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"Terrorist cells can be got rid of" by Desmond Morton One of Canada’s best-known historians, Desmond Morton currently teaches at McGill University, where he served for six years as the first Director of the McGill Institute for Canadian Studies. He is the author of over 30 books on Canadian political, military and industrial relations history. His A Short History of Canada and A Military History of Canada have both been published in multiple editions. Professor Morton served from 1954-64 in the Canadian Army, has taught at the University of Ottawa and the University of Toronto, and was president of Erindale College from 1986 to 1994. William Watson spoke with him on Oct. 5. "A message has already been sent" by Janice Gross Stein Janice Gross Stein is the Harrowston Professor of Conflict Management and Negotiation and director of the Munk Centre for International Studies, both at the University of Toronto. The author of many books and articles on the Middle East, foreign policy decision-making, and conflict management and resolution, she served as the Chair of the Research Advisory Board to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and is currently a member of the International Security Committee of the American Academy of Science and the Committee on International Conflict Resolution of the National Academy of Sciences. This year she presented the Massey Lectures on CBC Radio. Her subject was “The Cult of Efficiency.” She talked with William Watson by telephone on Oct. 13, Thanksgiving Day. "Our response must be rational" by John Helliwell John Helliwell is Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia. A past president of the Canadian Economics Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada, he has had long experience in advising governments in Canada and around the world. Among several research programmes he currently has underway is one “evaluating and explaining the strikingly large importance of national borders.” His 1998 book on this subject, How Much Do National Borders Matter? was published by the Brookings Institution. He talked with William Watson on Oct. 5. "A conversation Canadians were going to have anyway" by Will Kymlicka Will Kymlicka is a Queen’s National Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Queen’s University. The author of five books, he won both the C. B. Macpherson Prize from the Canadian Political Science Association in 1995 and the Ralph J. Bunche Award from the American Political Science Association in 1996 for his book Multicultural Citizenship. He has had research fellowships at Princeton, Toronto, Ottawa, Carleton, the European University Institute and the Central European University in Budapest, where he is a “recurrent visiting professor in the Nationalism Studies program.” He talked with William Watson on Oct. 16. "Probably not much will change" by André Blais André Blais is Professor of Political Science at the University of Montreal, specializing in electoral systems, electoral behaviour and electoral participation. He is currently studying voters’ decisions whether or not to vote, various electoral systems, and the 1993 Canadian federal election. The subjects of his most recent books and articles include ethics, public sector employment, voter turnout, direct presidential elections, the Reform Party and electoral formulas. He talked with William Watson on Oct. 16. "Law enforcement isn't just chasing phantoms" by Ed Morgan Ed Morgan teaches full-time in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He received his LL.B. at Toronto in 1984, his LL.M. at Harvard in 1986 and clerked with Madam Justice Bertha Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1984-85. After teaching at Toronto from 1986 he practised from 1989-1998 at the Toronto firm of Davies Ward & Beck. He is the author of International Law and the Canadian Courts and since 1998 he has been back at the University of Toronto teaching public international law, private international law and international criminal law. William Watson talked to him Oct. 12. "A Roundtable on September 11" A month and a day after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, the IRPP and the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development jointly convened a previously scheduled conference on The Art of the State in a World Without Frontiers. Many of the conference papers were written before Sept. 11 and much of the discussion concerned policy problems that may not be greatly affected by terrorism. But on the evening of the conference’s first day, the organizers gave participants the opportunity to express their views on how the attacks might change the art of governance—and any number of other things—in North American society. Although the discussion was to be taped, the ground rules were that it was off the record. Accordingly, permission to publish it has been sought from all speakers after the fact and speakers have been allowed to edit their remarks, which had already been given an initial editing to remove stops-and-starts and the other syntactical faults typical of speech. IRPP President Hugh Segal was the moderator. The edited transcript of the discussion follows. Roundtable participants were Hugh Segal, John Curtis, Tom Kent, Barbara McDougall, Ron Daniels, Peter Dobell, Peter White, Thomas Courchene, Ron Watts, Pierre Marc Johnson, Robert Young, Don Drummond, Gordon Thiessen, and Jean-François Lisée. "After Sept. 11: Interoperability with the U.S., not convergence" by Daniel Schwanen The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, seem to have increased the momentum that had begun to build earlier this year toward greater North American economic and political integration. Many Canadians fear, quite reasonably, that integrated continental policies would be dominated by the United States, which, particularly after the attacks, is unlikely to surrender control of policy-making authority. In order to preserve Canadian policy independence, it would be better to strive for policy “interoperability,” that is, institutional arrangements, including reciprocal recognition, that allow Canadian policy-makers to take U.S. interests into account and to cooperate more effectively with U.S. agencies. "After Sept. 11: A Canada-U.S. customs union" by Rolf Mirus The events of Sept. 11 have increased U.S. interest in a common North American security perimeter. Whether Mexico wishes to come along or not, Canada should take advantage of this interest by proposing a customs union, in which the two countries would establish a common external tariff. This would involve a loss of Canadian sovereignty, since Canada likely would adopt the U.S. tariff code, but it would eliminate the trade distortions inherent in the existing Free Trade Agreement and, by freeing importers from the current requirement of proving compliance with “rules of origin” on goods traded between the two countries, it would help offset the costs imposed by the recent tightening of the U.S. border. "After Sept. 11: The case for a federal deficit" by Patrick Grady If Canada is going to do what is necessary to support the United States in combating terrorism following the destruction of New York’s World Trade Center, the government is going to have to rethink its strategy of balanced budgets and prepare to run up some deficits. There are two reasons for this. First, the economic shock waves produced by the tragedy are triggering a recession that will automatically reduce the planned budget surplus. Second, new and costly policy initiatives will be required to improve defence and security and to stimulate the weakening economy. "Decision-making in health: We need a more complex calculus" by Duncan Sinclair Running Medicare, Canada’s largest and most cherished social program, requires both a clear vision of what health care should be and careful calculation of the usually very complicated effects that any changes in the system might have. Though decision-making should be based mainly on the careful weighing of costs and benefits, it cannot ignore the small-p politics of who in the system will support, oppose or be indifferent to proposed changes. In our public system, big-P politics also has its place. But at the moment virtually the only element governments apply in the calculus of health care decision-making is how they look in the next day’s headlines. In that sort of environment we will never get the fundamental changes the system needs. "Missing the big picture: Manitoba's Bill 41 and M.v.H." by Erin Melrose and Rais A. Khan In the narrowest possible interpretation, the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of M. v. H. requires Canadian governments only to provide spousal support to samesex common-law couples. But a broader reading of the decision suggests governments must provide a full range of benefits, including adoption rights, to such couples. A number of Canadian provinces, including Alberta and Ontario, have responded to the decision by making extensive changes to their laws on adoption. By contrast, Manitoba’s Bill 41 stuck closely to the letter of the law. This decision to ignore the decision’s broader implications invites a constitutional challenge, will lead to an expensive and ultimately futile defence, and constitutes an abdication of the government’s solemn responsibility to respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "The brain drain: A view from Stateside" by Peter Kuhn At the end of November, the IRPP published a new paper, “The Brain Drain: Myth and Reality,” by Ross Finnie of Queen’s University and Statistics Canada. The paper is accompanied in the volume of Choices in which it appears by five commissioned comments, including a personal perspective from Peter Kuhn, a distinguished Canadian labour economist formerly at McMaster University who now teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In Policy Options’ continuing attempt to stay on top of this issue (see earlier articles by John Helliwell, Don Devoretz and Don Wagner) here is a slightly edited version of Professor Kuhn’s commentary. "We should reserve electronic green space for public-service broadcasters" by Bill Roberts Public-service broadcasters like APTN and VisionTV are like public broadcasters in that they provide a trusted public space for information, ideas and values-driven entertainment, and support the process of nation-building by connecting citizens with their society. They are unlike public broadcasters in that they are not government-funded. As we enter the digital broadcast era, Canadian law-makers need to ensure that there is “electronic green space” for public-service broadcasters. One way of doing so is to put them in a “foundation tier” that would be an all- Canadian, must-buy package of services offered by every “broadcast distribution undertaking.” "Electoral reform: Lessons from the Irish?" by Simon Dalby Suggestions that a system of proportional representation would help reduce Canada’s current electoral imbalance always founder on the objection that Canadians want constituency representation. But the Irish model of a single transferable vote within multi-member ridings would achieve the best of both worlds: better representation for minority parties, including regional parties, but by MPs elected from well-defined ridings. Ridings would have to be larger and the vote would take slightly longer to count, but this is a small price to pay for a parliament that better reflects Canadians’ preferences. |
