Mark Carney’s Economic Diplomacy and the Battle for Canada
Those who know the stories behind the stories of some of Canada’s leading politicians know this one.
Two remarkable young men as students at the University of Toronto in the 1970’s, who debated each other with intense vigour, and who eventually, by their fourth year, roomed together. They respected each other, but they were rivals, and after university, that never stopped.
Bob Rae entered the political arena first as a federal NDP MP, then switched to provincial politics and became Ontario’s first NDP premier in the nineties.
Michael Ignatieff went to Britain, taught at Cambridge, and made a name for himself as a superb writer and correspondent.
Then, by the early 2000’s, they were both back in direct competition just like the old debate days. This time, though, they would end up debating each other for the federal Liberal leadership. Ignatieff won, Rae, having crossed party lines from the NDP to join the Liberals, had to live with the disappointment of losing to his old roommate. But not for long – Ignatieff lost to Stephen Harper, and Rae became interim leader, although he eventually chose to make way for Justin Trudeau.
But disappear they have not. The Buzz is so lucky that now we can access both of these amazing talents in their separate writings for various periodicals. This week, it's Bob Rae we turn to for his piece on how Canadians have to keep aware, especially now, of the lessons of history:
Notes from the Citadel: Alberta, Canada, and the Lessons of History
Here’s some more history worth noting.
More directly, this time about the issue of how a referendum can impact the country and its people. It's written by Robin Sears, no stranger to the politics and the political leaders of this land. He's seen lots of it, and he’s advised many of those involved. He wrote this for the Toronto Star:
🔒 Opinion | A warning to Alberta: referendums leave wreckage in their wake
Surely no one was that surprised when this happened.
I mean, we’d all seen this coming for a while- ever since Stephen Guilbeault quit the cabinet - so how far away could quitting the party be? Well, it happened this week, and not surprisingly, Mark Carney’s environmental policy, or lack of it, according to his critics, is taking the blame. This is how Adrienne Tanner put it in the National Observer:
Guilbeault quits as Carney turns his back on climate
Time to promote this week’s YouTube podcasts.
Yesterday’s Good Talk with Chantal Hebert and Bruce Anderson can be found right here.
Tuesday’s Moore-Butts Conversation is a good one, but please be aware there’s a slip of the tongue by your host – among other things, we were discussing how it's been more than thirty years since a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup. What came out of my mouth, though, was “a long time since we were in the finals,” which is stupidly wrong as many Canadian teams have been in the finals during that time - Oilers, Flames, Canucks, Senators, and Habs. Anyway, it's still a good discussion about a few things, including the Alberta referendum. It’s here.
It’ll soon be close to two hundred years since the Franklin Expedition was lost in Canada’s Arctic and all its 130 or so British sailors perished, starving and frozen.
Bodies have been found over the years, but in such a bad state that many could not be identified. Until now. The BBC brings the latest update:
Sailors from doomed Arctic mission with no survivors identified by DNA
There was a certain fascist leader in Germany in the 1930’s who made a lot of money being the dictator of the Third Reich.
And we aren’t talking salary. Every time his image was used by the state, he’d get a, shall we call it, ‘honorarium’. But let’s talk about real accumulated money. Imagine if your face were on postage, like his was. And for every stamp, he got a cut. These were the days when everything went by mail. We’re talking big bucks, or big Reichsmarks, which were the official Nazi German currency. Whatever happened to all that money, you might ask? Good question, but I digress.
Have you heard about the deal Donald Trump appears to have cut when he agreed to let his name be used to adorn the new President Donald Trump International Airport, just a few miles from Mar-a-Lago? Over to the writers at The Guardian:
Trump airport branding deal opens new route to profit for family
I was in New York a lot in the fall of 1987.
I was negotiating a deal with CBS that, in the end, I turned down. But while it was exciting for me, it certainly was not the “deal” those on the streets of New York were talking about at that time. They were discussing “The Art of the Deal”, a just-released book supposedly written by the swinging man about town, Donald Trump. Now, let’s be clear: he didn’t write the book; in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he never even read it – just approved the cover picture. But it sold very well and cemented the bogus image of him as some kind of deal-making wizard. A number of bankruptcies later, the truth started to emerge — the critics called him a con man and a fraud. But none of that got in the way of his follow-up “Apprentice” fame, and the next thing you knew, he was POTUS. Go figure.
But as we have found from one big global deal to another, there’s no art in his deal-making. Check this piece out in The Atlantic:
🔒 Why Trump Keeps Getting Rolled in Negotiations
Smoke-free restaurants. Smoke-free hotels. Smoke-free offices.
How about… a smoke-free country? Welcome to Sweden. Check this out:
'Incredible' milestone reached as Sweden becomes a smoke-free country
How often have you talked to your kids or your grandkids about dinosaurs?
Probably quite a bit ‘cause they love dino talk. Well, the next time you are, challenge them with this question: Why are T. rex’s front legs so tiny? CNN has the answer:
Why did T. rex have tiny arms? A new study may finally have the answer
Okay, so this I did not know.
Smartphone sales are dropping. Significantly. Why? Just like a lot of other things these days, the pointed finger is aimed at the Iran war. MSN has the details:
