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"We are bringing benefits to Canadians" -- interview with William Macdonald Evans "The Space Station is not a top priority" -- interview with Stephen Strauss Here it is 2001 already, time to ask whether the future is unfolding as strangely as it did in Stanley Kubrick’s imagination in his wildly futuristic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just how is our own Canadian space
odyssey going, and in particular our
participation in the International Space
Station? In separate interviews last
December, Policy Options’ editor
William Watson talked with an
enthusiast of our current effort, William
Macdonald Evans, President
of the Canadian Space Agency, who at
the time was just back from observing
the latest Shuttle mission to the ISS,
and with a noted skeptic, Stephen
Strauss, the Globe and Mail’s science
writer, who is bullish on exploration
and discovery, but not necessarily
on a manned space station or the
Mars mission it seems designed to
encourage. "Canadian politics and one-party government" by Jeffrey Simpson The Liberals’ election win was a triumph for the party and the Prime Minister, but it leaves Canadian politics in a bad way. There is no credible alternative government, and won’t be until the Alliance and the Conservatives learn that winning power in Canada means putting together broad coalitions. In the meantime, the party system and first-past-the-post give us elected dictatorship with few checks and balances. Unfortunately, the prospects for reform are virtually nil. "The sources of campaign intemperance" by Paul Howe That last November’s federal election degenerated into mud-slinging is not just the fault of the party leaders. First-past-the-post pushes them into go-for-broke strategies, while growing political ignorance and indifference among the electorate encourage simple-minded sloganeering. We need to: get young people more involved; hold annual leaders’ debates; lengthen our election campaigns, consider fixing their dates, and more. "Picking through the debris" by James Allan Evans It was a strange campaign. The Liberals may have stolen the Alliance’s programme but at least they gave them one in return: two-tier health care, an attack on immigration, and a national referendum to make abortion illegal. The Alliance were clearly outmanoeuvred, but the lesson they should take from the experience is that they have to smooth off their rough edges and make some sort of arrangement with the Tories. Until then, the Liberal machine rules over all, restrained by hardly any checks or balances. "Changing the way we elect MPs" by Rick Szostak During the election, many Canadians expressed dissatisfaction at being forced to vote strategically for a party they didn’t particularly like but which they felt had a better chance of beating one they really didn’t like. After the election, many commentators decried the fact that Parliament was again fractured along regional lines. These complaints suggest Canadians may be ready for two modest electoral reforms: preferential voting and limited proportional representation. "Curious ambiguities: Canada's international security policy" by Louis Delvoie The rhetoric of Canadian security policy in the Chrétien years has been: strong support for the UN, perfunctory recognition of the importance of NATO, great emphasis on human rights and human security, and considerable self-praise for Canada’s leading role in the world community. The reality of Canadian security policy in the Chrétien years has been: very little support for the UN, deep involvement in NATO operations in Europe, a modest measure of success in promoting the human rights agenda, and much less influential a role than we like to think. In politics, a gap between rhetoric and reality is always to be expected. But we may have reached the point where international awareness of the gap between reality and Canadian rhetoric is harming our reputation and effectiveness in the world. "Canada in the 1990s: Speak loudly and carry a bent twig" by Denis Stairs Canada’s first participated in peacekeeping operations for reasons of self-interest: to mediate a crisis between its principal Atlantic partners in Suez, and to help NATO and the Americans out of a jam in Cyprus. Success prompted further requests for our help. A lengthening record of achievement made peacekeeping politically popular at home, and it eventually came to be seen as a principal means by which Canadians could express and, most recently, even impose their values on others. But the gradual evolution of peace-keeping into peace-making and society building raises serious problems of both credibility and philosophy. "The media dimension in foreign interventions" by Morand Fachot The NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was the first major military campaign of a new era in which the Internet, the satellite and the 24/7 news cycle now requires governments to devise comprehensive communications strategies in order to keep on top of the information game. It became evident during the 78-day campaign that, especially in the democracies, good communications can be as important as effective military forces. Losing the public relations battle can bring outcomes that are almost as devastating to national policy as losing on the battlefield. "A cheer and a half for Axworthy-ism" by Neil MacFarlane The discussant assigned the task of commenting on the three preceding articles at last November’s conference was Neil MacFarlane. Here is an edited version of his comments. "Helpful fixer or hired gun? Why Canada goes overseas" by Sean M. Maloney Partly as a matter of deliberate policy, the principles that have governed Canada’s use of its military forces are not widely understood. Until very recently, virtually all foreign missions, including peacekeeping, have been designed as part of a policy of “forward security.” The purpose of forward security is to head off threats to Canada’s prosperity and security before they arise. It is a coherent policy that has served us well. It should not be abandoned in favour of such ill-defined alternatives as “soft power.” "Public Opinion: Obstacle, partner or scapegoat?" by Pierre Martin and Michel Fortmann Can public opinion constitute a firm basis to support, or even inspire, policy decisions regarding foreign intervention? A review of public opinion polls taken in the 1990s shows that the Canadian public is not the obstacle to an internationalist policy that many observers seem to think it is. Neither should it be the scapegoat, as it all to often is, on whom the blame for the shortcomings of Canada's foreign policy is pinned. Rather, the public can and must be treated as a full partner in the making and implementing of a constructive internationalist policy. "Policy is messy because the world is messy. Get used to it." by Janice Gross Stein The discussant assigned the task of commenting on the two preceding articles at last November’s conference was Janice Gross Stein. Here is an edited transcript of her comments. "A guaranteed annual income: From Mincome to the millennium" by Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson The federal government’s post-election trial balloon about a guaranteed annual income or negative income tax is not the first time such a policy has been considered in Canada. In the 1970s a federal-provincial social policy review led to a large-scale negative income tax experiment, called “Mincome,” in Manitoba. The results of that experiment showed that the disincentive effects were minimal: participants generally did not reduce their labour supply. On the other hand, there are still questions about program design and about the possible effects on family structure. "Trading short-sightedly: DFAIT on the environment" by Robert B. Gibson The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is proposing new assessment procedures for evaluating trade agreements. It is promising a degree of openness and a level of attention to environmental considerations previously unknown in Canada’s trade negotiations. On the other hand, the proposed framework constrains assessments to look only at the biophysical effects on Canada of predefined negotiating positions, mainly using only internal expertise and existing information. "Trudeau, Quebec and imagined grievances" by Richard Nielsen Pierre Trudeau’s greatest achievements—bilingualism, multiculturalism and the Charter—aimed in large part at redressing imagined grievances, that is, harm done, not to us, but to others with whom we identify. Because people claiming such grievances can never truly be appeased, it may have been a mistake to try. It has certainly encouraged the syndrome, which is now pervasive. "Clintonosis" by John Hare The departing president’s two main legacies are a higher standard of material living and a lower standard of public morality. The one should not excuse the other. But in the end Mr.Clinton is not to blame. The public that could have been rid of him at the end of 1998 is. Book review: Paul Tuns reviews The Ethical Canary by Margaret Somerville Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. "Fax from the fringe: Goodbye, Amway" by Jim Stanford Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. |
