Adam Chapnick's Newsletter - March 2022
Thanks 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
I spoke to a reporter from the Hill Times this week about the role of the United Nations and its Security Council in the current crisis in Ukraine. Beyond that, I have spoken to a few reporters on background, but largely to recommend that they speak to colleagues who know far more about world affairs than I do.
Blog
Because I am on sabbatical until the end of June, I have had more time to blog.
Since my last newsletter, I have written about:
why we don't necessarily need a cabinet committee on national security chaired by the prime minister;
the controversy over Quebec's Bill 21 and what to do about it;
the need for more serious criticism of the Trudeau government's foreign policy;
why Canadian foreign policy is a lot more difficult than it used to be;
the foreign policy implications of the so-called freedom convoy;
what it would mean to sacrifice for, rather than just support, Ukraine.
Presentations and Speeches in the Community
I recently had a wonderful time speaking to members of Lifelong Learning Niagara about Canada-US relations via Zoom.
Upcoming Talks
In April, I will be speaking to Lifelong Learning Markham about the United Nations. The following month, I am quite excited to give a lecture about major events in Canadian history as part of the Richmond Hill Public Library History Lecture series. (My lecture is not being advertised yet, but check out the other ones.) If you're interested in having me speak, you can always contact me through my website. It appears that the contact link was down for a while, but it is fixed now.
What I'm Reading
I zipped my way through Joseph Jockel and Joel Sokolsky's new book, Canada in NATO, 1949-2019. Jockel and Sokolsky are two of the very best scholars of Canadian defence policy, and their book does not disappoint. Slightly more wonky, but equally good, is Thomas Juneau and Stephanie Carvin's Intelligence Analysis and Policy Making: The Canadian Experience. One of the most important features of the book is the appendix, which provides the best concise outline of Canada's national security and intelligence community that I've ever read. We'll see if Canadian Forces College students agree when I assign it next year.
Other Thoughts
I took this sabbatical to, hopefully, finish the textbook on the history of Canadian foreign policy that I've mentioned in previous newsletters. I'm pleased to report that the first couple of months have been productive. I have completed my portion of the Harper era chapter and am about to start the final full chapter on the Liberals under Justin Trudeau. I am fortunate that a number of public and political officials were willing to speak to me about the Harper era off the record, and the results are - I think - some relatively new interpretations of some of that government's most significant foreign policy decisions. As a scholar, I are rarely more pleased than when new evidence causes me to change my interpretation. These sorts of discoveries are what keep things interesting. We'll have to see whether the peer reviewers agree.
One of the things that I've found most fascinating about the latest chapters is how the Chretien and Harper governments looked at the same environmental evidence and came to such starkly different diplomatic conclusions. Prime Minister Chretien knew that Canada did not have a plan to meet its Kyoto emissions reductions targets, and concluded that committing to the protocol was the best way to spur Canadians into action. In contrast, when the Harper government realized that there was no way to meet Canada's targets, its conclusion was that Canada should abandon the accord completely. Both decisions can be defended from a diplomatic point of view. Chretien's approach was ambitious and appealed to Liberal supporters' foreign policy idealism. Harper's was honest, and appealed to Conservative supporters' natural pragmatism. Perhaps I'll say more about this in the book's conclusion.