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Articles by Colin Robertson
Brainless call for working class hate law is like nailing jelly to the wall… Britain doesn’t need more dod...
1 hour ago CCTV has been released of a man allegedly throwing a “homemade” nail bomb at a crowd in Australia, just one month after 15 people were shot dead on Bondi Beach. Police allege a 31-year-old Warwick man was at an Invasion Day rally in Perth's Central Business District when he threw an item from a first-floor walkway and into a crowd of 2,500 people before fleeing the scene on Monday (26 January). A member of the public alerted officers, and a suspect was taken into custody soon after.
The Carney Credo
By Colin Robertson January 26, 2026 Mark Carney’s speeches last week in Davos and Québec City should be read as a single argument. One addresses the world, the other our nation, but together they articulate a governing credo that seeks to integrate Canadian foreign and domestic policy more tightly than at any time since the early Cold War. Carney’s starting point is blunt. The postwar order is not strained; it is ruptured.
'The Triangle of Power': A Compass for the New World Order
|In Featured Review, Policy Special The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order By Alexander Stubb Biteback Publishing, 2026/206 pages Reviewed by Colin Robertson January 25, 2026 In what’s now being dubbed the Carney Doctrine, Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledges his debt to Finnish President Alexander Stubb’s ‘values-based realism’. The phrase is drawn from Stubb’s new book The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order.
'Abundance': A Case for Carney's Build Agenda
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Abundance By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson Simon & Schuster, March 2025/304 pages Reviewed by Colin Robertson January 4, 2026 Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance will resonate with Canadians. Its core argument that modern liberalism has lost the capacity to build provides timely context to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to restore confidence in that capacity through the government’s “Build Canada Strong” infrastructure and resource policy push.
Canada Must be Ready for a Post-CUSMA Economy
By Colin Robertson December 27, 2025 Negotiations on the future of our trade framework with the Trump administration resume in mid-January. Canadian negotiators will continue to work to renew the continental CUSMA agreement that is the successor to NAFTA. This is the preferred result. But we must also acknowledge that non-renewal is a possible outcome.
Reinventing Reinventing Government: A New Blueprint for Ottawa's Power Grid
|In Featured Review, Policy Special A New Blueprint for Government: Reshaping Power, the PMO and the Public Service By Kevin Lynch and Jim Mitchell University of Regina Press, November 2025/218 pages Reviewed by Colin Robertson December 14, 2025 In 2025, ‘Business as usual’ is not a winning strategy for any country. Such is the explicit warning from Kevin Lynch and Jim Mitchell in their book A New Blueprint for Government.
This Year in Halifax: The Takeaways from HFX 2025
HFX President Peter Van Praagh, former Congresswoman Jane Harman, Colin Robertson, former Justice Rosalie Abella and former Defence Minister Peter McKay/HFX staff By Colin Robertson November 25, 2025 At the Halifax International Security Forum this past weekend, 300 participants from the world’s democracies – ministers and legislators, military and diplomats, business and civil society, scholars and journalists — gathered for a 16th year to discuss how those democracies are faring.
Keeper of the Flame: Remembering Tim Cook Original
Historian Tim Cook at Vimy Ridge/King’s University College By Colin Robertson November 10, 2025 Missing from this year’s Remembrance Day coverage will be the erudite commentary of Tim Cook, chief historian at the Canadian War Museum and author of nineteen books, who passed away on October 26 at the age of 54. I did not know Tim Cook well but I read and admired his work on Canada at war.
Functional Realism as Canada's New China Policy
Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Xi Jinping in Gyeongju, South Korea, October 31, 2025/Xinhua By Colin Robertson November 9, 2025 As Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to recalibrate Canada’s relationship with Beijing, a new realism is taking hold in Ottawa. Canada must find a middle path in its China policy that safeguards sovereignty while avoiding the swings between moral idealism and commercial opportunism that have marked its recent history.
How Canada's Prime Ministers Shaped its Identity
Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity By Raymond B. Blake UBC Press, November 2025/414 pages Reviewed by Colin Robertson November 2, 2025 When it comes to defining what it means to be Canadian, leaders matter and so do their words. The most successful Canadian prime ministers have been as much storytellers as statesmen, especially those who adapted to master the medium of their time.
'Chrétien and the World': Dispelling the Myth of Domestic Preoccupation
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Chrétien and the World: Canadian Foreign Policy from 1993 to 2003 By Jack Cunningham and John Meehan UBC Press, September 2025/376 pages Reviewed by Colin Robertson October 21, 2025 Once asked what defined his time as Jean Chrétien’s fourth and final foreign minister, the late Bill Graham replied, “Events, dear boy, events.” Attributed to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the phrase captures the inevitable tug of war between the best-laid plans and...
'The Irish Unity Dividend': The Pragmatic Case for a United Ireland
|In Featured Review, Policy Special The Irish Unity Dividend By Ben Collins Luath Press, 2025/246 pages Reviewed by Colin Robertson October 14, 2025 A nation once again, a nation once again and Ireland long a province be a nation once again. From the popular Irish nationalist song by Thomas Osbourne Davis.
Dialogue and Diplomacy in a Dangerous World
|In Policy Special, Verbatim The following is the text of the Inaugural Shefrin Dialogue Address, delivered by Policy Contributing Writer and Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute Colin Robertson at the Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, University of Manitoba, 17 September 2025. The Stakes of Global Dialogue ‘Dialogue’ is to diplomacy what force of arms is to deterrence. Foreign ministries praise and practise dialogue, summits revel in it, and communiqués promise more of it.
Opinion: Diplomacy in a dangerous world
In a world unmoored from its postwar foundations, dialogue has never mattered more. Once the preserve of summit communiqués and embassy drawing rooms, diplomacy today must confront a darker, more dangerous reality: the rules-based international order is fraying, great power rivalry is back, and Canada, like many middle powers, is exposed.
From Reliance to Resilience: Mark Carney’s Foreign Policy
Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office on May 6, 2025/WH image By Colin Robertson September 10th, 2025 This month will see two major tests for Prime Minister Mark Carney, making it a potential turning point less than half a year into his tenure. One is the return of the House of Commons, and the other is the United Nations 80th General Assembly. Carney’s performance will underscore Canada’s transformed relationship with the United States.
A Midsummer Trip to the Land of the Midnight Sun
The authors at Miles Canyon, Yukon By Colin Robertson and Maureen Boyd September 6, 2025 I wanted the gold, and I sought it. I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it; I hurled my youth into a grave. Robert Service, The Spell of the Yukon “The land of the midnight sun” was an early entry on Colin’s lifetime travel list. As a boy, Jack London’s Call of the Wild and White Fang kept him turning pages long after he was supposed to have turned off his bedside light.
Donald Trump, World-Order Wrecking Ball: 'The Economic Consequences of Mr. Trump'
|In Policy Special, Featured Review The Economic Consequences of Mr. Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World By Philip Coggan Profile Books/July 2025 Reviewed by Colin Robertson August 11, 2025 In his scathing new book The Economic Consequences of Mr. Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World, Philip Coggan concludes that the ultimate effect of the Trump tariffs is not just economic turmoil for allies, uncertainty for markets and financial institutions but destabilization for the...
The Case for a Renaissance in Canadian Cultural Diplomacy
By Colin Robertson August 4, 2025 With Donald Trump questioning our sovereignty and national identity, cultural diplomacy has taken on new meaning and importance. Cultural diplomacy is not just serving maple syrup-glazed salmon at embassy dinners. It’s about how we define the Canadian soul for a global audience.
Guelph police arrest high risk offender after being released only 24 hours ago
Guelph Police say they’ve arrested 36-year-old Medhani Yohans after releasing him and posting a warning to the public on July 24. Yohans now faces multiple charges including: Breach of Probation ×4 Disobey Court Order ×1 Criminal Harassment He will remain in custody and appear in court on July 28. This is the third time in 12 months Yohans has been released from custody. Investigators say he has a history of violence, including two sexual assaults on strangers.
On Being Canadian: Why We're Different
By Colin Robertson June 30, 2025 For more than a century, the question of who we are and what defines our identity has been debated by Canadians. It has created a cottage industry among scholars, politicians, the media, and Canadian book publishers. It has been an academic exercise, a parlor game and a cultural project fed by Gordon Lightfoot songs, by Group of Seven paintings and by the countless jokes of the countless comedians we grow here like canola before shipping south, un-tariffed.
'Apple in China': A Tech Behemoth's Not-so-Grand Bargain
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company By Patrick McGee Simon & Schuster/May 2025 Reviewed by Colin Robertson June 23, 2025 Of all the confluences of business and geopolitical power of the past quarter century, Apple’s investment in China may have been the most impactful.
Ed Luce's 'Zbig': Brzezinski Finally Gets His Due
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet By Edward Luce Simon & Schuster/2025 Reviewed by Colin Robertson June 9, 2025 “I was aware” wrote the 17-year-old Zbigniew Brzezinski as the crowds in Montreal celebrated VE-Day on May 8, 1945, “that half of Europe was in the hands of another menacing dictatorship just as brutal as Hitlerism.” This fierce sense of the hard realities of geopolitics and its implications for people and...
Canada Needs More World: Mark Carney's Summitry Launch
Shutterstock By Colin Robertson June 2, 2025 For Prime Minister Mark Carney, June will not only be about making good his promises on internal trade and tax relief but using a month of summits to present a new Canadian face to the world. Carney hosts the G7 in Kananaskis, Alberta, on June 15-17, then meets with European Union leaders in Brussels on June 23, before heading to the Hague for the NATO Summit June 24-25.
Radio host eats fiery hot wings live on air
It didn't take long for the Jackpot in the Farwell4Hire 50/50 to reach $140,000 after 570 NewsRadio Host Mike Farwell announced he would eat a spicy wing live on the show if it reached that milestone. Joined by Morty's Pub co-owner Jay Taylor, who hand-delivered the fiery wings and sauce, Farwell immediately regretted the decision. The host is upping the ante, saying he is stuck wearing the hat, scarf and jersey of 'The Team That Will Not Be Named' until the take-home prize reaches $100,000.
50/50 jackpot hits major milestone
The Farwell4Hire campaign only has a couple of days left, but it hit a major milestone this morning. With the clock ticking down, the month-long fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis Canada tipped over $130,000. That means someone will be getting more than $65,000 to take home. However, the money raised so far has come with a cost, with Talk Show Host Mike Farwell having to wear the gear of "The Team That Will Not Be Named" during the noon Talk Back Hour on 570 NewsRadio.
Estimating Snow‐Related Daily Change Events in the Canadian Winter Season: A Deep Learning‐Based Approach
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The British Bulldog: Winston Churchill and D-Day
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Churchill’s D-Day: The British Bulldog’s Fateful Hours During the Normandy Invasion By General Sir Richard Dannatt and Allen Packwood Simon & Schuster/Diversion Books/May 2024 Reviewed by Colin Robertson May 20, 2025 On the night of June 5th, 1944, Clementine Churchill made her way to the underground Cabinet War Rooms near Downing Street in search of her husband.
Good Fences: Managing the Bilateral Re-Set
‘Our preference is to collaborate with the US, but as a sovereign partner,’ writes Colin Robertson/White House photo This article is adapted from a contribution to the Association for Canadian Studies special edition of Canadian Issues/Thèmes Canadiens on the evolving state of Canada-U.S. relations. Colin Robertson May 14, 2025 In his second term as president of the United States, Donald Trump is forcing the Canadian body politic —every level of government and every party — to recalibrate.
24/25 On The Road In The Play-Offs: Stockton Town
A draw on the last day means a 4th place finish for Guiseley. They are therefore forced to travel to Teesside for a one-legged play off with Stockton Town on Tuesday evening, writes Scott Kelly. Guiseley travel to Stockton knowing the victor will play either Worksop or Ashton United for a place in National League North for the 25/26 season. Both games take place on Tuesday evening with a 7:45pm kick-off. there will be extra time, and if needed, penalties if the game finishes a draw after 90 minutes.
Kaplan's 'Waste Land': Between a Bang and a Whimper
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis By Robert D. Kaplan Penguin Random House/January 2025 Reviewed by Colin Robertson April 1, 2025 We find ourselves, writes Robert Kaplan in Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis, in an “exceedingly fragile phase” of technological and political transition, with no assurance of a happy ending. Our world is more anxious, more claustrophobic, more interconnected than ever before.
Canada's Trade War Arsenal Should Include a Team America
Canadians and Americans have a mutual interest in fighting Donald Trump’s trade war, writes Colin Robertson/Shutterstock By Colin Robertson March 16, 2025 With the major preoccupation of Canada’s new Carney government being Donald Trump’s trade war, one immediate priority should be to complement our current ‘top-level’ advocacy with a ‘bottom-up’ approach that enlists Americans in this fight.
Structural Similarity Guided Siamese U-Net Model for Detecting Changes in Snow Water Equivalent
You are already at the latest version Snow water equivalent (SWE), the amount of water generated when a snowpack melts, has been used to study the impacts of climate change on the cryosphere processes and snow cover dynamics during the winter season. In most analyses, high temporal resolution SWE and SD data are aggregated into monthly and yearly averages to detect and characterize change.
The Eurasian Century: A Strategic Map of the World
|In Featured Review, Policy Special The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World By Hal Brands Penguin Random House/January 2025 Reviewed by Colin Robertson March 10, 2025 The contest over the Eurasian landmass and its four surrounding oceans is the “defining feature of global politics in the modern era.” So argues Hal Brands in his brilliant new book The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World.
Can You Refinance an Adjustable-Rate Mortgage?
If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage you’re looking to get out of, the good news is it’s usually as simple as applying for a refinance. The bad news is the interest rate might be a lot higher today, assuming you locked in a super-low rate several years ago. This has been a common scenario lately, with homeowners opting for ARMs when it appeared mortgage rates would never go up again. And failing to refinance before rates went up.
The Antagonist Next Door: Trump's 25% Tariffs and Our New Bilateral Reality
Shutterstock By Colin Robertson February 1, 2025 The Trump tariffs of 25% that will be implemented Tuesday — based on reporting at this writing — on all Canadian imports to the United States, shatter the rules and norms that, until now, have successfully managed to mutual advantage our trade with the United States. An unprovoked abrogation of our trade agreements, the tariffs are fracturing our economic partnership and forcing us to rethink what has been our most important relationship.
Trump 2.0, Week 2: Premiers Matter, Diversify or Die, and Liberalization Begins at Home
Donald Trump displaying a signed executive order in the Oval Office on January 23/AP By Colin Robertson January 27, 2025 A week into Trump 2.0 and Donald Trump already has Canada in an uproar. Getting out of this mess is going to take effort by all levels of government. It should start with removing our internal trade barriers. With Parliament prorogued and a lame-duck Trudeau government, the premiers are standing up to meet the Trump challenges.
'Canada First, Not Canada Alone': The Evolution of Canada in the World
|In Policy Special, Featured Review Canada First, Not Canada Alone Oxford University Press/October 2024 Reviewed by Colin Robertson January 13, 2025 There’s no shortage these days of excellent books on Canadian foreign policy – former foreign ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Marc Garneau have recently penned their very readable memoirs – but until now we have lacked a purposely designed textbook.
Political Perspective from the Wonders of the World: Cruising the Ancient Mediterranean
|In Policy Dispatches, Policy Special Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia/Viking By Colin Robertson January 2, 2025 Between the political upheaval in American politics and the melodrama unfolding in Ottawa recently, there are not many holiday options that offer the distance and perspective for a serious break from brain-rot, to make good use of Oxford’s word of the year, 2024. As it turned out, eight days cruising the Aegean, bookended between extra days in Istanbul and Athens, did the trick.
Bracing for Trump II: Takeaways from the 2024 HFX
Chief of the Defence Staff Jennie Carignan (centre) at HFX 2024/Halifax Security Forum By Colin Robertson December 15, 2024 For more than a decade, the Halifax International Security Forum has served as not just a meeting of minds, but as a barometer for the competing pressures impacting global security.
Canada, Mexico and the CUSMA Review: Hanging Together is Better than the Alternative
‘Together, Canada and Mexico account for just over a third of US trade,’ writes Colin Robertson/Pexels By Colin Robertson November 19, 2024 Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith are right to focus attention on the looming review of the Canada-US-Mexico agreement – what Canadians call CUSMA — scheduled for 2026.
UK local government pension reform: decisive but how realistic?
The UK government’s much anticipated proposals for the management of local government pension scheme assets have been released following Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech at the Mansion House. The aims are to achieve higher returns for pension fund members and boost UK economic growth through creating larger pension funds referred to as ‘pools’, better governance and more local investment.
Dealing with Trump 2.0: First Things First
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with President Donald Trump during the Charlevoix G7 in 2018/Adam Scotti By Colin Robertson November 8, 2024 It was not the result that Canadians nor most of the rest of the world wanted. But it was decisive, and the electoral system worked. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris underlined that there will be an orderly transition on January 20 as Donald Trump, once again, prepares to take office.
How Supply Management as a Bargaining Chip Weakens Canada's Trade Negotiating Power
Pexels By Colin Robertson October 23, 2024 Is it really necessary to legislate the removal of milk and cheese, chicken and eggs from any new trade deals? Bill C-282, which is currently under scrutiny in the Senate Foreign Affairs and International Trade committee, aims to do precisely that – to legislate an injunction on any inclusion of supply management of our dairy, poultry and egg industry from future trade negotiations.
Fareed Zakaria: «La era de las revoluciones» - Nueva Revista
Tiempo de lectura: 6 min. Fareed Zakaria. Politólogo y ensayista indo-estadounidense, especializado en relaciones internacionales. Fue profesor de Ciencia Política en la Universidad de Columbia. Editor de Time, columnista de The Washington Post, dirige el programa de televisión GPS (CNN). Autor, entre otros libros, de El futuro de la libertad, De la riqueza al poder y El mundo después de USA. Colin Robertson. Diplomático canadiense, directivo de la School of Public Policy (Universidad de Calgary).
An Indispensable First Step: Donald Savoie's Roadmap to Public Service Reform
|In Featured Review, Policy Special Speaking Truth to Canadians About Their Public Service By Donald Savoie McGill-Queen’s University Press Reviewed by Colin Robertson October 16, 2024 If Donald Savoie is right, and he presents a compelling case in Speaking Truth to Canadians About Their Public Service, our federal public service is in need of both a rethink and reform.
How Landian Is Disrupting The Real Estate Market
By: Colin Robertson In a groundbreaking move that’s shaking up the real estate industry, startup Landian has emerged from stealth mode with a bold mission: to revolutionize how people buy homes. Founded by Josh Sitzer, Bryce Galen, and Neal Batra, Landian is the direct result of a landmark legal battle against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that aims to transform the way real estate commissions work.
Canada's Defence Spending Isn't Just About Security
The NATO 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington, July 9, 2024/NATO By Colin Robertson September 3, 2024 To preserve our prosperity and our place as a useful nation, Canadian governments must re-invest in defence. Trade with the United States generates over a third of our GDP. Devoting at least 2 percent of GDP to our nation’s defence with the focus on Arctic sovereignty is a no-brainer.
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