Pod Bless Canada

Happy Canada Day! While this greeting might seem like standard fare on July 1st, there are growing calls by a vocal minority to stop celebrating Canada Day (and indeed, Canada more generally). In this latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick spoke with Professors Ken Coates and Christopher Dummitt to make sense of this push and argue why Canada, despite its faults, is well worth celebrating.

In the latest episode of MLI's Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Dr. Shawn Whatley speaks with Dr. Martha Fulford, associate professor of infectious diseases at McMaster University, about how Canadian policy makers have handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fulford describes a mindset that has taken hold and has not evolved since the early days of the pandemic, when the country was understandably locked down in the face of an unknown threat.

"There are still some people who seem to feel that this is a deadly virus for anyone who might get it," says Dr. Fulford, when it remains a serious threat mostly to the elderly, which is where our focus should be.

"I thought we could have talked about a targeted approach. We didn't do a very good job," says Dr. Fulford.

She urges policy makers to base their pandemic plans on past experience with this pandemic and previous ones, with the following priorities:

- Protect the most vulnerable, primarily the frail elderly

- Focus on where the virus is really being transmitted, hot spots where front line workers are living

- Build surge capacity into the health care system

- Don't destroy the fabric of our society in the effort

Dr. Fulford stresses that schools have not caused high levels of transmission and students need to return to class as soon as possible. "The impact on our children with school closures is going to be felt for their entire lifetimes," she says.

"COVID has clearly had a devastating impact, but our response to it has been also very devastating," adds Dr. Fulford. "It's not really economy versus health, it's really health versus heath. ... We mustn't forget that there are many other aspects of public health that have been neglected."

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellows Balkan Devlen and Christian Leuprecht discuss Canada's presence in Eastern Europe and Canadian contributions to NATO missions in the region.

Devlen and Leuprecht go on to discuss why a Canadian presence in Eastern Europe matters, and what can we learn from missions like the Enhanced Forward Presence going forward. They also discuss how these missions not only contribute to Canada's security, but to our allies' security as well, which has become increasingly imperative in a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

As blue-collar work is being devastated, Canada’s natural resource sector continues to be a pillar of stability and opportunity in the economy. On the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick and MLI Munk Senior Fellow Philip Cross discuss Cross' latest paper titled “A national project: How oil sands investment and production benefit Canada's economy.” 

Cross and Wudrick examine the sector in terms of production and investment and how, despite roadblocks and pessimism, the oil sands continue to develop.  They go on to discuss how the oil sands provide substantial and wide-ranging benefits to Canada as a whole.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) has many valuable and vital elements. It outlines a range of rights and standards to provide measures of social, economic and cultural justice to Indigenous peoples. However, the federal government's proposed legislation to implement UNDRIP is unacceptably vague, noncommittal, and perhaps counterproductive.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates is joined by MLI Senior Fellow Chris Sankey and MLI Policy Analyst and Outreach Coordinator Melissa Mbarki to discuss the proposed federal legislation. They delve into how the legislation fails to address Indigenous issues in Canada, and fails to live up to the stated principles of UNDRIP. They go on to propose viable solutions for Canada to move forward in Indigenous reconciliation.

Beijing's sweeping overhaul of Hong Kong's electoral system has further crushed democractic hopes in Hong Kong. The new measures, which by passed Hong Kong's legislature, aims to ensure the majority of the city's lawmakers will be selected by a reliably pro-Beijing committee. The Hong Kong government has also announced more electoral system changes favouring pro-Beijing candidates by amending voting laws and criminalizing calls for voters to leave ballots blank. 

Sharon Hom, Executive Director of Human Rights in China, and Alvin Y.H. Cheung, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University, joined MLI communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss Beijing's tightening grip on Hong Kong and where the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong stands now. They also discuss the international community response to the Hong Kong and the role of the disapora community in the movement.

Launched in 2020, DisinfoWatch is the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s new COVID-19 and foreign disinformation monitoring and debunking platform. During the COVID pandemic, it has become increasingly evident that western democratic societies are more exposed to malign foreign and domestic actors seeking to confuse and polarize our societies through conspiracy theories, blatant fabrications and propaganda. Now more than ever is it important to expose and raise awareness of mis/disinformation to build long-term and broad resilience against it in society. 

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow and founder of DisinfoWatch Marcus Kolga joins communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss disinformation operations and how DisinfoWatch is combatting it. They also discuss the steps the Canadian government should take in addressing the dis/misinformation.

This podcast is part seven of MLI’s ongoing series, titled "Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads," which features interviews with Indigenous community and business leaders who are on the forefront of economic reconciliation, particularly with respect to Indigenous rights and interests in the natural resource economy. This series goes beyond the headlines and partisan politics to delve deeper into how Indigenous peoples are shaping the economic futures of their own communities.

This episode features a conversation between MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates and Boomer Desjarlais, co-owner of Top Notch Oilfield Contracting and a member of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, Alberta.

This podcast is part six of MLI’s ongoing series, titled "Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads," which features interviews with Indigenous community and business leaders who are on the forefront of economic reconciliation, particularly with respect to Indigenous rights and interests in the natural resource economy. This series goes beyond the headlines and partisan politics to delve deeper into how Indigenous peoples are shaping the economic futures of their own communities.

This episode features a conversation between MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates and Esther Peterson, a member of Cowessess First Nation and heavy equipment operator.

A year has passed since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada with full force, and the results are in on how severely the impact of the virus has been felt in this country compared to similar advanced economies. But how does Canada compare to the rest of the world?

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute launched the COVID Misery Index this week and is based on data analysis conducted by Richard Audas, the lead methodologist on the Misery Index.

To discuss this, Audas joined communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss how Canada’s performance has been compared to the rest of the world on the COVID Misery Index. The two examine the measures Audas used in developing the Index, how countries responded, and where we stand now.