Pod Bless Canada

The Freedom Convoy received quick and heavy condemnation and backlash from Canadian politicians and media when it arrived in Ottawa earlier this year. Though criticism was certainly merited, did the vitriol of the response go too far? In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick was joined by Stuart Parker, the President of the Los Altos Institute, to discuss Parker's article in the Hub titled, "Why the coverage of the trucker protest should worry all Canadians." Wudrick and Parker examine how the coverage of this protest may point to worrying potential consequences for Canadian society. This podcast was recorded on February 8, 2022.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on February 24, 2022.

Eli Lake joins Mariam Memarsadeghi to discuss how the West can stand up to Russian aggression and stand up for its core values on the international stage. Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI. Lake has reported from Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, India, Egypt and Israel.

The world needs a reliable and affordable supply of energy not just for economic prosperity, but for national security as well. As both geopolitical tensions and energy prices rise globally, Canada has failed to become a global energy leader. MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick is joined by MLI Senior Policy Analyst Heather Exner-Pirot and MLI Senior Fellow Jeff Kucharski to discuss how Canada can seize a leadership role when it comes to the geopolitics of energy.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on February 8, 2022.

Mariam Memarsadeghi interviews Bill Browder, author of Red Notice, investor, and anti-corruption activist, to discuss the role of sanctions in influencing oligarchs. Mr. Browder was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was denied entry to the country and declared “a threat to national security” for exposing corruption in Russian state-owned companies.

In 2008, Mr. Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, uncovered a massive fraud committed by Russian government officials that involved the theft of US $230 million of state taxes. Sergei testified against state officials and was subsequently arrested, imprisoned without trial and systematically tortured, dying after one year of imprisonment in 2009. Since then, Mr. Browder has sought justice outside of Russia and started a global campaign for governments around the world to impose targeted visa bans and asset freezes on human rights abusers and highly corrupt officials. The US, Canada, the UK, the Baltic states, the European Union and most recently Australia have passed their own versions of the Magnitsky Act.

Tensions are again rising in Eastern Europe. Russia has positioned troops on its border with Ukraine and, if the military buildup and rhetoric out of Moscow are to be believed, appears poised to once again invade.

In this final episode of Across the Pond, MLI Senior Fellows Balkan Devlen and Marcus Kolga discuss the ongoing situation, what Putin’s endgame is regarding Ukraine, how NATO generally and Canada specifically ought to respond to these Kremlin provocations, and more.

As threats emerge from Russia, China, and other authoritarian actors, are Western democracies prepared to rise to the challenge? With NATO set to update its framework for defining security challenges facing the Alliance and the political and military tasks which must be undertaken to address these challenges, this question is both timely and critical.

MLI Senior Fellows Balkan Devlen and Alexander Moens (who also serves as the Chair of the Political Science Department at Simon Fraser University) discuss NATO’s new strategic concept, the history of that policy document, why it matters, what we can expect to see in further updates to NATO’s strategic concept, and whether Canada should play a more active role in shaping that framework.

Canada's security is often taken for granted due to our shared border with the United States. But one area of emerging risk is the Arctic. For this two-part episode, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen spoke with Brigadier-General Pascal Godbout, Commander, Joint Task Force (North) regarding JTF North's role and mission, how the force engages with local and Indigenous communities, the whole of government approach to Arctic security, and more. Devlen also spoke with Vice-Admiral (Ret'd)Mark Norman regarding Canada's partnerships security, interests, and sovereignty in the Arctic. The discussion also looks critically at what needs to be done to ensure that Canadian interests are protected in a changing far North.

The explosive growth of e-commerce during the pandemic has had tremendous benefits for consumers, but it has also raised concerns about the growing size of major industry players such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. Europe and the US have moved to impose antitrust measures and sweeping new competition policies against the titans of tech, and there are calls in Canada to do the same. MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick sat down with Anthony Niblett and Daniel Sokol to discuss why Canada doesn't need sweeping changes to competition policy to handle big tech and to propose solutions that would counter abuse of dominance and encourage compliance with the Competition Act. This podcast discussed Niblett and Sokol's recent MLI paper "Up to the task: Why Canadians don't need sweeping changes to competition policy to handle Big Tech."

Though the focus of the NATO alliance has principally been on the European theatre, increasingly the alliance and its members have taken an interest in the Indo-Pacific region. But for an alliance that is centred in the Atlantic, what role is there in the Indo-Pacific? How can member states meaningfully contribute to the rules-based international order in the region, address emerging threats and challenges, and still remain vigilant regarding to issues closer to home?

To make sense of what a future role for NATO might look like in the Indo-Pacific, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen spoke with MLI's Director of the Indo-Pacific Program, Jonathan Berkshire Miller, and Veerle Nouwens, who is a Senior Research Fellow of the Indo-Pacific Programme at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

The Supreme Court of Canada’s judgment in Ward v Quebec represents a victory for free speech in Canada... but it was a disturbingly narrow victory. MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick spoke with Leonid Sirota, a renowned scholar of public law, about what the Ward case, and other challenges to freedom of expression, mean for Canada's democracy.