Canada is picking up the political radicalization bug from the U.S., new report warns | 24CA News
A U.S.-based analysis group that makes a speciality of gauging geopolitical threat says Canada is displaying indicators of the identical political contagion and polarization that has bothered American politics.
The warning is contained in Eurasia Group’s annual “Top Risk” report for the brand new 12 months, launched Tuesday.
While Canada doesn’t make the consultancy’s “Top 10” when it comes to geopolitical or instability dangers, the group produced three standalone sub-reports on nations affected by worldwide political turbulence: Canada, Japan and Brazil.
The No. 1 geopolitical risk going through the planet is Russia lastly turning into the world’s most harmful rogue state, stated the New York-based group’s president Ian Bremmer.
While the Kremlin has been cautious to restrict its conflict in Ukraine, Bremmer and the group’s chairman Cliff Kupchan, who co-authored the evaluation, stated Moscow’s technique of dividing the West is not working — and Russia may abandon warning and begin issuing extra express threats to make use of nuclear weapons.
In its evaluation, the group sees many of the threat to Canada coming from the political convulsions within the United States — which Bremmer described because the “Divided States of America.”
He stated the poisonous political tradition in Washington and all through the U.S. is spilling throughout the border and it’s more likely to worsen within the coming 12 months.
“The media environment in Canada, and the social media environment in Canada is increasingly resembling the media and social media environment in the United States,” Bremmer stated Tuesday.
“It is dysfunctional. It is rife with disinformation. It is deeply polarized. [The online discourse] is a bunch of people that do not reflect the average Canadian, do not reflect the average American in both countries.”
Policy points, particularly power and local weather change, are being weaponized in Canada for political achieve on the expense of nationwide unity, he added.
“The realities of the business models of media and social media in both countries move people and empower people that engage with the radical right and left,” Bremmer stated.
“And so that means people painting Trudeau as a socialist. It means painting the new Conservative leader as MAGA Trump. Neither of those things are accurate.”
The good news, he stated, is that Canada stays “an economically stable, well-functioning political democracy.” But Bremmer stated he sees a situation the place provinces like Alberta and Ontario search nearer ties with like-minded U.S. states on the expense of Canadian federalism.
And Bremmer warned Canada shouldn’t be complacent relating to threats towards politicians.
“Canada is probably headed — even though you don’t have nearly as many guns as in the United States — for more political violence,” he stated.
The group cited as its second-most alarming supply of geopolitical threat the consolidation of energy in Beijing by President Xi Jinping.
Eurasia Group’s third main space of concern is the potential for synthetic intelligence (AI) to govern folks and disrupt society. The group predicts 2023 might be a tipping level for this pattern.
Despite the warnings and the general gloomy outlook, each Bremmer and Kupchan stated there is a good cause to be optimistic: lots of their group’s worst-case situations of earlier years haven’t materialized.
“On the bright side,” stated Kupchan, “threats to democracy’s future, which appeared dire last year, look overrated now, given the glaring leadership weaknesses evident in Russia, China, and Iran.
“In Europe, there’s stronger cohesion in EU policymaking, and in America, midterm elections got here off with few of the stresses we noticed in 2020.”
