Adam Chapnick's Newsletter - December 2022
Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. I hope to use it to update you on what I’ve been thinking and speaking about, where I’m speaking next, and people and issues that have caught my attention.
In the Media
A couple of months ago, I spoke to a reporter from the Hill Times about what a Pierre Poilievre foreign policy might look like. To summarize: we have no idea at this point. Then, in November, I had the privilege of returning to the set of The Agenda with Steve Paikin to discuss Canadian foreign policy with particular reference to the Arctic.
Blog
Teaching has been my primary focus since my last newsletter, but I did manage to blog a few times. In September, I wrote about how strange it is when folks who believe that Canada's should do 'its fair share' when it comes to military spending, see no reason for Ottawa to do the same when it comes to reducing its carbon output. In October, I discussed the sad state of Canada's Access to Information regime. Later that month, I posted my testimony before the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Defence about the state of Canada's foreign service. You can find a video of the entire proceedings here. A think tank recently asked me to expand my comments into a longer paper, and I hope to be able to link to the results of that exercise in my next newsletter. Finally, in November I wrote a more personal essay about hybrid work.
Publications
The Literary Review of Canada asked me to review Tim Cook's latest book, Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War. You can find the result here. Short version: it's great, even if I don't agree with every word. I also wrote a response to the Canadian Historical Association's Task Force on the Future of the History PhD for Activehistory.ca. My take was focused on the opportunities available for improvement in the design of the History MA.
Presentations and Speeches in the Community
In addition to my Senate testimony, I have had a number of opportunities to speak recently. I discussed the late 1990s campaign to ban anti-personnel landmines at a conference about Jean Chretien's foreign policy that took place at the Munk Centre here in Toronto. I spoke (virtually) to the terrific audience at Thornhill Lifelong Learning about Canada-US relations. I returned, virtually, to Third Age Learning - York Region to discuss Canadian defence policy, and I met (again, virtually) the folks at Third Age Learning - Burlington for the first time and spoke to them about Canadian foreign policy. Last month, I co-hosted a discussion organized by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in collaboration with the John Holmes Trust on Canadian national security. It featured the always-great historian Tim Sayle and the former Rhodes Scholar and senior political staffer Laurence Deschamps-Laporte. Finally, the former diplomat, Louise Blais, offered me an incredible opportunity to brief a number of new foreign service officers about Canada's history on the UN Security Council. In my excitement, I spoke for a little bit too long, but the question and answer session that followed was excellent.
Upcoming Talks
In January, I'll be speaking (live) to the Probus Club of North York about the United Nations. And my 10-week (virtual) course, "Canadian Politics from the Inside Out... Or why our politicians keep making such bizarre decisions" will launch through Lifelong Learning in Retirement. I taught an LLIR in-house course on York University's Glendon campus a few years ago.
What I've Been Reading
I don't have much time to read anything but curricular material during my heavy teaching term, but I did set aside a number of hours for Steve Magness' Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness. Although the book is ostensibly about athletic excellence (Magness coaches Olympic athletes), I read it for its insights on motivation, which are relevant to me in the classroom. I learned a lot from the first couple of chapters in particular about why breaking people down in order to build them back up doesn't actually work nearly as well as folks often claim that it does. This didn't really surprise me, but it's always nice to see that there is scientific evidence behind such thinking.
Other Thoughts
I suspect that many of you followed, at least casually, the public hearing portion of the Public Order Emergency Commission over the last few weeks. Regardless of whether one believes that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act last February, it seems to me that the majority (although certainly not all) of the public and elected officials who testified acquitted themselves quite well. Indeed, they came across as far more human than they ever do when they stick to their talking points. Here's hoping that at least some of them learn from the experience, ditch their notes, and communicate directly with us more often.