Pod Bless Canada

This episode of Pod Bless Canada features a conversation between MLI’s Director for the Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad, Shuvaloy Majumdar, and Sarah Teich, a Canadian attorney and consultant who is the author of the Institute’s most recent paper titled “Not Immune – Exploring liability of authoritarian regimes for the COVID-19 pandemic and its cover-up.”

Teich’s paper argues that hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic damages could have been prevented had countries like China and Iran not engaged in illegal cover-ups regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Luckily, Teich outlines that there are a wide array of domestic and international legal tools available to hold regimes like China and Iran to account.

Majumdar and Teich explore the paper and what the next moves are for policy makers as they consider state liability for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like other authoritarian regimes, the Russian government has taken full advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to spread disinformation. However, while the crisis may serve as a convenient backdrop for Moscow’s campaigns of disinformation, this is only a small part of a much larger trend.

To make sense of this situation, MLI Senior Fellow Marcus Kolga was joined by the Daily Beast’s Editor-at-Large, Michael Weiss. In addition to his role at the Daily Beast, Weiss is also writing a forthcoming book on the history of Russian military intelligence.

Kolga and Weiss discuss the Kremlin’s long-running campaigns of disinformation, particularly in the context of the current US political climate. Rather than attempting to achieve a specific political goal, they explain that Russian disinformation serves to undermine social cohesion, catalyze chaos, and undermine democratic institutions.

In this latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Communications Officer Ai-Men Lau was joined by Alex Lee and Davin Wong from Alliance Hong Kong Canada (ACHK) to discuss the recent turbulent events in Hong Kong as a result of China's proposed the controversial National Security Law. Davin Wong is the Director of Youth Engagement and Policy Initiatives and Alex Lee is the Director of Strategy and Policy at ACHK.

Lau, Lee, and Wong also discuss the overall response from Canada’s federal government, Canada-China relations, and the how Canada should approach future relations with China in the context of Hong Kong.

In this latest of episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Communciation Officer Ai-Men Lau was joined by Robert Falconer, a reserach associate at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary. Falconer is a leading expert on refugee, immigration, and border policy with a specific focus on the inclusion of immigrants in the economy, healthcare system, and social life in Canada. 

Lau and Falconer discuss the burdensome and challenging process immigrant doctors face in becoming accredited to practice medicine in Canada. As Canada fights the COVID-19 pandemic, many immigrant doctors are unable to join on the frontlines as they face a lengthy and expensive regulatory process. Lau and Falconer also discuss other professions that face similar challenges, why Canada has this accreditation process in place, and how this red tape status quo impacts Canadian healthcare.

In this latest of episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen was joined by David Manheim, a post-doc at the University of Haifa in the Health and Risk Communication Research Center. Manheim has done extensive work in terms of modeling risk across a wide variety of domains. Both he and Devlen are superforecasters with the Good Judgement project, currently forecasting global spread and impact of COVID-19.

In their discussion, Devlen and Manheim reflect on existential risks, philosophy, pandemics with a particular eye toward the pandemic the world is currently experiencing: COVID-19. They reflect on the current actions taken by governments, how long the pandemic might last, and what advice they have for policy-makers navigating this challenging crisis.

In this latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Communications Officer Ai-Men Lau was joined by MLI Distinguished Fellow Dr. Jack Mintz to discuss the problems facing Canada's natural resource sector, particularly in Alberta. In their discussion, Dr. Mintz reflects on the turmoil facing the industry, particularly as a result of an ongoing oil price war that has arisen as a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic impacting oil demand.

Lau and Dr. Mintz also discuss some of the longer-term structural issues facing the industry, tax policy in Alberta, and the federal government's approach to the economy and innovation more generally.

**Note: this podcast was recorded before emergency measures associated with Canada's COVID-19 response were fully implemented. Stay tuned to Pod Bless Canada - we have expert reflections on the ongoing pandemic situation on route in the coming days.

In this latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Charles Burton was joined by Brig. Gen. (Ret) Dr. Robert Spalding, the author of “Stealth War.” During their conversation, Gen. Spalding outlines how China has leveraged an increasingly globalized, interconnected, and digitally-mediated world to infiltrate and influence Western economies and societies. According to Gen. Spalding, linkages between democracies and authoritarian regimes like China have largely failed to change China for the better, and in fact risk undermining the integrity of our democratic systems.

Gen. Spalding and Burton also examine contemporary issues in Canada-China relations, including China’s hostage diplomacy, the role of foreign influence agents, coercive trade tactics, and Canada’s pending decision regarding Huawei’s involvement in Canada’s 5G infrastructure.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates comments on the ongoing protests and rail disruptions caused by opponents of BC's Coastal GasLink pipeline project. Moreover, given the withdrawal of the Teck Frontier oil sands mine project, Coates takes a critical look at the government's approach to the situation.

Despite the popular narrative, Indigenous peoples across Canada are becoming increasingly involved as partners in natural resource development projects, including the Wet'suwet'en people through their elected chiefs. But despite these productive partnerships, projects are often disrupted, delayed, or cancelled. Coates discusses whether Canada's recent failures to develop energy projects speaks to larger, more concerning issues for Canada.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Charles Burton discusses the recent Taiwanese national elections, and what these important democratic contests mean for Taiwan, Canada, the region, and the world.

Moreover, given the outbreak of the so-called "coronavirus," (COVID-19), Burton examines the political pressure that this crisis is putting on China. He discusses how Beijing's own actions have been making its situation more difficult in the long term.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen was joined by Dr. Hanna Shelest, Editor-in-Chief of Ukraine Analytica and one of Ukraine’s sharpest analysts of international affairs. The two discuss last week’s announcement of sweeping changes to Russia’s constitution and their potential implications.

Throughout the discussion, Dr. Shelest weighs in on what she suspects Russian President Vladimir Putin is up to as he sets about radically reforming Russia’s political institutions. Dr. Shelest unpacks how the proposed amendments could serve to maintain Putin’s grip on various levers of power in Russian politics, even after he ends his tenure as President. The discussion also extends to the potential impact of these changes with respect to Canada’s relationships with Russia, Ukraine, and other countries in the region.