Canada will lead once it knows where everyone’s going
Canada’s ambassador to China Dominic Barton is the subject of much hagiography this week after announcing his resignation, having hung the metaphorical ‘mission accomplished’ banner now that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are back on Canadian soil.
There seems to be some historic revisionism afoot, as the story being peddled to friendly media outlets by “unnamed government sources” about Barton’s achievements understates the United States’ centrality in the release of the two Michaels.
That isn’t to say Barton didn’t attempt to negotiate with China, but it was the United States agreeing to grant Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou a deferred prosecution agreement that let Canada halt its extradition efforts and send Meng back to China.
This notion that the Canadian government stood up to China and exacted, well, anything, simply doesn’t hold water.
On China and pretty much everything else in global politics, Canada is a follower. In some cases, the Trudeau government explicitly says as much – as in its refusal to commit to a boycott of the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
Yesterday, the United States government announced a “diplomatic boycott” of the games. The attempted shot across the bow is half-hearted, at best, in that there will still be a sizeable American delegation at the games.
“The athletes on Team USA have our full support,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “We will be behind them 100 percent as we cheer them on from home. We will not be contributing to the fanfare of the games.”
Nothing sends a strong message to a dictatorial regime like the denial of fanfare, after all.
Madeline Albright once defined diplomacy as a spectrum of “kind words to cruise missiles.” A “diplomatic boycott” is about as close to the former as it gets – little more than finger-wagging in Chairman Xi’s general direction while doing nothing of substance. That the boycott isn’t bothering the International Olympic Committee all that much is a pretty good indicator of its uselessness.
Nevertheless, even that gesture is too bold for the Trudeau government without first partaking in the time-honoured Liberal tradition of Consulting With Our Allies™. As always, Trudeau is like the mythicized general who needs to figure out where his troops are headed so he can get in front to lead them.
Even after the US announced its pseudo-boycott, Canadian Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge said Canada wasn’t ready to make a decision. Hey, if the cited allies can talk about it for long enough they might spare themselves the inconvenience of having to do anything.
More of the same, but different (or something)
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As I said when I launched this in October, I want to carve out a space that is my own, which allows for the nuance and elucidation social media does not. Starting this in the midst of an unprecedented crackdown on civil liberties has made it challenging to create a product that doesn’t revolve around a single issue, however. Every time I’ve set out to write, there’s another vaccine mandate somewhere. I won’t stick my head in the stand and avoid it, but I’m endeavouring to diversify and highlight non-pandemic stories (like the above on what passes for Canadian foreign policy) whenever I can.
That said, on my show as of late I’ve been spending a fair bit of time talking about countries other than Canada. There’s good reason to, with the list of nations imposing population-based vaccine mandates growing (Czech Republic joined the club this week with Germany preparing to do so). I’ve had some negative pushback to this, mainly on Twitter but occasionally through email, from folks uninterested in anything happening more than 200 nautical miles off the coast of Canada.
Fortunately this reaction is dwarfed by those who enjoy (or at least tolerate) such content. I enjoy world politics and world news, and try not to cover things in which I am uninterested (because how else can I expect readers or listeners to care?) Setting aside my personal investment in the subject matter, I get frustrated with those who don’t see the interconnectedness of these global trends. What’s happening in Austria or Greece or the Czech Republic is, or soon will be, a Canadian story.
Canada has often been months behind European countries, even when Canadian officials have insisted a particular policy, such as a vaccine passport regime, isn’t coming. Canadians need to be looking around the world to see what options are being placed on the table so they aren’t so blindsided when they creep into the discourse here. The World Health Organization cautioned yesterday that vaccine mandates are a “last resort.” The problem with last resorts is that they’re still on the table at all. They should be non-starters in free societies, full-stop.
The vaccine passport comes to your neighbourhood grocer
As I said with my earlier pledge to diversify, this doesn’t mean ignoring the latest in vaccine mandates. New Brunswick is activating a winter plan to help its residents “better protect themselves.” At Level 1, where the province is now, faith venues must implement vaccine passports for their congregations unless they agree to socially distance and avoid singing.
Most egregious is that grocery stores now have the option to make vaccination a prerequisite for shopping. Now, I’m all for letting businesses make decisions that are right for them, but I notice this libertarian approach is only bestowed on private businesses seeking to make what are ultimately government-approved decisions. There’s no right for a retailer to eschew mask-wearing, for example. I’d like to think grocers won’t avail themselves of this privilege, but the optimist that once lived inside me has, in the last two years, been taken out to the woodshed and shot at point blank, then kicked a few times and shot again just in case.
Whether Canada could get away with an Austria-style vaccine mandate is a question worth debating, but the easier path already underway is to close off society to such a point where even buying food is a “right” reserved only for the vaccinated.
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