Talking politics, 1-7 Feb

A roundup of recent commentary

For those interested, here a collection of links to recent commentary. Once again, it’s been quite a week!

I had an extensive conversation with Stephenie Hendricks of Kamloops Coop Radio, digging into the sources and challenges of this moment in Canada-US relations.

• Here’s part 1: https://tinyurl.com/StewartPrestKM13125

• Here’s part 2: https://tinyurl.com/KMStewartPrest2725

I also joined CBC TV Vancouver briefly last night to look at the rise of patriotism in Canada, as well as history of Canada-US tariff threats. I also tried to give some sense of what both tell about what the the future of the relationship (all in under 5 minutes!). I spoke with the Canadian Press on a similar topic as well.

I joined CTV and Global to talk about the significance of the tariffs for Canada, and the meaning of the pause, and I spoke to Wolf Depner of Black Press about the implications for BC in particular of [gestures widely] all this.

Finally, I provided some content for this BBC podcast episode, providing an outsider’s look at some of the difficult questions confronting Canada, particularly around affordability, housing and immigration. These are rightly controversial subjects given the ease with which they can become stalking horses for xenophobia. There is much more that can be said about how we got to this situation (and worth noting that a few caveats of mine ended up on the cutting room floor), but the current challenges described are certainly real.

It’s also worth noting that the podcast was recorded before the tariffs hit, and so before we saw the welcome patriotic upsurge it produced. It seems the idea of losing Canada has reawakened many Canadians to the value of the country! Once that wave passes, it will remain important to address the needs of those Canadians left feeling left behind. It will also be important to have the difficult but necessary conversation about building a sustainable approach to immigration. In my view, that system should not create an endless cycle of expendable, vulnerable, and exploited temporary foreign workers. This recent Amnesty International report documents in sobering detail the range of abuses created by the current form of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program program, and reporting based on recent Statistics Canada data make it clear just how significant the issue of non-permanent residency has become in Canada.

Canada’s greatest advantage may well be the longstanding consensus that the country benefits from being an open and inclusive multicultural society. One of the perils of the present situation is the way it threatens that bedrock consensus, on which our shared prosperity and security depend. I think it’s an important matter of principle that as a society, we should make a commitment to anyone who qualifies to come here to work that they can stay here and apply for permanent residency and citizenship if they so desire without the discriminatory practices we now see in place. The idea of temporary workers barred from a path to permanent residence and citizenship cuts directly against the bonds that hold us together as members of a political society with shared interests, and a shared destiny.