The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Canada Re-engage India and China?

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Steve Paikin asks guests: Which is harder for Canada to re-set relations with: China or India? Then, Nam Kiwanuka explores why some parents don't vaccinate their kids. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was like a father figure to me. Unfortunately, found myself in a very vulnerable position. This is a story about a psychiatrist in Toronto accused of abusing two of his patients, which he denies. It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today wherever you listen. China, India.

Which is the tougher nut for us to crack at the moment? They're both tough, and in real life we don't have those simple either or choices. I think Canada's going to have to think of where it stands in this new world of geopolitics and geopolitics, in which China and India both matter. I'd say the opportunities are bigger in China than in India, just because China, despite all the rhetoric about using India as a bulwark against China. India is not there in

terms of replacing China and global supply chains and so on. I also don't think that there's a risk with what Mark Carney said in a throwaway line in the leadership in the debates. He thought China was the number one risk to Canada. I haven't heard anyone take him up on that and but I and that might explain the lack of warmth in the Chinese Ministry statement as well. But if you know that this is both a competitor as well as a potential ally, then we're going into this in the right way. China or India, the tougher assignment?

They're both incredibly difficult, but I think the path to dealing with India is going to be much easier, but it's going to require spending some domestic capital. When it comes to China, I completely agree with Vina. This is a hugely complex issue. There's many different faucets and it's not just reduced to economics. But here's the cold hard reality. The fight we're currently having with China does have its basis in broader geopolitical competition that is inextricably linked to the economic sphere. So when even that crisis was precipitated with the three M's that came down to technology and economy and

Huawei the company in there. The fight we're having right now is about EVs and steel and aluminum but when you zoom out and look from the bigger picture, you see what's actually going on here is we've got one of the world's largest economies, and it has a very, very different system of organizing, and it's dealing not just with Canada, but the liberal market democracies in general who also have a very different system. We absolutely need to find a way

to manage our economic ties that is different than how we're doing it now, because how it's being done now is leading to tensions, including some of the tensions that Zvena has spoken to. But the status quo is not working. So we need to think outside the box. And I don't believe Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are going to be able to find that. So I believe Canada should take up this opportunity and go after it. I think I want to come back to an important point Rohinton mentioned in terms of in this

kind of disruptive world that we find ourselves in, where does Canada stand and with whom? And I think we have to continue to remember that we are a liberal democracy. Yes, it's a tough time to be a democracy right now. We're having many challenges internally and externally. But we cannot find ourselves to be dependent on either the US, which is becoming more disruptive and unreliable, or China, which was their first. China is actually the one who started this. Can I ask you about that, though?

The Prime Minister's first trip was to the United Kingdom. He then went to the Oval Office. When was it? Last week? Last week he went to the Oval Office. If you're India or China, and you are seeing the new Prime Minister of Canada make those two trips before sort of giving us a little sugary, what are you inferring from that? Well, and first of all, we have to see India and China differently. Yes, we have issues with them, but they are fundamentally different. India is a democracy, a flawed one, but a democracy in China is a one-party, Leninist state,

a techno-authoritarian state. They are fundamentally different. I think this equating of India and China is really problematic, and we have to take a step back. Because with India, I think we have a chance of rebuilding that relationship. With China, the relationship will be competitive, and at times adversarial for the foreseeable future.

And that is because fundamentally what China wants in terms of the kind of world that China wants to live in, that's antithetical to our values and interests. Now that doesn't mean that there are no things that we can do with them. We can continue to sell things, we can continue to try to cooperate on the global agenda around climate. So find opportunities to engage in diplomacy. That's why we have diplomacy. But the relationships are different. Why are parents not getting their children vaccinated?

It's complicated and there's not an easy answer to it, but we actually do collect data on why parents make the decision. And despite what people think, there's actually a very low percentage, only about 2% of Canadians don't vaccinate their children at all. Other people are very much looking for vaccinations for their children, but the family care crisis and the primary care crisis has been really problematic.

Unlike adult vaccinations where you can go to pharmacies or there are other routes, pediatric vaccinations are almost entirely done in family practice. And so what we're seeing is issues with people having access and having to sort of patch together, you know, public health unit visits and trying to find a primary care doctor in addition to the ongoing misinformation campaigns that we're seeing. And that combination has meant that even the most well-intentioned parents are sometimes challenged to do that. As well, we have issues with just knowing if you've been vaccinated or not. Canada is unique in OECD countries in that we don't have a national vaccination registry.

We have those yellow cards, right? We have yellow cards. And in most countries, you can go online, type in your health card number and find out what your vaccination history is. But here, if you're from a province or if you've had some vaccines out of the country or you don't know what the vaccines were when you were a baby, there's really very little you can do without a lot of conversations to try to find that information. What about the pandemic? Because I know before the pandemic I was on top of my children's vaccines. Now I'm kind of like I don't really know. Absolutely. So we saw that there was a big dip in childhood

vaccinations during the pandemic because people weren't going to the family doctor. And because pediatric vaccines are so well regimented, if you fall off that schedule, it's easy to sort of lose the plot and not know where you are in that status. So that absolutely had an impact and getting people back and caught up has been a real challenge. Jeffrey, Dawn said that only 2% of Canadians don't get vaccinated. I think there's this kind of maybe misunderstanding that a lot of people aren't getting vaccinated because of maybe

being vaccine hesitant. What role does vaccine hesitancy play in what we're seeing here with measles in Ontario? That's a great question and I think Dawn did a great job in talking about the larger phenomenon, right? And I would just agree with her that there are many people who don't get their children vaccinated, not because they are necessarily worried about the vaccine themselves, but because of, you know, typical access issues. Parents don't always remember which vaccines their kid is supposed to get when. Lots of doctors, you know, didn't have visits, as Don described, during the pandemic,

and so never caught their kids up. Some families don't have the resources or time to get to their primary care clinician during the day. And then there are other issues that impede vaccinations. And we all know about these, right? Like kids don't like getting vaccines because they hurt. And so often that is another layer of something preventing that child from being vaccinated. So I would agree with Don in that it is really important to try to deal with those

issues first and then. Oh actually and there's one other thing that I should have mentioned before we get to the vaccine hesitancy, but often people and even clinicians think that there is a contraindication to vaccines when there is not, right? And so it's widespread to believe that when a child has a cold they can't be vaccinated. That is not correct. Sometimes things happen after vaccinations that are perceived to be, you know, contraindications to vaccination, but are not. Like, for example, I do get referrals from for patients that had, you know, excessive crying after a vaccine, for example. And while that is a difficult thing for the child, for the family, that is not a reason not to get vaccinated again, simply because obviously the benefit of being prevented against a particular infection

outweighs the potential harm of, you know, having crying against the vaccine. And so there's that layer as well.