Juno News - April 09, 2021


How potential changes to Canada’s foreign policy will affect you


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

215.08472

Word Count

1,519

Sentence Count

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 so we've been looking at a lot of foreign policy news and how that affects canada domestically but
00:00:10.660 i want to switch it up and talk about what's going on in canada and how that will affect our
00:00:14.980 foreign policy our international relations and what the everyday effects on canadians will be
00:00:19.620 now to do that i'm going to look at some of the political parties and what they've been talking
00:00:23.140 about but i do want to start specifically with the ndp because they have a policy convention this
00:00:27.160 week now policy resolutions that are debated at the convention don't always pass and even if they do
00:00:31.900 pass it doesn't mean that they're going to make it into an election platform but there's a lot of
00:00:36.320 really interesting resolutions that i think are important for canadians to understand now the
00:00:40.400 first one i want to start off with is one the jagmeet singh has personally come out against but it's
00:00:44.040 apparently still on the docket and it is the defunding of the canadian military so basically
00:00:48.700 defunding and disbanding the canadian military it's unclear what domestic force if any there is going
00:00:52.900 to be left but defunding the military would obviously mean that we cannot take part in
00:00:56.860 international peacekeeping operations we can't really even defend ourselves we can't maybe
00:01:01.680 enforce arctic sovereignty again it's not clear what that's going to look like but this is a very
00:01:06.240 large one because hard power compared to soft power the diplomatic or financial power hard power
00:01:10.860 military power is obviously something that is in the diplomatic toolbox if you suddenly get rid of
00:01:15.660 that you have less options and therefore you have less ways to advance your strategic interests as a
00:01:20.560 nation they're also very against for example free trade deals that they view as bad such as
00:01:25.560 ceta and tppa now this one is again quite interesting because compared to justin trudeau
00:01:30.640 which is very big on international agreements international organizations they are very against
00:01:37.140 this and so they will not support anything that they view as harming canadian workers but again if
00:01:43.280 we're in another situation where the ndp holds the balance of power if we would have just had an
00:01:47.560 election or maybe you know if there's they're threatening an election will the ndp actually go and pull the
00:01:52.620 trigger and end the government that's a very big question so far they haven't and so that's why the
00:01:58.440 liberal government has stayed in power but it's again something that is on their platform and
00:02:03.560 something that could change should the ndp once again hold the balance of power or even get elected
00:02:08.060 again if there is an election the other big one for the ndp is re-engaging with iran and that is
00:02:14.320 obviously going to be led by the biden administration that is ongoing right now but the effects for canada
00:02:19.840 could be large we basically don't have the level of diplomatic relations you might think we close
00:02:25.580 down the embassy and so there's i think just some low level things going on through the british embassy
00:02:30.760 in iran you can still get some consular services there but that is not the level which you can
00:02:37.180 expect to see especially if the biden administration biden administration chooses to re-engage with them
00:02:42.000 you can obviously see canada following suit and that is something that is supported by the ndp
00:02:45.680 and would most likely be supported by the liberals as well again going along with the sort of
00:02:50.420 international view international focus that they have when it comes to the liberals specifically one
00:02:55.780 of the things you can imagine would be again if there's some international agreements or international
00:02:59.940 accords like the migration compact or the paris climate change accords there might be something new
00:03:05.440 on the horizon might be something about the you know the uh the global reset again there was a lot of
00:03:10.880 controversy about that so not getting into that but talk of this global reset or the new global economy
00:03:16.060 universal basic income or agreements with other countries about some sort of basic corporate tax
00:03:20.840 these obviously would have a very huge effect on canada because if we're going to institute some
00:03:25.760 minimum corporate tax or we're going to agree to some other agreement that is going to maybe institute
00:03:30.760 a carbon tax or you know banning plastics or any of these type of things that could be on the horizon
00:03:35.540 that is going to have a huge effect now this is again critically important because 53 percent of
00:03:40.920 canadians are very close to insolvency and so if you're going to rock and shake the economy it could
00:03:45.940 push people into insolvency that is going to have a domino effect and that 53 percent could very quickly
00:03:51.200 turn into you know 60 70 80 90 percent who knows because people in the economy are obviously dependent
00:03:57.000 on another people are dependent on the customers dependent on the suppliers and so that is going to have
00:04:01.580 huge effects now the last one that i want to sort of touch on before i briefly touch on some of the
00:04:06.880 minor parties is the conservative party and their big issue was tough talk on china now this is
00:04:12.900 complicated by the fact that they're not in power so they can talk tough on china but if the government
00:04:18.380 is going to take a tough stance it really puts them in a bind because there's only a limit of how tough
00:04:23.580 you can push to be on china if if the you know for example the two michaels get released because the
00:04:29.040 government took a tough stance it's really going to put them out of talking points there might be
00:04:32.800 still something about trade but it's it's really going to make things more difficult now china has
00:04:36.880 obviously been issuing statements that are increasingly tougher on canada as well and so
00:04:41.180 that is something that they will have to find a balance on between pushing for a tough stance on
00:04:45.340 china or perhaps continuing to or you know maybe not maybe they'll give it up but pushing for a tougher
00:04:49.060 stance on china while balancing out the fact that the liberals may have to do that as well because
00:04:53.460 they're simply going to be forced to the other big one for them is going to be again opposite for
00:04:58.600 from the liberals will be um or an aid they have said that they're not going to cut foreign aid
00:05:04.200 and this is something that was on the docket for andrew sheer it is apparently not for andrew um
00:05:09.100 for anna tool and so this is something that you might expect to see should the conservatives come
00:05:14.200 into power you know how they're going to handle the foreign aid situation again especially in light
00:05:19.040 of the economic situation here at home canadians might be very upset and people might really um
00:05:25.040 choose to to be not supported with the conservatives because of promises like this it might make it a
00:05:30.160 very difficult task for them uh so you know again remains to be seen the other parties the green
00:05:35.380 party had interestingly enough a big focus on the military that they wanted to provide them with the
00:05:40.160 appropriate equipment and training that that was quite interesting the block doesn't have all too
00:05:43.880 much except for clamping down on roxham road but that that's more covid related uh so keeping uh the
00:05:49.440 spread out from you know from the united states where there were previously high cases uh that may change
00:05:53.280 again once the united states is more fully vaccinated reaches herd immunity um the people's
00:05:58.840 party a lot of stuff on their website foreign policy wise but they don't have any seats so that
00:06:03.840 again you know they have a lot of maybe interesting ideas interesting ideas that you might support even
00:06:07.740 but if they're not in power they don't really have a way to uh influence that and they're having a lot
00:06:13.140 of difficulties uh affecting the conversation simply because a lot of the mainstream media is ignoring
00:06:17.880 them so that is obviously a challenge for the people's party so where does that leave us again
00:06:22.500 it really gives us some insight into what might happen if there is an election i think that if
00:06:27.780 there is another minority and one of the other parties or the ndp again holds the balance of power
00:06:32.320 they could vote for a number of interesting things the most important uh sort of idea or or thing that is
00:06:40.480 going on right now is the economy and i think a lot of canadians are rightfully concerned so i think
00:06:44.540 that should remain the focus but uh again we'll see what happens and what the election is going to look
00:06:50.220 like what the next few weeks will hold for us following these policy conventions will you know
00:06:54.420 i'm sure keep you guys updated so fortune earth i am sam ashkenazi thank you so much for watching
00:06:58.540 and have yourselves a great day
00:06:59.740 you