Politique canadienne

A21(c) - Roundtable - Canada and the Wars in the Middle East

Date: Jun 5 | Heure: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Salle:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Shaun Narine (St. Thomas University)

Yasmeen Abu-Laban (University of Alberta / Canada Research Chair, Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights)
Abigail B. Bakan (University of Toronto / Department of Political Science and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Stu)
Heidi Matthews (York University / Osgoode Hall Law School)
Jacqueline Potvin (Western University / Research Associate at the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing)
Mayme Lefurgey (University of New Brunswick / Research Fellow with the Department of Sociology at the Muriel McQueen)
Timea Spitka (Carleton University / Fellow at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs)
Jeremy Wildeman (Carleton University / Public Affairs)

Abstract: This roundtable examines how the impact of the wars in the Middle East are being felt across the entire spectrum of Canadian politics -i.e., in Canada’s domestic political and social domains as well as its foreign policy. Domestically, the conflict has raised questions about how universities respond to student and faculty protests, the policing of dissent, and the influence of external donors and political factors on academic institutions. It has raised questions about acceptable political expression in the larger society and the role of the media in suppressing or supporting different political narratives. How Canada, with its multicultural ideals, can deal with tensions between groups who are strongly represented in the society, has evoked difficult questions about navigating conflict within a complex, liberal democratic society that privileges “freedom of speech” and political expression. Canada’s foreign policy has been dramatically affected by the wars in the Middle East. Canada’s global “brand” has been as a country that advocates for “the rules-based international order” and supports “human rights.” However, Canada’s highly selective application of its moral and legal principles to this regional conflict have elicited serious questions about Canada’s actual commitment to these “values.” Canada and the larger Western world are facing a crisis of legitimacy and credibility in the rest of the world that has undermined the West’s political goals in conflicts like the Ukraine. As Canada situates itself within a “new Cold War” with China, these weaknesses are particularly damaging.

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