The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 16

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. On this week's Munk Member's Podcast we dig into three stories: Variants of concern are becoming more “concerning” as third waves builds in Canada, India, and Japan: Just how serious a long term threat are these third waves now that mass vaccinations are taking place? Is there something about the new variants that is could knock back our current assumptions about when life will be returning to something closer to normal? – A “super league” of the world's best soccer teams blows up in 72 hours: What does this intrigued filled event featuring billionaires, prime ministers and millions of fans tell us about wealth, power, politics and the world's most loved sporting pastime? Is it a sign that the super rich and the super powerful are about to be held to account in a post-COVID world in a way they have not experienced before? – Jonathan Haidt's Munk Dialogue took place this week and provided a far ranging set of insights into our democracy, shared values and why we are such a divided society at moment when technology has brought us all so much closer together virtually. We unpack the key insights from Haidt's talk and debate whether it is possible to restore civility and substance in the public square in our time. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk Podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudier-Griffis here, the chair and moderator of the Monk Debates. Welcome to this, our regular weekly monk members-only podcast where we dig into the big issues and news, the current events changing our world with Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, internationally renowned scholar and author, and our guide to the world as we see it today. Janice, great to have these conversations with you. Great to be with you, Rudyard, and with our monk members. We're going to dig as we usually do into three topics.

The first has got to be just what's happened in the last week. Over the last couple of episodes, Janice, you and I have been debating our respective emotional moods as we face, like many Canadians and people around the world now, increasingly, this kind of third wave of COVID-19. I had been characterizing my attitude as bleak the last few weeks. You were angry, urging me not to give up. You know what? I feel a little bit more optimistic this week.

I feel like there's some reason to hope here. Am I wrong? No, I think that Glass-Hanfold perspective is vindicated at least for the next little while, Roger, two good pieces of news here. One, the vaccination rollout in Canada is picking up a bit, 35% of adults. that's not half bad so we can take our finger off the criticism button and stop telling ourselves we're the worst. But even better news, frankly, is at the epicenter of the pandemic in Canada right now is Toronto. And hold your breath.

Don't want to jinx this. But the numbers have hovered around 4,000. they have not gone through the roof. That's encouraging if we can hold that. Some of the really dreadful consequences that we have been worrying about will not happen. So we can't let down our guard, but we do have to gravitate to get the good news when we get it. Yeah, I think also just the fact that we were able to release here, these stockpiles of AstraZeneca vaccine this week.

over a million doses that had come from our good friend Joe Biden. So thank you to Joe Biden for making AstraZeneca available to me. I was one of those people lucky enough to get a dose last week. Just a small aside, Janice. I, you know, you would appreciate this as a mother of children. The guys who got the AstraZeneca, because we're a little bit younger, you know, the side effects are not insignificant. And there was a lot of kind of moaning and complaining about the chills and fevers.

amongst my male friends, where as my female friends, hey, shrug it off, get back to work, why are you guys lying around? I think women just are the tougher sex of the gender. You know, I hate to say this, Roger, but we women have known this for a long, long time and have a kind of shrugging, knowing discount for male moans when they get the flu or whatever else is going on. But you're right, we were able to reach down to the 40 pluses now. And that is really so important because what we've seen in this third wave is COVID has become a younger person's disease.

And that is scary. We have young people who are in intensive care. And the long-term consequences of all of this are unknown. We now have to get those. vaccines into the essential workplaces. That still is not happening, Rudyard. It is not rocket science to get some mobile vans into these essential workplaces, and that should be this coming week's priority.

We're also, I think, a little bit on tender hooks just about the delivery schedule of vaccines. And as we've seen these new variants, especially this double mutant, it's a variant of interest, not of concern yet, but it might be one soon in India. The Serum Institute there, postponing the export of AstraZeneca vaccines to other countries, including Canada. That's going to set us back. We've also seen some delays on the Moderna front. So I think there's, as you say, this is not a moment to let our guard down collectively. We've, as you have so, I think, articulately stated over past episodes, we need to maintain that sense of utmost urgency of emergency. because we are facing a vaccine bottleneck,

an ongoing supply issue for the next four to six weeks that could have an impact on numbers going forward. There's no question that you're right about that. And let's thank Uncle Joe for what he did. But the United States has huge stockpiles of AstraZeneca that may expire. Yeah, 30 million doses. Yeah, and they're not authorized in the United States.

We would hope, and you know, Joe Biden had a flattering thing to say about our prime minister. That's a nice change from what we've known for four years. He said that guy is really fighting hard on the pandemic front. So that tells me that we've ramped up the pressure to get our hands on some of those doses, which can only be a good thing in this four to six window that you're talking about, Roger, in which the supply will just not come in as quickly as we do. Why would the Americans look at Canada a bit differently than other countries and say, look, we share this big border.

There's a huge tourism industry. For both of our economies, we've got to get the border open, functioning, people traveling safely back and forth. It's in America's interest that Canada gets vaccinated fast. Overwhelmingly in the U.S. interest right now, you know, there's an irony here when we think back over these last. 14 months, we closed our border to the United States. We did it because we saw there were a hotbed of virus and mismanaged.

And rightly, we did not want those infections pouring over the border. Well, the shoe's on the other foot now. And the United States is no longer putting its foot to the pedal here on getting us to open the border. Everybody loses with this close border, Redyard. We need to get the, we need to get North America vaccinated. That's the truth. And so I'm cautiously optimistic that we will get additional vaccine, additional AstraZeneca from the United States.

Two other things just on the COVID front, just to kind of round up this pot-Pourri. One, you know, a surprise this week to hear, I guess, statements coming out of the prime minister's office that his staff was phoning around trying to get him the AstraZeneca vaccine. I mean, come on, Janice. Like the entire cabinet, the prime minister, everyone should have been vaccinated, you know, weeks ago, as soon as vaccines were available. What is this attitude in Canada that we feel like, oh, we all have to be in the boat tomorrow?

I mean, Janice, you know, is the chief of the defense staff of Canada not vaccinated? You know, I don't know. And we have, by the way, an acting chief of the defense staff. Correct. We haven't talked about the terrible crisis that is going on right now. in the military over some really awful behavior by a former chief that is just now only beginning to come up. But we'll get to that another week.

You know what's interesting is that the tall poppy syndrome of the worst kind. So here you put out this message, oh, our prime minister will not jump the cure. He will not jump the cure. He's going through exactly what you're going through. Yeah. his staff is spending hours on the phone trying to get a vaccinate. Well, that's probably what you did, Roger. That's probably what your wife did.

And I bet you it was your wife on the phone, too, if I know other stories from other families that I'm hearing. So in a paradoxical way, what struck me when I read it, look, this is a good news story, but it's a bad news story. You're on the phone for hours trying to get a vaccine. Calling pharmacies. Calling pharmacies. I don't think that. was one of their finest moments.

And just finally, we have to talk about what happened here in the province of Ontario. To our American listeners, we had a kind of extraordinary piece of political theater over the last week where our government announced a whole set of new controls, even tougher restrictions, the ability of police to stop people and question them as to where they're going. And I think in some ways, more outrageous, closing down playgrounds, outdoor playgrounds, for children in all of Ontario, regardless of, I think, any scientific evidence supporting that playing in playgrounds on behalf of kids is a risky behavior. I mean, Janice, this, this rattled me a bit. I kind of thought, wow, this is a government that has, in a sense,

its own incompetency has now consumed it. Like, it's not thinking straight. It's not making rational decisions, the system is breaking down. Yeah, it was extraordinary, Richard, and we literally saw that the government implode in front of our eyes in those 48 hours. Everybody that was advising that government across their scientific advisory tables came out in despair, frankly, and I can name 10 of them that just finally threw caution to the winds and said this is unimaginable incompetence, which it really was. You know, just to take one issue, which is let's empower the police force to stop you,

Rudyard, when you're walking at 8 o'clock at night or driving or what you're doing, I would think if you were going to do something like that, and I would recommend against doing something like that, but they would have talked to the chiefs of police. Yes, yes. They didn't. They didn't. And Ford was in, you can hear the astonishment in my voice. He was blindsided by his own constituency.

And as somebody, you know, quite wittily said last week, it takes a genius to make the police forces, defenders of human rights in this province. But this Premier did it in one night. Leave aside the playgrounds. There was an infectious disease specialist in this country who is not saying to you, get your kids outside.

Get out of the house, everybody. Crucial for your physical health, crucial for your mental health. Yeah, just in your own bubble. Get out, go to the playground. This virus doesn't transmit from surfaces. So those two messages together, I don't know who they're listening to.

And by the way, they spent nine hours in debate in cabinet, nine. hours. What do you want Ontarians to think or anybody to think when you see that kind of performance? Now, it was a tearful apology yesterday and it looked, you know, it's interesting. It's, and I can be as cynical as the next person, but it actually looked like he meant it. Oh, Janice, it's, it's a day late and a dollar short. I mean, I'm sorry. You know, there comes a moment where you are in crisis, you need leadership, you need competency, and we just demonstrably do not have that in terms of our government.

That's just the reality. No one will resign. Nothing will happen. But that's the reality. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.w monkdebates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your...

membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.