Open Canada

In Aristophanes’ play The Clouds, two characters, Just Speech and Unjust Speech, stage a debate over the meaning of justice. Just Speech insists that a life guided by education, respect, and civic duty creates stronger citizens. Unjust Speech ridicules these values, denies justice itself exists, and cleverly spins logic to suit his own ends. This comic exchange, written in 423 BCE, may seem far removed from the challenges of Canadian democracy. Yet its themes feel strikingly familiar.

I’m certain that every war is a blast furnace and Tim Martin’s latest book, Unwinnable Peace packs a powerful punch that ought to be required reading for anyone trying to understand the West’s failures and also our hard-won accomplishments in Afghanistan. Indeed, as part of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, Canada was engaged in its longest war, from 2001 to 2014.

One year ago, the streets of Bangladesh erupted. Not in a coup, not in a civil war, but in a peaceful, people-powered revolution. Young people marched through tear gas and bullets. Parents locked arms with students. Ordinary citizens risked everything to demand something Canadians hold dear: the right to live under a government chosen freely by its people. That uprising toppled the Awami League, a party that had ruled for nearly two decades, twelve of them without a single credible election.

When I served as Minister of International Trade, my stakeholders were overwhelmingly Canadian business owners who were involved in the importing and exporting sectors. And many of them would come to me with problems their products were facing in certain markets, and with requests to open new frontiers for their goods and services. As a result, we would often travel together on trade missions, with me opening doors with counterpart Ministers, officials, and companies.

In late June, I had the honour of joining the Canadian delegation to the Consultations on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways (CRCP) conference in Geneva. As a refugee advisor, it was deeply moving to witness a growing global shift, one where refugee leaders are no longer just invited to observe but are beginning to shape the very policies that impact our lives.

In May, I argued that Canada needed a new grand strategy – a Carney Doctrine of sorts – to navigate a post-American world marked by fragmentation, energy insecurity, and a brutal contest between democracies and autocracies. But now, some three months later, we face a sobering truth: the world may be post-American, but America is not yet post-Trump. And Donald Trump, once again, is reshaping our national destiny – by force, not diplomacy.

On 7 July, Benjamin Netanyahu presented Donald Trump with a copy of a letter in which the Israeli Prime Minister formally recommended the American President for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The recent Israeli and US attacks on Iran’s nuclear program have occasioned much commentary on their prudence and even their legality.

On 4 February 2022, just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia announced their now-infamous “no limits” partnership in which both, ironically, opposed “the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers, when the weak fall prey to the strong.” The declaration was reaffirmed in February 2025.

On 23 June, one day before the 2025 annual NATO Summit in The Hague, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was across the border in Brussels for a much understated, yet significant transatlantic convening with his European Union (EU) counterparts.