Don Newman

There were a number of events this year that have a special significance. The counter revolution and military coup is particularly significant, because it shows that in at least some muslim countries radicalization is not inevitable. At the time of the Arab spring the question was, would a post-Mubarak Egypt turn into another Turkey of […]

This is a tricky question. It really depends on what other democracies, friends, and allies decide to do. As a country we should determine and follow foreign policy decisions that are in our national interest. There is no direct reason in our direct relations with Russia why we should boycott the Sochi Olympics, although support […]

Canada should not directly call for the overthrow of the Iranian regime. Flawed as elections are in Iran, the regime still thinks they are necessary to provide a veneer of respectability. The current government was chosen in an election. An election will be needed to get a better replacement. What Canada and other like-minded countries […]

Harper should have stayed home. The reasons for his South American trip were completely lost because of the Senate scandal. Instead of spotlighting a region of growing importance to Canada, the timing made it look as though he was fleeing the country to avoid dealing with questions he wanted to avoid. It is true he […]

Canada! Certainly in the short run. Canada need the pipeline to the Gulf Coast to ease what soon will be a glut of Bitumen in Alberta as Oil Sands production continues to ramp up. If Keystone XL isn’t built, refineries on the Gulf Coast will still get oil from off-shore, either Venezuela, the Middle East, […]

Neither. On one hand, you have a response that is completely tone deaf. On the other, you have a response more suitable from a hanging judge. In my view a more appropriate response from either or both would be: “There is no justification for what happened in Boston. It is completely unacceptable in a civilized […]

Margaret Thatcher did much more good than harm. She is the second most important British Prime Minister of the Twentieth Century. After taking office in 1979 she stopped what had seemed to be an irreversible decline of feather bedding, high inflation and low morale. She was helped in her efforts by a group of Argentine […]

It depends on the Pope and it depends on the issues. Certainly as a Polish Pope John Paul II had an impact in Eastern Europe in the 1980s as the foundation of the Soviet Empire began to crumble and then collapsed. The Wall would have come down anyway but the Papal shoulder was one more […]

Not if we have other markets in which to sell our bitumen and gas. If we don’t, it will be. American Energy independence will not mean independence in every type of energy twelve months a year. In fact, Americans usually count Canadian energy as theirs in any accounting they do. Still there is no doubt […]

Yes. The role of providing transport support to French and perhaps troops from other nations that the Canadian government has now accepted appears to be appropriate. The stakes in Mali are high, as former Canadian diplomat and Al Queda hostage Robert Fowler among others have chillingly explained. Canada has both an interest and a moral […]

Canada’s top foreign policy priority should be to continue developing political and economic relations with Asia. Both with China and India but also with other emerging markets. And with a market that has already emerged: Japan. Part of this strategy should also be domestic. Building pipelines and terminals on the B.C. Coast to meet Asian […]

It is unusual that to lose a person with the talents of Mark Carney to another country is a good thing. But in this case it is. His appointment as Governor of the Bank of England has already attracted widespread attention; both for his indisputable world class talents but also for his curiosity value. He […]

How close is close? Without the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and the major eurozone counties riding to the rescue of their banking systems after the Lehman Brothers collapse, the world would have gone over a fiscal cliff. Now the World is facing a different scenario, perhaps only slightly less potentially disastrous. […]

To answer this question one must first answer another: Is the Canadian Government serious about reaching Green House Gas Emissions reduction targets? If the answer to that question is yes, then the answer to the carbon pricing question should also be yes. Experts in the climate debate generally agree there can be no effective GHG […]

Yes. This will convince the countries that did not support our Security Council bid that they were right. Refusing to address the General Assembly will be seen as disrespectful to the body where countries, whatever their size or economic clout, have a one nation-one vote equality. In an emerging bi-polar and then multi-polar world, Canadian […]

Yes. This will convince the countries that did not support our Security Council bid that they were right. Refusing to address the General Assembly will be seen as disrespectful to the body where countries, whatever their size or economic clout, have a one nation-one vote equality. In an emerging bi-polar and then multi-polar world, Canadian […]

Clearly. The attacks cannot be ignored, but overreaction would be a mistake. Strong protest should be made both publicly and privately. One, mid-level diplomats from the offending countries should be declared PNG and expelled. As well, in private Washington should make clear that a repetition will have dire consequences. However, under no circumstances should diplomatic […]

I wish I could predict a more democratic future for Egypt. Sadly, I can’t. Recent moves to sack the military leadership are not part of a plan to reduce the role of the Military in a march to a more democratic future. Instead they are a power play to make sure that the powerful Egyptian […]

I wish I could predict a more democratic future for Egypt. Sadly, I can’t. Recent moves to sack the military leadership are not part of a plan to reduce the role of the Military in a march to a more democratic future. Instead they are a power play to make sure that the powerful Egyptian […]

Canadians can benefit if the government applies the “net benefit” test to prohibit the CNOOC takeover of Nexen. The only Canadians who will benefit if the deal goes ahead are those Canadians who hold Nexen shares and stand to get a sixty-one per cent premium over what the market thinks the shares are worth. The […]

Canadians can benefit if the government applies the “net benefit” test to prohibit the CNOOC takeover of Nexen. The only Canadians who will benefit if the deal goes ahead are those Canadians who hold Nexen shares and stand to get a sixty-one per cent premium over what the market thinks the shares are worth. The […]

No. Drones are unmanned planes aimed at specific targets. They function rather like a sophisticated rocket. And we know what each costs and how they work and that they are effective. The F-35 is being developed to be a highly mobile, sometimes virtually invisible manned fighter bomber which can carry out a variety of changing […]

Hopefully the biggest lesson we learned from our Afghanistan experience is that “fools rush in where wise men fear to read.” Our decision to extend our mission in the ultr-dangerous area of Kandahar and then look around for allies to join us was a glaring mistake. So big, it is up there with the World […]

The most innovative thinker on Canada’s place in the world today is the Canadian currently playing the most prominent international role. Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney. As the man monitoring the performance of the worlds’ economies, Carney has a better sense of the contemporary world than anyone else in this country. The fact that […]

Indeed it should. Not only would a wider talent pool from which to choose its next President be helpful to the Bank, it would also set an important precedent. Part of the agreement creating the Breton Woods Institutions was that the head of the Bank would always be American, and the head of the International […]

This is a question that is more difficult than it at first appears. Human rights, freedoms and equality can and often are based on religion or religious principles. Moreover, working with countries of shared or compatible religious principles can be both effective and gratifying, But as a rule, that should be a bonus not a […]

What a good issue to discuss with Prime Minister Harper in China trying to drum up business in the poster child country of state capitalism.Because state capitalism is threat to economies like Canada’s if Canadians can’t figure out what is going on.And figuring out what is going on at any given moment isn’t easy.But prudence […]

What a good issue to discuss with Prime Minister Harper in China trying to drum up business in the poster child country of state capitalism.Because state capitalism is threat to economies like Canada’s if Canadians can’t figure out what is going on.And figuring out what is going on at any given moment isn’t easy.But prudence […]

No. How could a continent with more well educated people than any other, more natural resources than most others, and in the United States and Canada the first and tenth ranked economies in the world be dead? What is dead at the moment appears to be most American politicians — at least from the neck […]

Why not! If the original American plan to invade and capture Britain’s North American colonies while the English were busy with Napoleon had worked, Y’all know there would be no country of Canada. Because they failed miserably, the Americans have re-written history to portray the war as a British attempt to reverse the outcome of […]

Asking this question is to answer it. Of course we should! Under what conceivable construct should we not? There is no serious country in the world that does not consider its intellectual property a national asset.  Everything from patents on scientific breakthroughs to copyrights on popular music is intellectual property. And all of it is an asset to […]

It is not yet clear what is happening in Egypt. Some of the protesters there last winter are now facing the kind of restrictions they were protesting about. What comes next in Lybia is uncleàr.  Who will emerge post-Gadhafi in that country, whether will be a new civil war,  and what role a new government […]

It is not yet clear what is happening in Egypt. Some of the protesters there last winter are now facing the kind of restrictions they were protesting about. What comes next in Lybia is uncleàr.  Who will emerge post-Gadhafi in that country, whether will be a new civil war,  and what role a new government […]

Sadly, I fear it does. Returning the “Royal” prefix to the navy and the air force now makes it appear that the Prime Minister was bewitched by Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, and has come down with a case of Monarchist fever. Beginning with the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, the Canadian Military has […]

Sadly, I fear it does. Returning the “Royal” prefix to the navy and the air force now makes it appear that the Prime Minister was bewitched by Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, and has come down with a case of Monarchist fever. Beginning with the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, the Canadian Military has […]

Without irony, the answer is both. The attacks appears to be the actions of a dangerously delusional arbitrary actor.  Part of his delusion appears to be that he thinks he is part of a larger group. However based on events in the recent past in northern Europe, there seem to be more of these arbitrary […]

Lagarde and the IMF will not save the Euro. The Chinese will save the Euro at least for the forseeable future. Europeans will think they are saving the Euro because they will refinance their sovereign debt by selling it to the Chinese. Just this week the Chinese agreed to buy  Polish debt and British debt […]

John Baird should concentrate on three things: Getting up to speed on Libya and what the NATO end game is there . It is a military operation now, but what comes next is going to be an issue for Foreign Affairs. What role to play in convincing the U.S. State Department to approve the Oil […]