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"Funding Quebec universities: 'The status quo is not an option'" by Claude Lajeunesse In an address to the conference organized by McGill University on the first anniversary of the manifesto Pour un Québec lucide, Concordia University President Claude Lajeunesse called for more funding for higher education, and an end to Quebec’s 12-year freeze on tuition fees. If tuition fees in Quebec had been allowed to keep pace with increases in the rest of Canada, he notes, Quebec universities would today receive $375 million a year in additional funding. "Telling the story of Canada: if you build it, people will come" by Mark Starowicz The most successful producer of Canadian public affairs radio and television programming in the last 30 years, Mark Starowicz reflects on the reasons for the popular acclaim of his 32-hour drama documentary, Canada: A People’s History, and concludes there is a common thread to the Canadian saga. “We are all boat people,” he writes, “we just got here at different times.” He also reflects on the future of the CBC, and concludes that “we need a vital national broadcasting system as much in the digital and internet age as much we did at the dawn of radio and television — perhaps even more.” "Get with the dance, Alberta" by Todd Hirsch [summary not available] "Afghanistan, famously inhospitable to foreigners" by Desmond Morton Afghanistan has historically been an unfriendly country to foreigners, from the British in one century, to the Soviets in the next. Now, in the 21st century, Canada is part of a dangerous NATO mission in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, home of the Taliban. As the Taliban insurgency intensified over the summer of 2006, Canadian casualties mounted. McGill University’s Desmond Morton, one of Canada’s most distinguished historians, looks back at the history of foreign occupations in Afghanistan and finds them rather ominous portents for the UNapproved NATO mission. "Canada, Afghanistan and the blame game" by Sean M. Maloney While Canadian troops are deployed in Afghanistan’s dangerous province of Kandahar, the re-defined nature of the mission — from patrolling the capital to taking it to the Taliban in the wild south — has left Canadians deeply dvided about the mission. Royal Military College historian Sean Maloney, who has been on the ground four times in Afghanistan since 2003, points out that Canada is engaged in war, not peacekeeping, against an unrelenting foe and rigid ideology — radical Islamism. “The al-Qaeda movement’s belief system, its ideology,” he writes, “is in no way compatible with ours. We cannot negotiate with it. We have to keep it as far away as possible and aggressively challenge it. That is what we are doing in Afghanistan.” "L'Afghanistan : archétype d'une « nouvelle » politique étrangère canadienne ?" by Charles Létourneau and Justin Massie Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan has been greeted with significant reservations by the public, which notably views the mission as having abandoned one historic pillar of our foreign policy, that of peacekeeping. Charles Létourneau and Justin Massie suggest here that while the International Security Assistance Force may not be the multilateral model Canadians are accustomed to, it is not all that unique for its kind, and is a logical extension of initiatives Ottawa has undertaken over the past 15 years. The authors look at this evolution and show how Canada has supported its traditional allies, moving away from the UN in favour of NATO. They conclude that the lack of public consensus over the Armed Forces’ role could cast a shadow over the success of the military operations and limit Canada’s potential impact on the international stage. "NATO's Choice in Afghanistan: go big or go home" by Roland Paris Recent trends in Afghanistan are discouraging. The neo-Taliban insurgency is growing in size and sophistication, and ordinary Afghans are becoming disaffected with their government’s inability to provide security and basic public services. If these trends continue, NATO’s efforts to stabilize the country will fail. A new strategy is needed to reverse the slow slide. First, additional NATO troops are required to provide security for reconstruction. Second, efforts to build an Afghan army should be accelerated and expanded. Third, the problem of corruption in the Afghan government, especially in the police, needs to be tackled. Fourth, Afghan and international officials should stop destroying opium crops, a policy that plays into the hands of the insurgents. Fifth, more reconstruction aid is needed. Sixth, the flow of insurgent fighters from Pakistan must be contained. If NATO is unwilling to commit the necessary resources for the mission to succeed, the alliance should withdraw. "Les médias afghans cinq ans après la chute des talibans : une situation précaire" by Emily Jacquard In July 2006, the president and the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders Canada visited Afghanistan to meet with local and international media personalities, institutions and stakeholders. The mission provided an opportunity for the organization, which is dedicated to defending press freedom, to assess the situation in the Afghan media five years after the fall of the Taliban. How is it evolving, what progress has been made, and how much freedom and safety does it now enjoy? Emily Jacquard reports here on what she learned on her trip. "Pakistan: problem or partner in Afghanistan" by Hugh Segal Any discussion about containing the Taliban insurgency in Kandahar province inevitably leads to a debate on Pakistan, and the safe haven it provides for terrorists, presumably including Osama bin Laden himself. Reinforcements for al-Qaeda and the Taliban are trained in Pakistan, where Islamist religious schools are a breeding ground for terror. Is the government of Pervez Musharraf a real, or simply a nominal, ally in the war on terror? Does Pakistan have its own interests in play in Afghanistan? Is Pakistan a problem or a partner, or both, in the nation-building effort across the porous border in Afghanistan? Former IRPP president Hugh Segal, now chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, confronts these complex questions. "L'OTAN se lance dans la contreinsurrection" by Marc André Boivin Canada’s role in Afghanistan has been the most important political issue in 2006, and public opinion is more divided than ever over it. But Canada’s participation is part of a broader context involving three major international operations, under the aegis of the United Nations, the United States and NATO. The coordinator of the Réseau francophone de recherche sur les opérations de paix, Marc André Boivin, analyses the situation from this perspective, and notes that the logic of the international intervention presupposed that the situation would gradually improve. Yet, five years later, an armed insurrection of some magnitude is underway in the southern half of the country. He examines the position of the protagonists on the ground and assesses NATO’s role. Ultimately, he says, the outcome of the conflict will largely be a matter of political will. "Afghanistan comes home" by Jeremy Kinsman While the Taliban insurgency has made the United Nations mission in Afghanistan a difficult one, “the big picture goals for Afghanistan remain as valid as ever” to the international community, writes one of Canada’s most experienced top diplomats. “The picture today reveals major points of success,” writes Jeremy Kinsman. “Elections produced a parliament that is a force for democracy. A quarter of its seats were won by women. Schools have re-opened for 5 million boys and girls. The economy has grown at an average of 17 percent per year since 2002, not counting the lucrative poppy trade. Refugees have returned from around the world, including vitally needed professionals.” Still, the Taliban insurgency, supported by some local warlords, has intensified, and the security situation in several provinces has worsened. The challenge is to provide security and a better way of life, so that Afghans themselves will be invested in the success of the international presence there. "It's the war, stupid" by Howard J. Gold With the war in Iraq going badly, with the incompetence of the Bush administration after Hurricane Katrina, with nearly two-thirds of Americans thinking the country was on the wrong track, it’s not surprising that the midterm congressional elections were transformed into a referendum on the Bush presidency. When the dust settled on the elections last month, Republicans had lost both the House of Representatives and the Senate, after controlling both for the last 12 years. Democratic-controlled houses will have different agendas than the previous Republican majority, writes author and Smith College professor Howard Gold, an authority on US elections. “Staying the course on Iraq” won’t cut it anymore, either as policy or as a political mantra. "After the US midterms: a whole new political game" by Pierre Martin, Richard Nadeau and Antoine Yoshinaka Needing a gain of 15 seats to win control of the House of Representatives, the Democrats won 29 more. Needing 6 seats to wrest control of the Senate from the Republicans, they won exactly that number. Of the 15 GOP Senate seats among the 33 in play, the Republicans retained only 9, a feeble incumbency re-election rate of only 60 percent. Yet given all that the Republicans had going against them — from incompetence to corruption — the results can be viewed as more a loss for the GOP than a victory for the Dems. It was strictly a throw-the-bums-out election. George W. Bush may not have been on the ballot, but his presidency clearly framed the ballot question. For the rest, the decisive defeat of same-sex-marriage initiatives in seven out of eight states indicated the US was not moving to the left, just away from Bush. It’s now a whole new game in Washington, with committee chairs in both houses of Congress moving to the Democrats, whose protectionist tendencies on trade issues may not be helpful to advancing Canada’s commercial interests. "Power tilts north to the Canadian border" by Stephen J. Farnsworth With the Democratic victories in both the US House and Senate, power in the form of committee chairs is tilting north towards the Canadian border, writes Stephen Farnsworth, a Fulbright Scholar at McGill. Where only 5 of 20 House chairs had previously come from northern broder states, 9 will be northerners in the new House. Similarly in the Senate, “fully half the incoming committee chairs come from either states with US/Canada land crossings or from New England, a part of the US with particularly strong links to its northern neighbour.” As a result, writes Farnsworth: “Expect the new Democratic committee chairs to concentrate on bilateral tourism and trade, which benefit their own northern states, as well as Canada.” "Canada and the UN north of 60" by Andrew Caddell Andrew Caddell, senior adviser on the United Nations at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, recently flew to Whitehorse to speak to several Yukon groups, particularly high school students, about the UN and Canada’s historic role in it. He was struck by the students’ level of interest, and their knowledge. Here, in a letter from Yukon, are the impressions of a first-time visitor “north of 60,” who says he will be back. "The resource curse and the Mackenzie Gas Project" by Russell Banta In August, during his tour of northern Canada, Prime Minister Harper stated that, compared with 30 years ago, the North is now ready for large-scale development. In fact, says Russell Banta, the Mackenzie Gas Project, which is currently under review by both the Joint Review Panel and the National Energy Board, has the potential to generate huge sums of money and could be producing as much as 13 percent of Canada’s natural gas by 2020. But if past speaks to present, says Banta, northerners might not get much out of northern resource development. He reviews past policy on northern development and argues that, until now, it has mostly benefited the federal treasury. Instead of more transfers, he calls for a fairer sharing of resource revenues and greater involvement by local communities to ensure sustainable economic development and put an end to the “resource curse.” "What's wrong with Canada's innovation?" by Guy Stanley Fifteen years after Michael Porter’s report on Canada’s competitiveness, the country’s innovation performance continues to fall in relation to that of competitors. It is losing its capacity to generate a top-notch living standard, while other countries are nurturing innovation systems that outperform Canada economically. The formula for enhancing innovation has so far eluded policy-makers despite a stream of prosperity initiatives and innovation strategies announced since the mid-1990s. The root cause: policy incoherence. To fix things, government will have to become as adept at managing complexity and inducing system coordination as it is now at manipulating macro-economic levers. Book Excerpt: Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics by Bob Plamondon In this excerpt from his book Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics, veteran Conservative strategist Bob Plamondon pieces together the inside story of the delicate merger talks between Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper and new Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay over the summer of 2003, climaxing in their decision over Thanksgiving weekend to proceed with a merger of equals. The last remaining obstacle, of how leadership convention delegates would be chosen, was resolved in favour of the PC model that all ridings were created equal as opposed to the Alliance one-member, one-vote method. Harper conceded more to get what he wanted: the power of the Conservative brand name with Canadian voters. Book Review: Geoff Norquay reviews Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics by Bob Plamondon [summary not available] Book Review: Anthony Wilson-Smith reviews The Way it Works by Eddie Goldenberg [summary not available] Book Review: Lisa Van Dusen reviews State of Denial by Bob Woodward [summary not available] "Bruits suspects" by Alain Noël [summary not available] |
