the dissenting left. [...]

Different electoral systems no doubt play a role. In the English-speaking countries, all except New Zealand use majoritarian systems. In the recent continental European elections, all except France use proportional representation. The simple majority (first past the post) system in Britain certainly weakens the incentive for discontented Blairite MPs to break away and form a separate party. That approach was tried in the 1980s and its failure is widely understood.

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Al Jazeera: Gaza is Soweto revisited

ut, hear this: This column isn't a "rant". It's the truth. And, like me, countless people, in countless places, aren't going to be polite or agreeable any longer to describe - using blunt, simple language, rather than jargon-laced, diplomatic embroidery - the truth about how Israel has turned Gaza into Soweto - while Israel has become South Africa - circa 1976.

Countless people, in countless places, remember when South African policemen - turned willing executioners in service of a dying apartheid regime - shot and killed scores of unarmed black students who marched defiantly in defence of their freedom, dignity and land on June 16, 1976.

Countless people in countless places watched as Israeli soldiers - turned willing executioners in service of another doomed apartheid regime - shot and killed 17 unarmed Palestinians who marched defiantly in defence of their freedom, dignity and land on March 30, 2018. [...]

We're angry because, on cue, the same servile establishment media, quoting the same Israeli officials, regurgitates the same lies that thousands of unarmed Palestinians are simply "human shields" for Hamas and have, in effect, invited their own deaths.

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openDemocracy: Was 2017 the year that the tide finally turned against fossil fuel projects?

The AXA decision comes just weeks after BNP Paribas broke the news that it will no longer finance new shale or tar sands projects, nor work with companies that mainly focus on those resources. Last Friday, Norway’s largest life insurer, KLP announced that it would exclude from its portfolio any firms that derive 30 percent or more of revenues from the extraction of tar sands. In the same week the World Bank announced it would cease financing upstream oil and gas after 2019.

It’s welcome news. Based on the financial risks, climate impacts and indigenous rights violations, we have seen a significant shift in financial institutions backing fossil fuels. The Bank of England now recognizes the monetary risks associated with climate change and is advising the central banks and governments to get out of highly polluting fuels due to the pending carbon bubble and the bad business associated with ‘extreme’ energy extraction. As a result BP, Shell, Exxon and others have pulled out of major tar sands projects and pipelines. [...]

The Canadian government has done little to recognise indigenous land titles. Tar sands expansion continues at an alarming rate, with even more pipelines being approved. We cannot rely on Prime Minister Trudeau’s support to join the climate action force anytime soon. [...]

All of these decisions and ‘wins’ need to be grounded in an intersectional divestment movement that takes the time to think about the reinvestment strategies, that is twinned with a just transition model and opens up the seats at the table for dialogue with those most impacted by climate change and holding the climate solutions. If we can do this, 2018 is going to be an incredible year for our movements and hope for the climate.

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The New York Times: Canada’s Secret to Resisting the West’s Populist Wave

The raw ingredients are present. A white ethnic majority that is losing its demographic dominance. A sharp rise in immigration that is changing culture and communities. News media and political personalities who bet big on white backlash. [...]

Canada is a mosaic rather than a melting pot, several people told me — a place that celebrates different backgrounds rather than demanding assimilation. [...]

Mr. Trudeau’s solution was a policy of official multiculturalism and widespread immigration. This would resolve the conflict over whether Canadian identity was more Anglophone or Francophone — it would be neither, with a range of diversity wide enough to trivialize the old divisions. [...]

That creates a virtuous cycle. All parties rely on and compete for minority voters, so none has an incentive to cater to anti-immigrant backlash. That, in turn, keeps anti-immigrant sentiment from becoming a point of political conflict, which makes it less important to voters. [...]

Political science research suggests that this dynamic may have also made Canada resistant to political extremism and the polarization plaguing other Western countries.

Lilliana Mason, a professor at the University of Maryland, has found that when group identity and partisan identity overlaps, that deepens partisan polarization and intolerance against the opposing party. [...]

Virtually every immigrant to Canada is brought here deliberately. Research suggests that uncontrolled immigration, for example the mass arrival of refugees in Europe, can trigger a populist backlash, regardless of whether those arrivals pose a threat.

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