Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Pod Bless Canada

Azar Nafisi, who is the critically acclaimed author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, a New York Times bestseller that is published in thirty-two languages. Nafisi reflects on the effect of education, ideology, and the corporate mentality on the preservation of democracy, focusing particularly on political divides in the US. Mariam and Azar dive into the philosophical underpinnings of freedom, democracy preservation in the US, and the fight for democracy in Iran. Nafisi is also known for her other works including, Things I've Been Silent About, Republic of Imagination, That Other World: Nabokov and the Puzzle of Exile, and most recently The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. She has held various teaching posts across the world including at Johns Hopkins University, Oxford University, and Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai.

Was Russia's most recent invasion of Ukraine an aberration, or a predictable phenomenon? Balkan Devlen sits down with author Thibault Muzergues to discuss his recently published book “War in Europe? From Impossible War to Improbable Peace” and how Russia's attacks are changing European attitudes regarding continental security. They also discuss why some observers failed to identify the war as it loomed on the horizon, where the next wars could erupt, what must be done to prepare for such a future, and why all this matters to Canada.

Independent Ukrainian journalist Olga Tokariuk joins us today to discuss her wartime journalism, stories coming from the frontline, the greater meaning of Ukraine's fight for freedom and democracy, and to debunk Russia's narratives about Ukraine. Olga Tokariuk is a Non-resident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and an independent journalist and researcher based in Ukraine. Olga has vast experience working with Ukrainian and international media, such as EFE news agency, RAI, ANSA, BuzzFeed News, NPR, ABC, and RSI. She is a former head of the foreign news desk at the independent Ukrainian Hromadske TV. – Talkin' in the Free World is a conversation series on the future of democracy and countering the threat from resurgent authoritarianism across the globe. The series is hosted by MLI Senior Fellow Mariam Memarsadeghi and features prominent thinkers, practitioners and political leaders committed to safeguarding freedom.

Nury Turkel, author of No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs, speaks to us today about China's use of technology in the Uyghur genocide and the threat of such technologies to global democracy and freedom. Turkel highlights what the international community needs to do to support the Uyghur people and hold authoritarians to account. Turkel is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and is Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur-American lawyer, foreign policy expert, and human rights advocate. He was born in a re-education camp at the height of China's tumultuous Cultural Revolution and spent the first several months of his life in detention with his mother.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on April 22, 2022. Conservative commentator and American Enterprise Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow Danielle Pletka on how foriegn policy from free nations must be reshaped to defeat forces aligned against global security and liberty.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on March 25, 2022. "The End of Europe" author Jamie Kirchick on rising threats to freedom in democracies.

Inequality makes it easy for many politicians and activists to cast the wealthy as villains who make our society worse. But is this the right way to think about wealth and inequality? MLI Domestic Program Director Aaron Wudrick is joined by Derek Bullen is Founder and CEO of S.i. Systems and the author of the new book "In Defence of Wealth." Bullen and Wudrick discuss the book and how many critics are overlooking crucial considerations: we need business people to build companies and generate wealth to keep our economy going, and that punishing prosperity only makes our society worse.

After months of military build up and threats, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a war of aggression against Ukraine. MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen is joined by Hanna Shelest, the Director of Security Programmes at Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” and Editor-in-Chief at UA: Ukraine Analytica, to discuss the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Devlen and Shelest analyze what the world might expect in the future from Russia and what Canada and our allies can do to support Ukraine's fight against Russia. This podcast was recorded on March 2, 2022.

The Freedom Convoy received quick and heavy condemnation and backlash from Canadian politicians and media when it arrived in Ottawa earlier this year. Though criticism was certainly merited, did the vitriol of the response go too far? In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick was joined by Stuart Parker, the President of the Los Altos Institute, to discuss Parker's article in the Hub titled, "Why the coverage of the trucker protest should worry all Canadians." Wudrick and Parker examine how the coverage of this protest may point to worrying potential consequences for Canadian society. This podcast was recorded on February 8, 2022.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on February 24, 2022. Tactics for countering Russia and other authoritarian regimes from journalist Eli Lake.

The world needs a reliable and affordable supply of energy not just for economic prosperity, but for national security as well. As both geopolitical tensions and energy prices rise globally, Canada has failed to become a global energy leader. MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick is joined by MLI Senior Policy Analyst Heather Exner-Pirot and MLI Senior Fellow Jeff Kucharski to discuss how Canada can seize a leadership role when it comes to the geopolitics of energy.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on February 8, 2022. Magnitsky Act champion Bill Browder on how Vladimir Putin must be confronted.

Tensions are again rising in Eastern Europe. Russia has positioned troops on its border with Ukraine and, if the military buildup and rhetoric out of Moscow are to be believed, appears poised to once again invade. In this final episode of Across the Pond, MLI Senior Fellows Balkan Devlen and Marcus Kolga discuss the ongoing situation, what Putin's endgame is regarding Ukraine, how NATO generally and Canada specifically ought to respond to these Kremlin provocations, and more.

As threats emerge from Russia, China, and other authoritarian actors, are Western democracies prepared to rise to the challenge? With NATO set to update its framework for defining security challenges facing the Alliance and the political and military tasks which must be undertaken to address these challenges, this question is both timely and critical. MLI Senior Fellows Balkan Devlen and Alexander Moens (who also serves as the Chair of the Political Science Department at Simon Fraser University) discuss NATO's new strategic concept, the history of that policy document, why it matters, what we can expect to see in further updates to NATO's strategic concept, and whether Canada should play a more active role in shaping that framework.

Canada's security is often taken for granted due to our shared border with the United States. But one area of emerging risk is the Arctic. For this two-part episode, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen spoke with Brigadier-General Pascal Godbout, Commander, Joint Task Force (North) regarding JTF North's role and mission, how the force engages with local and Indigenous communities, the whole of government approach to Arctic security, and more. Devlen also spoke with Vice-Admiral (Ret'd)Mark Norman regarding Canada's partnerships security, interests, and sovereignty in the Arctic. The discussion also looks critically at what needs to be done to ensure that Canadian interests are protected in a changing far North.

The explosive growth of e-commerce during the pandemic has had tremendous benefits for consumers, but it has also raised concerns about the growing size of major industry players such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. Europe and the US have moved to impose antitrust measures and sweeping new competition policies against the titans of tech, and there are calls in Canada to do the same. MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick sat down with Anthony Niblett and Daniel Sokol to discuss why Canada doesn't need sweeping changes to competition policy to handle big tech and to propose solutions that would counter abuse of dominance and encourage compliance with the Competition Act. This podcast discussed Niblett and Sokol's recent MLI paper "Up to the task: Why Canadians don't need sweeping changes to competition policy to handle Big Tech."

Though the focus of the NATO alliance has principally been on the European theatre, increasingly the alliance and its members have taken an interest in the Indo-Pacific region. But for an alliance that is centred in the Atlantic, what role is there in the Indo-Pacific? How can member states meaningfully contribute to the rules-based international order in the region, address emerging threats and challenges, and still remain vigilant regarding to issues closer to home? To make sense of what a future role for NATO might look like in the Indo-Pacific, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen spoke with MLI's Director of the Indo-Pacific Program, Jonathan Berkshire Miller, and Veerle Nouwens, who is a Senior Research Fellow of the Indo-Pacific Programme at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

The Supreme Court of Canada's judgment in Ward v Quebec represents a victory for free speech in Canada... but it was a disturbingly narrow victory. MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick spoke with Leonid Sirota, a renowned scholar of public law, about what the Ward case, and other challenges to freedom of expression, mean for Canada's democracy.

The smooth operation of the NATO alliance is vital to the collective security of the transatlantic, including countries like Canada. So what goes into ensuring that missions are planned, organized and executed successfully? And how can readiness and security be maintained across domains in the context of a global pandemic? MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen spoke with Burcu San, the Director of Operations in NATO's Operations Division, as well as Commodore Bradley Peats of the Royal Canadian Navy, who serves as the Commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1), to unpack these challenges.

En février 2021, l'OTAN a présenté une stratégie pour les technologies émergentes, ce qui témoigne de l'importance grandissante de ces technologies pour l'avenir de la sécurité collective et pour l'OTAN. Dans le troisième épisode de la série « Across the Pond », Christian Leuprecht, chercheur associé à l'Institut Macdonald-Laurier, s'entretient avec Moritz Zimmerman, de l'OTAN, au sujet du développement de l'intelligence artificielle et de la technologie automatisée ainsi que de leurs répercussions sur le mode de fonctionnement de l'OTAN. **** Across the Pond Ep. 3: The future of emerging technologies and NATO In February of this year, NATO put forth a strategy for emerging technologies, a signal of the growing importance of the role of technology in the future of collective security and NATO. In the third installment of the series "Across the Pond," MLI Senior Fellow Christian Leuprecht and Moritz Zimmerman of NATO discuss the development of artificial intelligence and automated technology and how all this affects the mode of function for NATO.

Despite it being Canada's most important security commitment, many Canadians know little about Canada's history and role in NATO. MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen spoke with Joel Sokolsky and Joseph Jockel about their new book, “Canada in NATO, 1949-2019,” to better understand how Canada's involvement and engagement with the alliance has shaped our defence and foreign policy while also serving vital roles toward our security and diplomatic interests.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on November 1, 2021. Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow Kaveh Shahrooz on how a prison massacre was formative to his worldview and his career in pursuit of human rights, about the nefarious influence of Iran's regime in the free world, the downing of flight PS752, Oberlin College's employment of a former Iran regime official responsible for covering up rights abuses, and more.

This program was originally recorded as Democracy Matters on October 28, 2021. Iran expert Alireza Nader on what democracies must do to hold the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accountable for its global terror and crimes against humanity.

Canada is the quintessential transatlantic nation; our security and prosperity are intimately tied to the security and prosperity of both sides of the Atlantic. Our interests and values are deeply linked with and shared by our NATO allies; Canadians have spent considerable blood and treasure in defence of European democracy, and Canadians continue to stand on guard in Europe to this day. To better understand these issues, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has produced "Across the Pond" - an 8-part podcast series by MLI's Transatlantic Program, in cooperation with NATO's Public Diplomacy Division. This podcast series explores the current and emerging challenges facing Canada and our NATO allies amid a world in flux. This first episode features a conversation between MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen and Damien Arnaud, the head of the Canada Program at NATO's Public Diplomacy Division. Devlen and Arnaud outline the topics and issues that the series will cover, setting the stage for the rest of the series, as well as the challenges in the information space (such as disinformation) facing the Alliance today.

The concept of vaccine passports, which would entail providing proof of COVID-19 vaccination to gain access to normally accessible venues and services, has ignited a fierce debate in Canada. What are the benefits and trade offs associated with the policy? Would it successfully encourage vaccine uptake among those hesitant to get their jabs? What unforeseen consequences might spring up from such a policy? To make sense of the utility of and challenges associated with vaccine passports, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick spoke with Drs. Martha Fulford and Shawn Whatley.

September 4th, 2021 marks a grim anniversary for Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor; it is their 1000th day of arbitrary detention at the hands Chinese authorities, as part of the regime's retaliation for the lawful arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. Canada's lack of action in response to Beijing's hostage-taking has signaled to the international community that this belligerent behaviour can occur with impunity. Furthermore, victims and their families are often left in limbo without a coordinated response from Ottawa. MLI Senior Fellow Sarah Teich joined communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss the increasing need for a substantive overhaul of Canada's national approach to global hostage-taking. Teich also discusses her joint publication by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and Canadian Coalition Against Terror which proposes new legislation titled, “An Act to Address the Taking of Innocent Civilians as Hostages.” She provides policy solutions and recommendations to Canadian decision makers to combat and deter hostage-taking.

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a test of resilience for Canada's Parliamentary system. One illustrative example would be the case of the firing of two scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. In order to prevent the release of documents related to these firings, the federal government took the extraordinary step of applying to the Federal Court of Canada in June, potentially allowing the judiciary to interfere in the functioning of Parliament. Though the court fight was quietly dropped a week ago, the question remains: are our Parliamentary norms being eroded? To discuss Canada's system of parliamentary government, how power is exercised by the federal government, and how the way power is exerted has changed over the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Jonathan Malloy joins MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick on the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada. (Note: This podcast was recorded on August 11, 2021 prior to when the 2021 federal election was called.)

Foreign regimes, particularly China, Russia, and Iran, are engaged in efforts to threaten and intimidate critics and activists around the world, including in Canada. However, despite this clear threat posed by foreign actors against Canadians, the federal government has failed to meaningfully act to address this coercion. To discuss this issue and what the federal government should be doing to stop foreign intimidation against Canadians, MLI's Marcus Kolga, Anastasia Lin, and Kaveh Shahrooz joined the podcast.

Happy Canada Day! While this greeting might seem like standard fare on July 1st, there are growing calls by a vocal minority to stop celebrating Canada Day (and indeed, Canada more generally). In this latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick spoke with Professors Ken Coates and Christopher Dummitt to make sense of this push and argue why Canada, despite its faults, is well worth celebrating.

In the latest episode of MLI's Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Dr. Shawn Whatley speaks with Dr. Martha Fulford, associate professor of infectious diseases at McMaster University, about how Canadian policy makers have handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fulford describes a mindset that has taken hold and has not evolved since the early days of the pandemic, when the country was understandably locked down in the face of an unknown threat. "There are still some people who seem to feel that this is a deadly virus for anyone who might get it," says Dr. Fulford, when it remains a serious threat mostly to the elderly, which is where our focus should be. "I thought we could have talked about a targeted approach. We didn't do a very good job," says Dr. Fulford. She urges policy makers to base their pandemic plans on past experience with this pandemic and previous ones, with the following priorities: - Protect the most vulnerable, primarily the frail elderly - Focus on where the virus is really being transmitted, hot spots where front line workers are living - Build surge capacity into the health care system - Don't destroy the fabric of our society in the effort Dr. Fulford stresses that schools have not caused high levels of transmission and students need to return to class as soon as possible. "The impact on our children with school closures is going to be felt for their entire lifetimes," she says. "COVID has clearly had a devastating impact, but our response to it has been also very devastating," adds Dr. Fulford. "It's not really economy versus health, it's really health versus heath. ... We mustn't forget that there are many other aspects of public health that have been neglected."

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellows Balkan Devlen and Christian Leuprecht discuss Canada's presence in Eastern Europe and Canadian contributions to NATO missions in the region. Devlen and Leuprecht go on to discuss why a Canadian presence in Eastern Europe matters, and what can we learn from missions like the Enhanced Forward Presence going forward. They also discuss how these missions not only contribute to Canada's security, but to our allies' security as well, which has become increasingly imperative in a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

As blue-collar work is being devastated, Canada’s natural resource sector continues to be a pillar of stability and opportunity in the economy. On the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Domestic Policy Program Director Aaron Wudrick and MLI Munk Senior Fellow Philip Cross discuss Cross' latest paper titled “A national project: How oil sands investment and production benefit Canada's economy.”  Cross and Wudrick examine the sector in terms of production and investment and how, despite roadblocks and pessimism, the oil sands continue to develop.  They go on to discuss how the oil sands provide substantial and wide-ranging benefits to Canada as a whole.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) has many valuable and vital elements. It outlines a range of rights and standards to provide measures of social, economic and cultural justice to Indigenous peoples. However, the federal government's proposed legislation to implement UNDRIP is unacceptably vague, noncommittal, and perhaps counterproductive. In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates is joined by MLI Senior Fellow Chris Sankey and MLI Policy Analyst and Outreach Coordinator Melissa Mbarki to discuss the proposed federal legislation. They delve into how the legislation fails to address Indigenous issues in Canada, and fails to live up to the stated principles of UNDRIP. They go on to propose viable solutions for Canada to move forward in Indigenous reconciliation.

Beijing's sweeping overhaul of Hong Kong's electoral system has further crushed democractic hopes in Hong Kong. The new measures, which by passed Hong Kong's legislature, aims to ensure the majority of the city's lawmakers will be selected by a reliably pro-Beijing committee. The Hong Kong government has also announced more electoral system changes favouring pro-Beijing candidates by amending voting laws and criminalizing calls for voters to leave ballots blank.  Sharon Hom, Executive Director of Human Rights in China, and Alvin Y.H. Cheung, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University, joined MLI communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss Beijing's tightening grip on Hong Kong and where the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong stands now. They also discuss the international community response to the Hong Kong and the role of the disapora community in the movement.

Launched in 2020, DisinfoWatch is the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s new COVID-19 and foreign disinformation monitoring and debunking platform. During the COVID pandemic, it has become increasingly evident that western democratic societies are more exposed to malign foreign and domestic actors seeking to confuse and polarize our societies through conspiracy theories, blatant fabrications and propaganda. Now more than ever is it important to expose and raise awareness of mis/disinformation to build long-term and broad resilience against it in society.  In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow and founder of DisinfoWatch Marcus Kolga joins communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss disinformation operations and how DisinfoWatch is combatting it. They also discuss the steps the Canadian government should take in addressing the dis/misinformation.

This podcast is part seven of MLI’s ongoing series, titled "Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads," which features interviews with Indigenous community and business leaders who are on the forefront of economic reconciliation, particularly with respect to Indigenous rights and interests in the natural resource economy. This series goes beyond the headlines and partisan politics to delve deeper into how Indigenous peoples are shaping the economic futures of their own communities. This episode features a conversation between MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates and Boomer Desjarlais, co-owner of Top Notch Oilfield Contracting and a member of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, Alberta.

This podcast is part six of MLI’s ongoing series, titled "Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads," which features interviews with Indigenous community and business leaders who are on the forefront of economic reconciliation, particularly with respect to Indigenous rights and interests in the natural resource economy. This series goes beyond the headlines and partisan politics to delve deeper into how Indigenous peoples are shaping the economic futures of their own communities. This episode features a conversation between MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates and Esther Peterson, a member of Cowessess First Nation and heavy equipment operator.

A year has passed since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada with full force, and the results are in on how severely the impact of the virus has been felt in this country compared to similar advanced economies. But how does Canada compare to the rest of the world? The Macdonald-Laurier Institute launched the COVID Misery Index this week and is based on data analysis conducted by Richard Audas, the lead methodologist on the Misery Index. To discuss this, Audas joined communications officer Ai-Men Lau to discuss how Canada’s performance has been compared to the rest of the world on the COVID Misery Index. The two examine the measures Audas used in developing the Index, how countries responded, and where we stand now.

The world has followed closely the attempted assassination via poisoning, recent arrest, and now conviction of Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. With thousands of Russian citizens having taken to the streets to protest the corrupt and authoritarian rule of President Vladimir Putin, many have asked whether countries like Canada will do anything in response to Russia’s brazen attempts to target, kill, or otherwise stifle the voices of Russian pro-democracy figures. To discuss these recent events and what the world ought to consider doing, MLI Senior Fellow Marcus Kolga spoke with Vladimir Ashurkov, the Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and a close colleague of Alexei Navalny. The two examine how measures like Magnitsky Sanctions could be used to hold corrupt and abusive officials in Russia (and beyond) to account. This episode of Pod Bless Canada is a joint podcast between the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, the University of Toronto’s Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES), and UpNorth Magazine.

Spanning from the West coast of the Americas to the East shores of Africa, the Indo-Pacific region contains four of the world’s five largest economies and accounts for over half of global GDP. Of those economies, few are as large and share as many values as Japan. Japan and Canada continue to share many interests in the region, and both leaders recently reiterated their shared vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. To better understand the leadership role that Japan plays in the region, MLI Senior Fellow and Director of the Institute’s Indo-Pacific Program, Jonathan Berkshire Miller, spoke with Tomoaki Ishigaki who serves as Director of the Economic Policy Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. During their conversation, Miller and Ishigaki examine the economic challenges posed for the region due to COVID-19, Japan’s involvement in international trade, the role of multilateral institutions, and Japan’s vision for the Indo-Pacific.

In an effort to improve Canada’s approach to the Indo-Pacific region, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has launched a dedicated “Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative.” To discuss this important new project, MLI Communications Manager Brett Byers was joined by Senior Fellow and Director of MLI’s Indo-Pacific Program, Jonathan Berkshire Miller. Miller and Byers examine the challenges and opportunities in the region - ranging from security, to trade, to multilateral cooperation, and more - as well as the role that Canada can play. They outline the importance of Canada embracing its status as an Indo-Pacific nation, urging policy-makers to develop a clear-eyed view of Canada's priorities in the region.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow and Foreign Policy Program Director Shuvaloy Majumdar is joined by Blair Gibbs, former advisor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to discuss the future of Brexit.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen is joined by fellow MLI Senior Fellow Marcus Kolga and Elisabeth Braw, Visiting Fellow at the American Entreprise Institute, to discuss countering information warfare from hostile foreign states with a resilient society.

This episode of Pod Bless Canada continues our ongoing series that examines Indigenous prosperity at the crossroads. Particularly, MLI is seeking to amplify the voices of Indigenous leaders and entrepreneurs who are on the frontline of economic reconciliation, often by way of securing meaningful partnerships for their communities in the natural resource economy. To that end, MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates spoke with Karen Ogen-Toews, the CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance. Previously, she served as elected Chief of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation for six years, and is currently an elected council member for that nation. Coates and Ogen-Toews discuss the issues at play within First Nations as often divided communities seek to responsibly engage in the energy economy.

In this episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Munk Senior Fellow Ken Coates was joined by and JP Gladu, one of Canada’s foremost Indigenous entrepreneurs. Coates and Gladu cover a wide range of issues, particularly looking at how new, meaningful partnerships with Indigenous people in the natural resource sector serve as the frontline of economic reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. This is the first entry in a series on this important subject.

In the latest episode of Pod Bless Canada, MLI Senior Fellow Balkan Devlen is joined by Dimitrios Triantaphyllou, the Director of the Centre for International and European Studies. Devlen and Triantaphyllou discuss the tensions between Greece and Turkey which has been exacerbated by the global pandemic . Some are worried there may be a military conflict within the region. Sharing personal anecdotes to illustrate the geopolitics of the two countries, Triantaphyllou  also makes the case for why Canada should pay attention to this issue as we move forward.

This episode of Pod Bless Canada features a conversation between MLI’s communication officer Ai-Men Lau and Chemi Lhamo. Lhamo, an outspoken Tibetan activist and former president of the University of Toronto Scarborough student president, found herself in the middle of a political firestorm. But it wasn't the usual dirty politics that can accompany of student government; rather, Lhamo's social media was quickly flooded with threatening comments from Chinese international students and petitions began circulating calling for Lhamo to step down. Lhamo and Lau discuss the intimidation and harassment Lhamo faced during her tenure as student president. They also delve into why the Canadian government should be paying attention the issue of foreign interference in our academic institutions.

This episode of Pod Bless Canada features a conversation between MLI’s communication officer Ai-Men Lau and Sherap Therchin. Therchin is the executive director of the Canada Tibet Committee, an organization that promotes human rights and democratic freedoms in Tibet. Therchin and Lau discuss the recent motion that was passed by the Special Committee on Canada-China relations which supported the resumption of dialogue between the representatives of Tibet and the Chinese government. Additionally, they also delve into the current situation in Tibet under Chinese rule as it pertains to freedom, human rights, and democracy.  Lau and Therchin also explore what Tibet means for Canada-China relations and how Canada should move forward.

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.