A Tarnished Maple Leaf

September 16, 2023

HERE'S MY TAKE

Prime Minister Trudeau’s plane stranding him in India is more symbol than substance. If you want to assign political blame, you need to go back to a decision made by Prime Minister Chretien almost three decades ago. But events can take on metaphoric political significance. Just ask former PM Joe Clark whose “lost luggage” on a 1979 Middle East trip became a symbol for his alleged lack of credibility as a candidate challenging Pierre Trudeau. There was plenty of punditry about what the prime minister’s 24-hour layover waiting for a replacement part reflected about the current political headwinds in Canada.

Images matter more than most realise. Ever since the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, it has become accepted wisdom among those who pay attention to political marketing that you need to win the coverage “with the sound off.” That pictures and optics matter as much as words isn’t quite as true when it comes to international diplomacy, but it’s not entirely untrue either.

In that sense, it wasn’t only the maple leaf on our flying fleet that had flaws exposed. Clearly Indian Prime Minister Modi isn’t impressed with us these days, scolding Canada about how we are (not) dealing with Khalistani separatists who forcefully promote their cause from Canada. The various reports about Prime Minister Trudeau having his request for a bilateral meeting with India denied, not being pictured in any of the post-summit promo videos, and skipping the official dinner are more symbol than substance, but the message is unmistakable. Global news coverage with lines like “Trudeau finds he has few friends at the G20 summit in India,” not to mention a picture of U.S. President Joe Biden “wagging a finger in Trudeau’s face and appearing to be lecturing the sombre-looking prime minister” is hardly the public relations any country wants.

The complexities of the reputation Canada has in various countries, including in India, lie beyond my expertise. I get that the progressive politics of Prime Minister Trudeau doesn’t neatly align with the more conservative-oriented Prime Minister Modi. I have my concerns about both, not least of which is the “dramatic uptick” in recent years of persecution of Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities in India, which international observers are calling “a religious freedom crisis.” Press freedom in India is ranked 161st out of 180 countries according to the most recent World Press Freedom Index. Domestic coverage also focuses on the implications for trade as well as for diaspora politics within the Canadian-Indian community, but it appears more fundamental issues are being ignored.

Canadians continue to believe that Canada has a mostly positive international reputation, although recent polls suggest a concern that it is on the decline. Our diplomatic corps seems to be a bit more concerned. Former Canadian ambassador Louise Blais wrote this week that Canadians are “inebriated” with self-referential claims of influence that don’t match reality. Canada has seen itself as a benefactor to the developing world with “strings attached” grants tied to “feminist agendas” along with other forms of “virtue-signalling.” The result is that “in a global game of musical chairs, our superiority complex left us the one standing.”

Foreign policy is rarely a vote-getter. But that doesn’t mean it can be ignored. Typically a country’s foreign policies are shaped by the need for order and security, economic interests, and some humanitarian concern for protecting other citizens of the world from flagrant abuse. In Canada’s case, with a significant population that was born outside of the country, domestic politics is influenced by diaspora interest in their countries of origin. This is generally diluted enough that there is no single country to focus on, but as the long-awaited appointment of a public inquiry to look into foreign interference in Canadian elections reminds us, this is an influential dynamic in our domestic politics and cannot be ignored.

The challenge is constant to balance economic interests with our values and work to see human rights and democratic values respected around the world. Recent events have prompted the admission that “the China consensus” developed over the past several decades was mistaken. Western “triumph” in the Cold War did not lead to widespread and inevitable democratisation. Considering the major geopolitical shifts now taking place in response to real bombs and bullets, who would have predicted the global ripples of the Russia-Ukraine territorial disputes and Putin’s aggression? North Korea providing Russia with weapons? Not on anyone’s prediction list.

Tied to this is a redefinition of political ideologies. Until recently, economic nationalists were on the left. Conservatives around the globe accepted the economic wisdom that free trade ultimately was the most efficient and most beneficial for everyone. It felt better to present this as a “helping everyone raise their standard of living” argument than a self-interested one, although selling globalisation as just “loving your neighbour” piety was never a fully credible pitch. Still, today it’s the opposite. It is those on the right of the spectrum who are questioning why the West is supporting Ukraine, arguing “this money is better spent on ourselves” and that we don’t need to take sides in that war that doesn’t directly involve us.

Canada is a trading nation. With our small population and unique geography, we cannot maintain our standard of living without robust economic collaboration with those outside of our borders. Trade requires security and stability not only within the countries we are dealing with, but also throughout the world so that goods and services can flow without disruption to supply chains. Summits like the annual G20 have been organised to facilitate economic and trade relationships. If we evaluate Canada’s attendance at the G20 like a company might put metrics on attending a trade show, it’s hard to see how our brand has improved. “We were there” is about all that one might say.

Canada is not the only country whose G20 participation is getting negative reviews at home. The British press critiqued Prime Minister Sunak’s performance as evidence that “Britain is now more isolated on the world stage after Brexit.” US coverage was a bit more glowing, with positive coverage of US-India deals on both trade and defence as well as accolades about “cementing the United States as the world’s undeniable power” which probably pleased the White House comms folk.

Does it really matter? Not by itself. But foreign policy isn’t an event; it’s a dynamic process. It’s not only satisfying to our ego but necessary for the Canadian economy and politics for Canada to maintain a stellar international brand. The failure to advance that cause–and arguably to do harm to it–should not be a matter of partisan division, but a concern for all of us. For the Maple Leaf to continue flying proudly at home, it needs to be respected abroad. Even if we just want to maintain our “boy scout” image, building on our historic record of being peace-keepers and of playing outsized roles on the side of good in historic global conflicts, our reputation matters. The tarnished Maple Leaf is something about which we should all be concerned.

WHAT I’M READING

Following Ed-Choice Changes

Educational pluralism is a file I watch closely. So, I took special notice of this summary article in VOX. It notes that “the pandemic changed everything… for the politics of K-12 education” and how a change of language and tactics have shifted the public dialogue. Political correspondent Andrew Prokop pinpoints the shift to the term “education savings accounts” in place of “vouchers” as a key PR tactic to win over the public. He argues that the shift in the debate from education quality to culture war issues has played an even greater role in securing more policy wins and expanding school choice. His conclusion is skeptical, warning that “state money will go to low-quality private schools that don’t actually educate children well.” I would note that Prokop doesn’t address the public-school quality issues that have given the movement energy. The article looks dubiously at school choice impacts and laments that advocates will “keep at it until they succeed.”

Counting More Complicated than 1-2-3

This 6,500-word London Review of Books article illustrates the many ways that data is collected to make something not true seem verifiable. It’s framed as the review of four books and provides interesting anecdotes primarily from the UK. The fact that these cases from the other side of the pond were less familiar to me meant they had less political baggage, making it easier for me to assess the case being made. For those of us doubtful that Excel charts are always as reliable as they are made out to be, the article is a useful resume of the tactics and errors that we need to be aware of in sorting out the reliability of data claims.

Tale of Two Employers  

The Washington Post homepage was stark in contrasts on Wednesday, posting within an hour of each other stories with the headlines “CEO calls for more unemployment to give companies upper hand over workers” and “Amazon launches plan to help ‘underserved’ D.C. area families buy homes.” Amazon is working with local organisations to implement strategies for “affordable housing” in three cities where it has a significant employee footprint. This is the latest slice of the company’s $2 billion Housing Equity Fund, which has largely been providing loans to build or preserve apartments for low- and middle-income renters. The fellow advocating more “pain in the economy” was Tim Gurner, CEO of the Australian Gurner group, who, while speaking to a Property Development Summit, lamented that COVID had instilled an “arrogant” and entitled attitude within the workforce, “a dynamic that has to change” in order to make productivity gains.

European Catholic Political Influence

The story is over a month old, published just after World Youth Day, but I just came across this Financial Times article reflecting on the growing “counter-cultural” Catholic influence in European politics. It notes that while church attendance “continues to scrape along at levels that are a tiny fraction” of previous eras, especially younger Catholics are highly observant, traditional in their worship preferences, and wielding influence disproportionate to their numbers. The article touches on the implications for nationalism, subsidiarity, and an opposition to some of the presumptions of liberal democracy.

MEANINGFUL METRICS

Divided We Stand  

This week, our friends at the Angus Reid Institute launched an important series summarising Canadian perspectives on the “culture wars.” The five-part segmentation of the Canadian population shows a country almost equally divided, with roughly one-in-five in each of the “zealous activist” category (with women younger than 35 being predominant) and the “defiant objector” category (in which men aged 35-54 male are predominant). The rest of Canadians are somewhere in the middle, skewing a bit towards the “pro-woke” side of the spectrum. The 26% “Quiet Accommodators” are described as those who “champion progressive values but in a less forceful form.” Two-thirds of them are on-side with “cancelling” public figures as a means of accountability but about half of them are finding the culture wars “divisive” and “exhausting.” There are clear differences in the data based on gender, education, and region, not to mention the obvious political views. Future reports in this series will cover gender identity, climate and the economy, colonialism and indigenous issues, and race/ethnicity. The findings are based on a representative sample of over 3,000 Canadians that was collected in July and carries a reliability probability of +/- 1.5%, 19 times out of 20.

TAKE IT TO-GO

The Tipping Point

A lunchtime conversation about tipping practices prompted me to look up this unusually-used word. Tipping started around 1300 as a word to describe toppling something; a century or so later it was being used to describe the attachment at the end of a stick; and by 1600 or so it was being used to describe a gratuity. I’m not sure there’s any wisdom on the connections between these to cash in on but then again, my search engine tipped me off regarding different tip-origin stories. I was linked to a 25-year-old Tampa Bay Times article suggesting the supposed 17th century origin of the gratuity pre-dates actual history by a century or so. It provides two alternative explanations. The first was that 18^th century English taverns had a box for patrons to drop in some change “To Insure Promptness” from which folks then logically coined the term TIP. (Of course, in an English tavern, folks could also get tipsy, but that’s a different issue entirely.) It also argues that the second explanation–namely that tip is 18^th century English slang for “giving”–explains why tips are not just descriptive of money but also of information that is passed along.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning etymology’s lessons. Certainly, I’ve given enough to reach the tipping point of data that demonstrates the unusualness of “tipping.” Of course, what prompted the conversation was the opposite–the now ubiquitous promotion of tipping, which verges toward obligation rather than a genuine recognition of service and expression of generosity. Simply gratuitous, I’d say. But this is a take-away, not an argument, so I’ll measure success by whether I’ve tipped the scales to have you check your inbox again next Saturday morning when Insights is next scheduled to appear, with no tip required.