Last week, Conservative MP Pat Kelly, chair of the House of Commons Information, Ethics, and Privacy Committee, pledged to re-examine Canada’s disgraceful access to information system.
 
At one level, I’m ambivalent about his announcement. A previous iteration of the committee reviewed the Access to Information Act back in 2016 and offered 32 recommendations, most of which have since been ignored.
 
As Kelly himself has said, “You’re certainly not going to be able to flip a switch and instantly go from a culture of secrecy to a true coalition of openness by default.”
 
Nonetheless, it seems to me that this review does offer an opportunity for real change.
 
From where I sit, there are two relatively distinct elements to Canada’s access to information regime: one focuses on the release of historical records; the other is concerned with the openness of contemporary ones.
 
While the latter is mired in politics, the former is ripe for reform.

Regrettably, however, advocates too often treat the two like a package, and thereby prevent the easier case from being communicated effectively.
 
As a historian of Canadian foreign policy who has spent countless hours in Canadian, American, and British Archives, I have experienced first-hand the absurd lengths that Ottawa goes to protect records that our allies have often already declassified.
 
In the United Kingdom, most government documents are transferred to the National Archives after 30 years and all-but-automatically opened to the public immediately thereafter. For many of those records, the wait period is now being reduced to 20 years.
 
Australia, Ireland, Israel, and Germany operate under similar rules.
 
In Canada, on the other hand, all files remain closed indefinitely.
 
Researchers are therefore forced to identify and itemize each one that interests them (for me, this has meant hundreds of records); they must formally request that each one be opened individually; and someone from Library and Archives Canada must then review the requested material – even if it’s from over 70 years ago!
 
In Canada we therefore spend hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars every year paying people to examine ancient records that other countries have already released.
 
The University of Toronto historian, Tim Sayle, and Duke University’s Susie Colbourn have explained the absurdity of this approach as well as anyone here and here.
 
And I have a hard time believing that any serious member of Parliament who has heard their pleas could disagree.
 
Put differently, there’s a big difference between a document outlining Canada’s strategy in its bid for a seat on the UN Security Council in 1946 and one summarizing government deliberations about freeing the Two Michaels last year.
 
There is no reason to treat access to them the same way.
 
Kelly’s committee is well-positioned to effect real change by making this simple and obvious distinction.
 
Surely MPs could work together to change the rules on releasing documents that were published before many of them were born.
 
And if they do so, they will conveniently free up staff resources to start working through the backlog of access requests on more current documentation.
 
In sum, let’s hope that Kelly’s committee reaches for the low-hanging fruit. Canada’s needs its own 30-year rule. Now is the time to make it happen.
 
***
For more on this issue, follow Sayle and Colbourn on Twitter @timsayle and @secolbourn.
 
***
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​Kelly McParland wrote an article for the National Post last week that reiterated a common objection to significant Canadian action to combat climate change:
 
“Many Canadians, not all of them cranks, have wondered what practical purpose there is in twisting the country’s industry into an unproductive pretzel in search of slightly lower carbon output when we’re responsible for just 1.5 per cent of global output.”
 
The implication, it seems to me, is that when you only account for 1.5% of something, what you do, or don’t do, doesn’t matter very much.
 
It’s an appealing argument on its surface, which must be why it gets repeated so often.
 
But its advocates rarely seem to recognize its strategic implications.
 
Later in the same article, McParland is highly critical of Ottawa for failing “to pay its fair share” when it comes to NATO’s defence of the Arctic.
 
In this context, it is worth noting that Canada only accounts for slightly more than 2% of NATO members’ combined military spending.
 
If there is no need for Ottawa to worry about greenhouse gas emissions because of this country’s relatively meagre contribution to environmental degradation, surely there’s no need to be overly critical of successive Canadian governments’ failure to invest sufficiently in North Atlantic security given Canada’s relatively meagre contribution to NATO’s military spending.
 
If you couldn't detect the sarcasm in that last sentence, let me be clear that I couldn’t disagree more with such thinking - as it relates to both cases.
 
Canada is not so powerful as to be capable of solving international problems on its own, but it does benefit significantly from the global governance system and structures that Ottawa helped our American and British allies establish after the Second World War.
 
It follows that we have every interest in contributing to collective, liberal-democratic solutions to transnational challenges.
 
By McParland’s logic, since China is the world’s largest carbon emitter, Beijing should lead, if not dominate, the international response to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Such an approach would almost certainly compromise Canadian interests. The Chinese demonstrate regularly they cannot be trusted as global stewards.
 
By doing Canada’s “fair share” to support a UN-led environmental solution, Ottawa adds its voice to those states that prefer liberal-democratic responses to global governance challenges. It also builds political capital that it can use to press others to act similarly.
 
Diplomats sometime call this negotiating with “clean hands.” No matter the issue, one must always do one’s bit before demanding that others behave similarly.
 
McParland seems to understand and subscribe to this mantra when it comes to defence and security.
 
The environmental case is no different.
 
***
 
On the NATO and the Arctic, I’m always interested to see what the University of Manitoba’s Andrea Charron has to say. I also pay attention to the writings of St. Francis Xavier historian Adam Lajeunesse.
 
***
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The National Post published an article last week, “Global Affairs Canada spends $41K on ‘fancy furniture’ for overseas diplomatic offices,” that left me fuming.
 
The piece reveals, via a Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation (CTF) access-to-information request, that between March and September 2020, Global Affairs Canada spent over $41,000 on “custom furniture designed by and purchased from Ottawa-based Christopher Solar Designs” for use in the office of the Canadian High Commissioner in New Zealand, the official residence at Canada’s embassy in Tokyo, the High Commission in Nairobi, and the Canadian embassy in Brazil.
 
I understand that some readers might not consider diplomacy particularly important, and might not believe that ambassadors and high commissioners benefit from being able to make a good impression when they host world leaders.
 
So let’s set aside the argument that diplomacy costs money, and that first impressions matter.
 
And let’s even set aside the fact that these purchases were made during a country-wide lock-down, and therefore likely helped keep a Canadian company in business (and in less need of direct government assistance).
 
What really irks me is a quotation in the article from the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation, Franco Terrazzano, and the reporter’s acceptance of it at face value.
 
Terrazzano says: “They could have gone to a bunch of different stores where their offices are located and spent significantly less money,” to which the reporter adds: “The CTF points out that a visit to a Tokyo IKEA would have saved the Canadian government thousands of dollars.”
 
The problem here is that both suggestions are bogus. A federal official cannot just walk into a store, purchase furniture costing thousands of dollars, and ship it to an embassy overseas (or walk into a Tokyo IKEA and do the same thing).
 
There is a mountain of paperwork that has to take place first to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest at play (what if the minister’s sister owns the store, for example?)
 
My best guess is that a competitive bidding process resulted in Christopher Solar Designs winning a contract to supply certain embassies with office furniture.
 
But I shouldn’t have to guess, because the reporter should have told us so, or otherwise, in the article.
 
If there was a contract, it would come with inflated costs for the seller because of the hours and hours of paperwork that Christopher Solar Designs would have completed to make its successful bid.
 
(Government procurement is so complicated that bidders often hire companies to help them with their proposals.)
 
We compel businesses to go through this cumbersome, bureaucratic process because too many Canadians – cheered on by groups like the CTF – think that Ottawa is inherently corrupt, and the only way to prove them wrong is to make sure that every government purchase comes with an overwhelming paper trail.
 
In Ottawa, you therefore have a choice:
 
(a) you can be more efficient (by enabling officials to buy furniture from the Tokyo IKEA on their personal credit cards and deal with groups like the CTF accusing you of cronyism and corruption); or
 
(b) you can be more accountable (by buying furniture from pre-approved suppliers that is marked up to account for the contracting costs of a transparent procurement process).
 
The CTF’s call for “less waste and accountable government” in the current political environment is therefore all but impossible.
 
One necessarily comes at the expense of the other.
 
In sum, I’m all for holding government to account – and it really isn’t hard to find things about the Trudeau Liberals to criticize – but this article does nothing of the sort.
 
***
For more on the Government of Canada’s procurement policies see here, but good luck understanding it all…
 
***
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Late last week, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development announced plans to investigate the Trudeau government’s decision to allow Siemens Energy (in Montreal) to import, service, and return six Russian turbines in circumvention of Canada’s own sanctions against Moscow.
 
Those turbines enable the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to ship Russian natural gas to Germany.

Until now, the first of the six turbines has been held up in Quebec – as per the sanctions regime instituted in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and Moscow was using Ottawa’s refusal to return it as an excuse to slow down gas shipments to Berlin.
 
Presumably, now that the turbine will be returned, Germany’s fear of an energy crisis this winter will subside.
 
Given the degree of controversy associated with Ottawa’s decision – President Zelensky condemned the move; Ukraine summoned a senior Canadian diplomat to protest; the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is suing in federal court to try to revoke the waiver that Siemens has been granted  – the committee has every right to investigate.
 
But if members don’t simply use the opportunity to score political points, they should find that Ottawa's actions make sense given Canada’s limited ability to support Ukraine on its own.
 
It seems to me that critics who charge that the sanctions exemption “calls into question Canada’s very commitment to assisting Ukraine during an existential period in its history,” or that “By compromising our own sanctions policy, we may also be compromising our credibility,” are viewing the move through Kyiv’s eyes, not Canada’s.
 
Here's what I see when I consider the situation from the point of view of Canadian national interests:
 
Canada must object vehemently to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, its abhorrent human rights violations, and its transparently self-serving disinformation campaign.
 
The fall of Ukraine would undermine the liberal-democratic, rules-based international order under which Canadians have prospered since the end of the Second World War.
 
But our government cannot defend Ukraine (or help Ukraine defend itself) alone, and there is little more that our NATO partners and Western allies can do without the leadership of the United States.
 
President Biden has been clear that America’s ongoing commitment to the defence of Ukraine is contingent on European support and cooperation.
 
If the Europeans aren’t willing to defend their own territory, Biden is not confident that he’ll be able to convince the American public to continue to do it for them.  

The president's position makes Ottawa's explanation for its decision revealing:
 
Both Prime Minister Trudeau and Deputy PM Freeland have indicated that “Germany’s ability to sustain its support [for Ukraine] could be at risk” if the sanctions aren’t waived.
 
That’s probably why the United States made a point of publicly supporting the Canadian decision almost immediately after it reached the press.
 
So Ottawa’s move seems to be the best one it could make in this lousy situation – if you want to blame anyone, blame Russia; then, blame Germany.
 
Inasmuch as I therefore don’t see how the Commons committee could find that Ottawa erred in granting Siemens an exemption, I do see a place for the hearings to make a difference.
 
Initial reports indicated that only one turbine was implicated in this controversy. The deal announced involves six.
 
How and why that number changed is not clear, and it should be. If Ottawa misled Canadians when this issue first came up, it must be held to account.
 
I’ll be tracking the committee’s hearings to see whether members agree.
 
***
On Canada and Ukraine, I have found the scholarship of Bohdan Kordan, and especially his two books (find them here and here), particularly helpful.
 
***
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The former mayor of Huntsville and current candidate for the Conservative leadership Scott Aitchison seems like a decent, reasonable man.
 
His calls for greater civility in Canadian politics and within the Conservative Party itself are refreshing.
 
His commitment to end supply management is courageous, and while I don’t agree with bits and pieces of his platform, he certainly wouldn’t scare me if he became the next Conservative leader.
 
Realistically, there is almost no chance of that happening, but in a time of increasingly unhinged and radical political discourse, Aitchison offers a pleasant reminder of what Canadian politics could still be, with a little bit of effort.
 
Perhaps it’s because I find Aitchison’s candidacy so appealing that I can’t stop thinking about how much I disagree with his most recent pledge.
 
Last week, he announced that, as prime minister, he would “end Canada’s ‘One China’ policy and recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.”
 
As a long-time student of Canadian diplomatic history, I cannot see anything positive coming from such a unilateral declaration.
 
The last time Canada freelanced this way on the world stage was in August 2018 when then foreign minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted out opposition to Saudi Arabia’s arbitrary imprisonment of a number of female human rights activists.
 
The Saudi reaction was disproportionate, and punitive, but there was nothing Ottawa could do about it. Moreover, rather than backing us, our “allies” collectively looked the other way.
 
And, of course, Saudi policy didn’t change at all.
 
To its credit, the Trudeau government learned its lesson: Canadian criticism goes much further when it is part of a larger Western, or global, initiative.
 
What’s more, when states are working together, it is significantly more difficult for the subject of their disapproval to lash out in response.
 
In the aftermath of China’s kidnapping of the Two Michaels, foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne quietly assembled a group of over 50 countries before announcing the Declaration against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations. 
 
One can debate the impact of the declaration on Chinese policy, but it certainly expressed Canada’s position just as clearly as a unilateral statement would have; it demonstrated that we were not alone in our view; and it did not incur significant blowback.
 
What makes Aitchison’s pledge even more frustrating is that he clearly knows better.
 
Consider the pragmatism evident in the rest of his position on Taiwan (the emphasis is mine): “We will work with our allies and trade partners to welcome Taiwan into the TPP and support their efforts to join international bodies like the WHO, obtain observer status at INTERPOL, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
 
Aitchison has to know that a more ambiguous commitment to recognizing Taiwan would make it significantly easier for Canadian negotiators to build support for the rest of his policy aims, especially among states that aren’t ready to be so open about their position. 
 
Nevertheless, he seems insistent on puffing out Canada’s proverbial chest – and thereby exposing the lack of force behind our words.
 
His pledge would inevitably lead to massive economic losses for Canadians who do business with China without doing anything for the people of Taiwan.
 
Ironically, to defend Aitchison’s position is to suggest that Canada’s independent voice on the world stage can make a significant difference on its own.
 
Yet, just last year, the Conservative Party’s own election platform claimed that “the Trudeau government has presided over a Canada with diminishing influence on issues that affect our prosperity and security.”
 
So not only is Aitchison’s proposal bad policy, it is also bad politics, especially for a Conservative.
 
Shame on whoever convinced him that promising to unilaterally recognize Taiwan was a good idea.
 
***
On the state of Canadian foreign policy, take a look at former diplomat Dan Livermore’s thoughts about the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s ongoing review of our foreign service. I look forward to the committee’s eventual report.
 
***
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Late last week, the associate chief justice of British Columbia’s Supreme Court, Austin Cullen, released the results of a three-year investigation into money laundering in BC.
 
The National Post’s Sabrina Maddeaux provides quite a good summary of the lowlights. As the title of her article indicates, over the last decade, “Canada became a money laundering capital while Ottawa slept.”
 
In fact, Ottawa did much worse than just sleep. The Harper government all but created the problem when it disbanded the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated Proceeds of Crime Units as a cost-cutting measure in 2012.
 
It then took the Trudeau Liberals four years to launch the Financial Crime Coordination Centre, and their promised new Canada Financial Crimes Agency still isn’t up and running.
 
In the meantime, money laundering in BC alone has become a billion dollar problem.
 
Cullen has so little faith in Ottawa that he wants Victoria to create its own “dedicated provincial money laundering intelligence and investigation unit with a robust intelligence division.”
 
Although I sympathize with his evident frustration, I’m not sure that such a response will do much in the long run.
 
It seems to me that an effective anti-money laundering regime requires a stream-lined, consistent, national response.
 
Unfortunately, I have yet to find evidence of such a recipe for a country made up of 14 implicated governments (federal, provincial, territorial), not to mention a growing number of self-governing Indigenous nations, each of which have their own views on how the regime should be managed.
 
What's more, money laundering doesn’t even nest comfortably within the portfolio of a single federal government department.
 
FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, is housed in the Department of Finance under a minister who has far too many other things to do (not to mention a second portfolio as deputy PM) to make this a priority.
 
But FINTRAC might not be the best lead agency anyway.

The RCMP investigates and lays charges; the Canadian Border Services Agency is often involved because it tracks people who carry large amounts of cash over the border; Public Safety Canada is supposed to coordinate all things inter-governmental on issues like this one.
 
And don’t forget Global Affairs Canada, which leads Canada’s anti-money laundering efforts on the world stage.
 
And that’s before we get to the relevant regulatory agencies (real estate is a big problem in BC; gambling used to be), and the sub-federal governments themselves.
 
In recent years, I’ve asked some of my students to try to solve this quandary.
 
Their suggestions have varied from anointing a czar-like figure operating out of the Privy Council Office (the Prime Minister’s department); creating a new organization within Public Safety Canada that brings all of the actors together (which sounds a lot like what Ottawa is trying to do with the Canada Financial Crimes Agency); or empowering a single existing government department to lead.
 
The problem is that each idea has weaknesses (which is why the assignment works…).
 
A czar in the PCO would further centralize a government that already micromanages too much. Public Safety has proven incapable of corralling its own agencies, let alone their provincial equivalents. A new organization would lack the pre-established relationships with provincial governments that will be critical to success.
 
And none of these solutions integrates Global Affairs Canada.
 
Does that mean that we give up? Of course not, and to that end there’s much to learn from the Cullen report.
 
But the ongoing failure of federal and provincial anti-money laundering policies should serve as a reminder of both the dangerous implications of reckless cuts to critical government programs , as well as the need for humility when thinking about the overwhelmingly complex problems that Canadian governments are regularly faced with today.
 
***
For more on money laundering in Canada, you can request a copy of Criminal Intelligence Service Canada's recent report here.
 
***
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The turnout in the recent Ontario election – at 43.5%, the lowest in this province’s history –
has got me thinking a lot about Canadians’ faith in our political process.
 
A recent poll suggested that our collective trust in governments, businesses, media, and advocacy groups has dropped significantly over the last four years.
 
What’s more, the politician currently generating the most enthusiastic support across this country has based his campaign for the leadership of the federal Conservatives around the idea that government should be as limited as possible because the “gatekeepers” cannot be trusted.
 
In this context, I’m following discussions about the future of Andrea Horwath, the former leader of Ontario’s New Democratic Party and current Member of Provincial Parliament for Hamilton-Centre, closely.
 
Horwath was re-elected as an MPP on June 2nd, but once it became clear that her party would not be forming the next government in Ontario, she resigned as leader of the NDP.
 
Less than 24 hours later, an article in the Hamilton Spectator speculated: “Is run for Hamilton mayor Andrea Horwath’s next move?”
 
The implication was that since she was no longer the NDP leader, Horwath was free to pursue other ways to, in her words, “fight for our everyday working people.”
 
And since the Hamilton mayoral campaign was accepting nomination papers until August 19th, she had (and still has) plenty of time to prepare for a run.
 
I hope Horwath stays where she is.
 
If she resigns her provincial seat – almost immediately after having been re-elected – she will be telling her constituents that it was never about them.
 
She wanted to be premier, sure, but she was only planning to represent the people of Hamilton-Centre because she had to. With the premiership off the table, someone else can look after their interests.
 
This would be a terrible message to send at any time, but it would be a particularly bad one right now.
 
The financial cost to Ontarians also concerns me.
 
If Horwath resigned, the Ontario government would have to call a by-election to replace her, which could cost as much as $500,000.
 
Meanwhile, as a long-time MPP and former leader of the opposition, upon her resignation, Horwath would collect a severance allowance of well over $200,000.
 
To be clear, since MPPs in Ontario have not received pensions since 1995, there is a compelling logic to providing them with financial support as they transition, often unexpectedly, back to a world where their political experience might not mean very much.
 
Doctors who run for office don’t get their patients back. The same goes for lawyers who give up their clients, and accountants, and contractors, and so many others.
 
If we want successful people to interrupt their careers and take pay-cuts to serve us in what are often thankless jobs, and we deny them a pension while they are doing so, surely we owe them some sort of support as they re-enter the traditional workforce.
 
But that contract should work both ways. Running for office should entail a genuine commitment to serve out one’s term.
 
It is one thing for an MPP to resign because of illness or a family crisis. It is quite another to quit because they see a job they like better.
 
If Horwath does resign, I would urge her to do what her fellow New Democrat MPP, Joe Cimono did in 2014 when he left Queen’s Park after just five months: don’t take the severance.
 
Far better, of course, would be to follow in the footsteps of the last NDP leader, Howard Hampton, and serve out the term.
 
And perhaps during that term, why not draft legislation that prevents anyone from collecting severance if they resign within a year (or two?) of being elected.
 
***
On the question of whether the Ontario NDP and the Ontario Liberals should consider a merger, see this article by Steve Paikin. In it, Liberal party president Tim Murphy articulates a significantly more compelling vision of what it means to be an Ontario Liberal than anything I’ve heard from an elected official in years. (The federal party could learn something from him, too.)
 
***
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Last week, the University of Ottawa’s Task Force on National Security released its much anticipated report: A National Security Strategy for the 2020s.
 
The Task Force was directed by the recently-retired former national security and intelligence advisor to the prime minister, Vincent Rigby, and one of the most credible analysts of security and defence in this country, Thomas Juneau.
 
They were joined by a veritable who’s who of Canadian national security experts.
 
In other words, it’s hard to imagine a more qualified group to make recommendations on “How Canada can adapt to a deteriorating security environment.”
 
The majority of the report’s recommendations are entirely reasonable, in particular in terms of how Ottawa should organize the public service to analyze and counter threats to the state, to national institutions, and to individual Canadians.
 
If you are interested in these issues, the document is therefore well worth your time.
 
But I am not hopeful that it will effect transformative change in Ottawa.
 
The authors all but explain why on page 10:
 
“Collectively, we have neglected national security for decades, largely because we could afford to do so. Shielded from major threats, we generally suffered little or no cost for our complacency. Whenever we dealt with national security issues, it was largely in a reactive way, in response to events, and not through a more proactive, structured approach.”
 
They justify the need for a different approach by claiming that this time “of intense global instability, when the security of Canada and other liberal democracies is under growing threat,” is somehow different from all of the previous ones.
 
I agree that Ottawa’s traditional approach to national security has been risky, perhaps even irresponsible, but I wonder whether the strategic environment today is that much more threatening than the one we faced when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, or when Donald Trump was elected in 2016, or when Syria dropped chemical weapons on its own people in 2017, or when the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps blew up Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in 2020.
 
Nor do I detect any sense of urgency among Canadians writ large.
 
National security is hardly a focus of the current Conservative leadership campaign. It has not come up much, if at all, in Ontario’s provincial election. I don’t recall reading much about it when Jason Kenney pledged to resign as premier of Alberta. It is certainly not the reason for the ongoing political controversy in Quebec. Nor do I suspect it will have a role in the forthcoming Toronto municipal election.
 
Part of the problem is that, for decades, practitioners and analysts of Canadian national security (and defence) have all but cried wolf on a regular basis.
 
When I arrived at the Canadian Forces College in 2006, I recall hearing over and over again how the contemporary operating environment was more dangerous than it had ever been.
 
In the 16 years since, a year hasn’t gone by when I haven’t heard the same thing – from multiple speakers. Yet, as the authors of the report make clear, Canadians have yet to pay a serious price for our collective apathy.
 
Ottawa might well need “the support and trust of Canadians” to develop “a whole-of-Canada response to security threats,” but I don’t think that the report’s recommendations to increase government transparency and the engagement of practitioners with the public will suffice.
 
Barring a genuine catastrophe, the national security apparatus is unlikely to touch a sufficient number of Canadians directly, and sustainably, so as to effect the necessary change in public perception.
 
On the other hand, who hasn’t heard of someone with a problem renewing their passport, or with the status of their immigration paperwork recently? Are there any Canadians left that aren’t aware that long-term drinking water advisories are still a reality on almost 30 reserves?  
 
If public trust is key to changing Canada’s national security culture (which it might well be), perhaps Ottawa should focus on getting the little things right. Do that, and I suspect that the Canadian public will be much more amenable to tackling the big challenges down the road.
 
Hopefully, we can reach that point before it’s too late.
 
***
If you do read the report, why not compare it to a similar one produced by the Centre for International Governance Innovation back in December. I’d be fascinated to learn more about any differences between the two.
 
***
In other news, I originally intended to post to this blog once or twice per month. Somehow, I seem to have ended up posting weekly. While I enjoy doing so, this pace is not sustainable, especially as I prepare to return to the classroom in August. I therefore anticipate cutting back a bit going forward. If there are things you’d like me to write about, you can reach me here.
 
***
 
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Just over two weeks ago, North Korea recorded its first case of Covid-19.
 
Since then, as The Economist has noted, the virus has been “spreading like wildfire.” Already, more than 2.5 million North Koreans have come down with what the regime is calling an undiagnosed “fever.” At least 67 have died.
 
Cases of this “fever” continue to increase by close to 200,000 per day, if you trust North Korean reporting.
 
What limited coverage of the outbreak I’ve seen thus far – there has been virtually none in the Canadian press – has focused on the humanitarian catastrophe that it poses for North Koreans.
 
Since leader Kim Jong Un doesn’t trust outsiders, he has repeatedly rejected donations of vaccines from COVAX, as well as offers of support from China, Russia, the United States, and South Korea.
 
So Omicron is spreading rapidly among 25 million unvaccinated North Koreans, many of whom were not in good health in the first place.
 
What’s more, the last two years have seen the country’s food stocks shrink dramatically, so as Kim begins to lock down the country to mitigate the outbreak, he risks further compromising his people’s food supply. (Rice planting season began a few weeks ago).
 
Inasmuch as the plight of the North Koreans is tragic, I fear that the issue could easily become much graver, and I wonder whether the fact that so much of the West appears to have moved on from the pandemic is preventing us, collectively, from seeing it.
 
The science is clear that “the more the virus circulates, the greater the opportunity it has to mutate.” With millions of North Koreans likely to be infected over the next few months, it is hard to imagine that new variants won’t emerge.
 
If we’re lucky, they won’t cause symptoms that are any worse than those we are already dealing with, and the vaccines we have will continue to stave off the most deadly outcomes.
 
But if we aren’t, the fall resurgence of the pandemic that the Public Health Agency of Canada is all but promising could be far more damaging than it is anticipated it to be.
 
In other words, the situation in North Korea could easily become much more than just a humanitarian challenge – our national interests could be at stake.
 
Canada’s options right now are limited: Kim won’t accept our aid; China isn’t interested in our advice; and we are poorly-positioned to impose our will on anyone.
 
And while a recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail is absolutely right to call out the City of Toronto for its foolish decision to shut down what had been a successful outreach effort to “overcome vaccine hesitancy” in targeted neighbourhoods, no amount of vaccinating at home will be sufficient to protect us if a rogue variant emerges abroad.
 
It follows that one can only hope that Ottawa redoubles its efforts to contribute to the global recovery by supporting countries that will accept our assistance, and also by encouraging our allies and partners to do the same.
 
In sum, this is not a call for Canadian leadership – I don’t think there would be many followers – but it is a recognition of the urgent need for states like Canada to continue to do their fair share to mitigate the global impact of Covid-19 at a time when it seems all too easy to pretend that the pandemic is fully behind us.
 
***
For the official account of Canada’s response to Covid-19, see here. On Canada’s global response specifically, see here, and note the difference between Ottawa’s original promise to donate at least 200 million vaccine doses to COVAX by the end of 2022 and the current wording: “Canada has also committed to donating the equivalent of at least 200 million doses to the COVAX Facility by the end of 2022.”
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​As a parent with two children enrolled in schools served by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), I am struggling with the board’s controversial plan to transform their specialized schools program.
 
For readers outside of Toronto, here’s the context:
 
Toronto is home to 40-odd specialized programs or schools that provide an enriched curriculum in some or all of the arts, athletics, sciences, and math.
 
In 2017, with data indicating that a disproportionate percentage of the students attending these programs and schools came from relatively privileged families, a TDSB Equity Task Force recommended shutting them all down.
 
As you can imagine, parents (and their kids) mutinied, and the board promised to do better.
 
Five years later, doing better seems to mean overhauling the admissions process to these programs so that students will be accepted by lottery, based only on their expressed interest, rather than because of any evidence of exceptional ability or skill.
 
As one proponent of the proposed change explains:
 
“Moving to an interest-based model will ensure that [previous formal training in specific disciplines] is no longer a barrier to students who may not have had those same opportunities, but still bring an interest, passion, and commitment to those fields.”
 
Viewed less optimistically, we could soon have a specialized school for kids with an expressed interest in athletics, but no particular athletic skill; or an enriched STEM program for students who are passionate about engineering, but barely passed math or science the previous year.
 
Inevitably, such specialized programs will become less special – until they are no longer special at all.
 
Critics have offered two alternatives to the TDSB’s plan that they claim will maintain the quality of the programs but also deincrease the inequity.
 
The Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee urges the board to do a better job of “making sure that parents hear about [the programs] and that teachers are on the lookout for promising candidates, especially in needy neighbourhoods.”
 
Writing in the Toronto Star, Maclean’s editor Sarah Fulford (whose son attends one of the schools in question) suggests:
 
“Instead of flattening the system into sameness by bureaucratic decree, the TDSB should take a hard look at why some schools are failing to attract students. Let’s empower principals and teachers, the heart and soul of every institution, to design programs that are creative, compelling and lively.”
 
Neither solution is likely to work. Privilege will always be just that, and parents who have it will find a way to ensure that their kids have the best opportunities.
 
And while empowering schools and principals sounds great in theory, the quality of educational leadership in Toronto is uneven, and one can only allocate so much time to creativity when your students come to class hungry and exhausted, if they come at all.
 
Nevertheless, it seems to me that there is a solution that should give both sides some of what they want:
 
Why not keep the schools, and their application processes, the way they are – for 85%-90% of all admissions - but set aside 10%-15% of all the places in each program for kids from underprivileged backgrounds.
 
For this smaller group, design an even more individualized application process that emphasizes potential, and allows for greater flexibility in interpreting previously demonstrated aptitude.
 
All kids could still apply through the main process, but some would have the option of also being considered through the second stream.
 
Such consideration would ideally be kept confidential (and all acceptances would be announced at the same time), so that no one would know who was admitted separately.
 
This approach would preserve the elitist element of the schools that makes them so popular and successful, but also ensure a more equitable, inclusive, and diverse student body that no amount of parental privilege can overcome.
 
Such an approach was in place at Trent University when I studied there as an undergraduate, and seemed to work well.
 
Surely, the TDSB should give something like it a try before gutting one of the Toronto public education system’s crown jewels.
 
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For a list of Toronto’s specialized high school programs, see here. The elementary programs can be found here.
 
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