We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
US & Canada
Hard Numbers: Iran cracks down on women, bestsellers sue AI, Venezuelan migrants get right to work, India suspends Canadian visas, Turkey jacks up rates
An Iranian woman walks past a huge mural of Iran's flag, in the Enghelab (Revolution) avenue in downtown Tehran, September 12, 2023.
10: Under a new law passed Wednesday, Iranian women could be jailed for up to ten years if they refuse to wear hijab. The crackdown comes just days after the one year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in state custody after the morality police arrested her for not wearing hijab properly.
17: A group of 17 prominent authors are suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, accusing the company of “systematic theft on a mass scale.” The suit says ChatGPT has violated their copyright protections because it draws upon their texts to build its language models and responses. The complaint also alleges that ChatGPT can be used to plagiarize them, and includes examples for each writer — including a Game of Thrones prequel called “Dawn of Direwolves”. (Can I read it? - Matt)
472,000: As President Joe Biden left the Big Apple late Wednesday, his administration announced that Venezuelans already in the country could legally live and work in the US for the next 18 months. The decision will affect 472,000 Venezuelans nationwide and roughly half of New York City’s migrants, letting them support themselves and easing the strain on New York’s social safety net. (For more on the situation in New York, see our explainer).
80,000: India announced it would suspend visas for Canadians amid the ongoing row over the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Last year about 80,000 Canadians visited India. Should Canada reciprocate, it could threaten the visa status of over 320,000 Indian students in Canadian universities.
30: The central bank in Turkey raised interest rates by an aggressive 5 percentage points to 30%, as official inflation rates topped 58%. It’s part of a major reversal of the Erdogan administration’s policy after winning re-election back in May: the previous economic team insisted on cutting rates even as prices soared.
(Department of Corrections: While we’re talking interest rates, in yesterday’s edition we mistakenly said the Fed’s rate pause was their first in 18 months. In fact, they decided on a pause in June, 2023 as well. We regret the error and hope it doesn’t affect your rate of interest in the Daily)
Biden approves hundreds of thousands of work-visas for Venezuelan migrants
Undocumented Immigrants from West Africa, Mexico, and Venezuela camp outside the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.
As President Joe Biden left the Big Apple last night, his administration announced that Venezuelans already in the country could legally live and work in the US for the next 18 months.
The decision will affect 472,000 Venezuelans nationwide and roughly half of New York City’s migrants, letting them support themselves and easing the strain on New York’s social safety net. (For more on the situation in New York, see our explainer).
The bigger picture: Adams is pushing Biden to extend the authorization to migrants from other nations, but the White House is wary that a broad policy could incentivize even more migrants to cross the border. On the national level, Democratic leaders fear the GOP could sweep suburban house districts in 2024 by weaponizing the migrant issue, as they did with crime in 2022.
The Graphic Truth: English-French bilingualism in Canada
A graphic showing English-French bilingualism in Canada.
Parlez-vous le français? Probably pas très bien if you live outside Quebec, according to census data from Statistics Canada.
The share of Canadians who can hold a conversation in both English and French has plateaued around 18% for two decades, despite strong legal protections for the French language and official encouragement of bilingualism.
The background: Political rivalries between English and French-speaking Canadians dominated the early history of the country, and fuel some radical independence movements in Quebec even today. Official adoption of bilingualism at a federal level in 1969 was meant to help heal the rift.
And in the first three decades, it met with considerable success. The share of bilingual Canadians rose from 12.2% in 1961 to 17.7% in 2001.
However, most of the growth came in Quebec, which continues to push up the national rate of bilingualism. Nearly half of Quebeckers are bilingual, compared to less than 1 in 10 Canadians from other provinces.
Statistics Canada explains that English-speaking Canada has simply outgrown the share of the country with French as their mother tongue, but also pointed out that Canadians whose mother tongue is neither French nor English —- mostly immigrants — are less likely to learn both of Canada’s official languages.
But there’s one more wrinkle: Quebeckers whose mother tongue is neither English nor French are actually more likely than the general population to speak both languages, with 50.8% able to hold a conversation in French, English and their mother tongue. Incroyable!
Fragmented Canadian maple leaf over map of the world
Protected by three oceans and the hegemony of the United States, Canadian foreign policy has long been shaped by geographical accident and proximity to power. The trade-off has been that while Canada doesn’t have great power preoccupations it remains stuck within the orbit of its most important ally, the US, which does.
But now, the Canadian government is facing a series of foreign policy challenges that put it in an awkward position. Ottawa suddenly needs to clarify its goals and refine its tactics. Can it?
Earlier this week, after years of mixed-results attempts to get closer with India as part of its Indo-Pacific trade and relationship-building strategy, Canada accused India of playing a part in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil – Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
While Canada’s closest allies, particularly the United States, denounced the murder and called for India to cooperate in an investigation, neither the U.S., nor the U.K. or Australia seem willing to risk their relationship with India over the affair, particularly as Western powers court New Delhi as a crucial counterweight to China. The episode reveals a lot about the challenges, and weaknesses, of Canada’s foreign policy.
Job One: Staying close to the U.S.
Over the past century, Canada has fought along the US in every major American war except Vietnam and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As an essential security partner in several relationships, including Nato and Norad, Canada has largely kept in step with U.S. geopolitical goals and objectives.
The Trudeau government has also, importantly, sided with the U.S. in Washington’s rivalry with China, even when that has produced major political headaches at home. The 2018 arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver – at Washington’s request – led to Beijing kidnapping two Canadians in China. While the affair was eventually settled, it damaged Sino-Canadian relations.
More recently, after pressure from opposition parties, the Trudeau government launched a full public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada’s democracy, with China, among others, targeted as a major culprit.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Canada has backed Kyiv with cash, training, and arms. In June, Trudeau announced a CAD$500 million fund for military assistance to the country, and this week committed $33 million worth air defenses. All told, Canada has spent $8 billion as part of its pro-Ukrainian efforts. On Friday, Ukrainian president Zelensky will speak to the Canadian Parliament.
Still, despite all of this, Canada’s Nato allies, particularly the U.S., have long complained that Ottawa underspends on its military, coming up short of the alliance’s target of 2 percent of GDP. Canada, for its part, argues the 2 percent target is less important than making critical investments such as the purchase of F-35 jets and investment in NORAD upgrades.
Canada has also, on occasion, found itself decidedly on the outs with its major allies. When the U.S. launched a new security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom (AUKUS) last year, Canada was sidelined. While Ottawa has expressed interest in playing a role in AUKUS, the White House says there is no plan to invite Canada into the partnership. Ostensibly, Canada has been left out because it has no intention of investing in nuclear submarines, which are a central pillar of the AUKUS strategy.
Under-planned and under-resourced.
What are Canada’s strategic goals, and is there a coherent plan for achieving them? Experts are skeptical.
Graeme Thompson, senior analyst at Eurasia Group says “Canada’s foreign policy seems to be very much disjointed,” which is to say “There isn’t an overarching strategic framework.”
Canada hasn’t published a National Security Strategy, for example, since 2004. Nor has it undertaken a formal Foreign Policy Review. Without a conceptual anchor like that, Canada’s foreign policy is unmoored. The country has lost two separate bids for a rotating seat on the UN Security council over the past 15 years.
That lack of coherent strategy, according to Thompson, is the consequence of two problems. First, Canadian political leaders struggle to prioritize issues and regions, and second, they don’t adequately fund a truly global approach. So, Canada ends up spreading itself too thin to exercise significant influence on the global stage, which leads it to overpromise and under-deliver.
Attempting to cover nearly every region of the globe, he says, Canada is trying to balance trade relationships, embassy and consulate presences, security and defence commitments, development assistance, and leadership on environment, climate change and human rights.
No wonder there isn’t enough money – not to mention time, attention, and human resources – to go around.
Problems coming home to roost.
Years of subpar Canadian foreign policy are now catching up with the Trudeau government. The return of great power rivalries, fresh external meddling in Canada’s diasporas and elections, and some unusual – if small – cracks in the US-Canada alliance are now forcing Ottawa to develop a more robust foreign policy than it is used to having.
Can it manage? Canada may be a middle power, but it shouldn’t have a middling foreign policy.
The Eastern Theatre Command of the People\'s Liberation Army (PLA) released photo of exercises involving missile strikes, warplanes, and ship movements crossing the midline of the Taiwan Strait
Last week was a busy one for naval traffic in the Taiwan Strait, as the U.S. and Canada sailed warships through as a reminder to China, and the world, that Taiwan’s partners will ensure that the waterway remains freely navigable.
This week, China responded with its own traffic.
Between Sunday and Monday, China flew over 100 warplanes towards Taiwan, with 40 of them crossing the midway point between the two, the “median line.” While Chinese flights like this aren’t uncommon, the number of planes set a record. That’s a sign Beijing may be stepping up activity in response to perceived aggression from the U.S. (and Canada).
The latest tit-for-tats over Taiwan come as Canada and the US seem to be pulling in slightly different directions when it comes to China. The Biden administration has lately been looking to stabilize relations with its chief rival, while Trudeau’s government is launching an inquiry into foreign political interference that spotlights Beijing.
Ukraine’s president still wants to join the coolest frat on campus.
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
Subscribe to GZERO Media's YouTube channel to get notifications when new videos are published.
An autoworkers strike in Canada
Experts say the U.S. strike won’t initially have a significant effect on the Canadian market, but serious dangers are lurking. If the strike persists, or if new plants join, it could have a huge impact on the auto parts industry north of the border, costing Canadian companies billions in revenue.
The issue is that the US plants rely on Canadian suppliers for many of the auto parts and components they use. In fact nearly half of the auto parts that Canadian companies make are exported to the US. So if plants south of the border stay idle for long, demand for those Canadian-made parts will plummet. One Canadian auto parts industry leader is already warning of production delays and even work stoppages in Canada if the US strike goes on for long.
Meanwhile Ford earlier this week averted a similar strike by nearly 5,700 Canadian autoworkers by reaching an 11th hour tentative deal. But there’s still a longer-term threat to the job security of autoworkers on both sides of the border: the rise of EVs, which generally require less labor to manufacture, and automation, which is replacing workers with robots altogether. Taken together, those two things stand to reduce required labor hours and cause job losses over time.
Neither the Ford deal in Canada – nor any strike resolution in the U.S. – is likely to address that issue for auto workers in the long-run.
In short: no matter what, buckle up for more labor unrest in the auto industry on both sides of the border.
Latest
Biden approves hundreds of thousands of work-visas for Venezuelan migrants
The Graphic Truth: English-French bilingualism in Canada
Does Canada have a foreign policy?
China raises the stakes further in the Taiwan Strait
World High: Biden won’t let Zelensky rush
Could the US autoworkers strike affect Canada?
