Report On Canada S Relations With The Countries Of The Middle East And North Africa

Canada and the Middle East: In Theory and Practice provides a unique perspective on one of the world’s most geopolitically important regions. From the perspective of Canada’s diplomats, academics, and former policy practitioners involved in the region, the book offers an overview of Canada’s relationship with the Middle East and the challenges Canada faces there. The contributors examine Canada’s efforts to promote its interests and values—peace building, peacekeeping, multiculturalism, and multilateralism, for example—and investigate the views of interested communities on Canada’s relations with countries of the Middle East. Canada and the Middle East will be useful to academics and students studying the Middle East, Canadian foreign policy, and international relations. It will also serve as a primer for Canadian companies investing in the Middle East and a helpful reference for Canada’s foreign service and journalists stationed abroad by providing a background to Canadas interestsand role in the region. Co-published with the Centre for International Governance Innovation

A wave of optimism has swept the African continent in the past decade. The pace and extent of social change in recent years, when measured in life expectancy, child and infant mortality rates, literacy, numeracy and the completion of higher education, is quite remarkable. The urban middle class is emerging and expanding in many African countries, while political democracy is developing and strengthening. These positive changes are generating economic growth and attracting foreign investment across the continent, especially in the resource sector. But Africa is still viewed by many as the “dark continent” dealing with serious problems — civil wars, ethnic division, corruption, HIV/AIDS, poverty, food security and the disastrous effects of climate change — and these issues may well impede the upward trajectory of Africa. Canada-Africa Relations: Looking Back, Looking Ahead — the 27th volume of the influential Canada Among Nations series — analyzes the ebb and flow of Canada’s engagement with Sub-Saharan Africa through different lenses over the past few decades and also looks to the future, highlighting the opportunities and the difficulties that exist for Canada and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is clear that a new Africa is emerging, and Canada must be prepared to change the nature of its relationship with the continent.

Research for Development in the Middle East and North Africa

In the last two years, Canadian society has been marked by political and ideological turmoil. How does an increasingly divided country engage a world that is itself divided and tumultuous? Political instability has been reinforced by international uncertainty: the COVID-19 pandemic, populism, Black Lives Matter, and the chaotic final year of the Trump presidency that increased tensions between the West, China and Russia. Even with a Biden presidency, these issues will continue to influence Canada’s domestic situation and its ability to engage as an effective global actor. Contributors explore issues that cause or reflect these tensions, such as Canada’s willingness to address pressing crises through multilateralism, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Can Canada forge its own path in a turbulent world?

This edited volume explores Canada’s foreign policy relationship with the Palestinians and broader Middle East Peace Process (MEPP). Canada was intensively involved from 1992 to 2000 in peacebuilding as a mediator in the multilateral part of the MEPP, as chair of the Refugee Working Group, and sponsor of Track II negotiations. This all changed after a significant mid-2000s discursive and policy shift when Canada withdrew from the politics of Israel-Palestine peacebuilding and took a strong partisan stance in favour of Israel. Through 10 chapters by current and former government insiders and academics with extensive field experience, this unique edited volume offers insight into decades of evolution in Canadian policy toward the Palestinians, MEPP and the Middle East. It arrives at an important time when the international community is reconsidering how it views Israel’s entrenched occupation of the Palestinians, after three failed decades of United States-led efforts to find peace through a negotiated two-state model. Today, peace may never have appeared further away after the Trump Administration adopted policies directly contradictory to the MEPP. This proved a test to Canada’s own official policy toward Israel and Palestine, its longest running and most important region of engagement in the Middle East. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, guest edited by Jeremy Wildeman and Emma Swan.

No two nations in the world are as integrated, economically and socially, as are the United States and Canada. We share geography, values and the largest unprotected border in the world. Regardless of this close friendship, our two countries are on a slow-motion collision course—with each other and with the rest of the world. While we wrestle with internal political gridlock and fiscal challenges and clash over border problems, the economies of the larger world change and flourish. Emerging economies sailed through the meltdown of 2008. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that by 2018, China's economy will be bigger than that of the United States; when combined with India, Japan and the four Asian Tigers—South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong--China's economy will be bigger than that of the G8 (minus Japan). Rather than continuing on this road to mutual decline, our two nations should chart a new course. Bestselling author Diane Francis proposes a simple and obvious solution: What if the United States and Canada merged into one country? The most audacious initiative since the Louisiana Purchase would solve the biggest problems each country expects to face: the U.S.'s national security threats and declining living standards; and Canada's difficulty controlling and developing its huge land mass stemming from a lack of capital, workers, technology and military might. Merger of the Century builds both a strong political argument and a compelling business case, treating our two countries not only as sovereign entities but as merging companies. We stand on the cusp of a new world order. Together, by marshalling resources and combining efforts, Canada and America have a greater chance of succeeding. As separate nations, the future is in much greater doubt indeed.