Experts call for an overhaul of Canada's national security policy to cope with an 'angry' world
CBC
Rarely has the world intruded so viscerally — and with so little apparent effect — upon the great national conversation that we call a federal election.
Launched just as two decades of nation-building efforts in Afghanistan were collapsing, the election (which produced a Parliament strangely similar to the one dissolved in August) also saw what some observers have described as a strategic snub by Canada's closest allies: the establishment of a new U.S.-U.K.-Australia alliance to contain China.
And yet, questions about Canada's current place in the shifting sands of the global order barely rated a mention on the campaign trail.
That could change quickly as the new (old) Liberal government faces a bevy of pressing international commitments and crises, ranging from the benign but significant gathering of world leaders at the United Nations to the slow-rolling humanitarian disaster afflicting Afghan refugees.
The newly re-elected minority government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have to hit the ground running. On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden mapped out a strategy for confronting authoritarian states without triggering a new Cold War.
He did so a week after surprising the world with a new security alliance — AUKUS — involving two of Canada's closest Commonwealth allies, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Events in the world beyond our borders did come up during the 36-day campaign. More often than not, however, they were used by campaigning leaders as a cudgel with which to beat down their opponents.
As Vladimir Putin and his large entourage touch down Thursday in Beijing for a two-day state visit, there were be plenty of public overtures about cooperation, but with China facing increasing pressure from the U.S. over its trade relationship with Russia, China's President Xi Jinping will have to figure out how far the country is willing to go to prop up what was once described as a "no-limits" partnership.
Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its military operation closer to the heavily populated central area, in defiance of growing pressure amid the war from close ally the United States and others.