Senator Yuen Pau Woo

In an election campaign that gave little attention to foreign policy to start with, the near total absence of any discussion of China policy, or relations with Asia more broadly, was astonishing. The organizers of the only foreign policy debate during the campaign defended the omission of China on the grounds that there were no disagreements among the leaders. If this is true, we’re in big trouble. The Conservative government approach to relations with China was characterized b…

There can be little doubt that Canada is better off in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement than outside it, but my, what a price we paid for entry, and how we missed an opportunity for meaningful reform of supply management, especially in the dairy sector. The highlight from Monday's announcement of successful talks was not the gains or concessions that came out of gruelling negotiations with trading partners, but was rather the Canadian government's offer of a $4.3-b…

The Globe and Mail; Comment; Oct 7, 2015; pg A16 There can be little doubt that Canada is better off in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement than outside it, but my, what a price we paid for entry, and how we missed an opportunity for meaningful reform of supply management, especially in the dairy sector. The highlight from Monday's announcement of successful talks was not the gains or concessions that came out of gruelling negotiations with trading partners, but was r…

The prime minister’s recent promise to collect data on foreign buyers of Canadian real estate has made housing affordability an election item. That would be good thing, if the parties did more than posture about widely acknowledged problems or make targets of overseas investors who may or may not be part of the problem. More data sounds good. But we don’t need more data to tell us that the Vancouver region is a very attractive place to live, and a magnet for migrants from every…