Past Events

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Former Canadian Ambassador to the United States Allan Gotlieb’s significant legacy for Canadian foreign policy and Canada’s relations with the United States will be discussed in an online panel featuring University of Toronto historian Robert Bothwell, Johns Hopkins SAIS Professor Charles Doran, and the founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto Janice Stein each of whom knew Gotlieb well. SAIS Professor Christopher Sands, Director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars will moderate. The panel is a memorial tribute to Gotlieb, who died on April 18. It is being cosponsored by the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and the Munk School.

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We’re marking the achievements of students at the Asian Institute with a virtual Asian Institute Student Leadership Celebration this Friday, May 8, 5:00-6:00PM (EST). Faculty, staff, friends, family, pets etc. welcome!

During the ceremony, we encourage you to fold a paper crane with us, following these simple instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTY-nGYYq_c

Please RSVP to ai.coordinator@utoronto.ca for the Zoom Video Conferencing details.

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What will the world look like in the wake of COVID-19?

How will the pandemic shape our cities? What will the future of work look like? What can we learn from the pivots that firms and institutions have made in the face of massive economic shocks? What will the future look like for universities grappling with the effects of the coronavirus?

Join Innovation Policy Lab experts Shauna Brail, Anita McGahan, Tara Vinodrai and Shiri Breznitz for a Munk School /Innovation Policy Lab online event as they discuss the world after COVID-19. The discussion will be moderated by Jennifer Pagliaro.

To submit questions in advance, please email events.munk@utoronto.ca

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In its 30th anniversary year, The Lionel Gelber Prize hosts a virtual disussion with the 2020 prize winning authors, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. This event is presented in partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto and Foreign Policy Magazine.

Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance?

When the Cold War ended in 1989, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Central and Eastern Eastern European countries gave rise to a “politics of grievance” that turned to undermine the ideals of liberalism itself.

In The Light that Failed: A Reckoning, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of history turned out to be only the beginning of an “Age of Imitation.” Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that the most powerful force behind the wave of populist xenophobia that began in Eastern Europe, and has spread to the heartland of the West stems from alienation and resentment at the post-1989 imperative to become Westernized.

Join us for an engaging conversation with Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes, authors of The Light That Failed: A Reckoning and winners of the 2020 Lionel Gelber Prize, moderated by Cameron Abadi, Deputy Editor, Foreign Policy Magazine and Juror of The Lionel Gelber Prize and welome remarks from Janice Stein, Jury Chair of The Lionel Gelber Prize and Founding Director, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

About the Lionel Gelber Prize:

Founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber, this year marks the 30th Anniversary of the Lionel Gelber Prize. The Lionel Gelber Prize is a literary award for the world’s best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues. The award is presented annually by The Lionel Gelber Prize Foundation, in partnership with the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Foreign Policy magazine.

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What will the future of work look like? How will trends and technologies impact industries and the workforce moving forward? Will automation accelerate our recovery in a post-COVID world? How do we ensure the availability of decent work and maintain an engaged workforce?

In this Munk School / Innovation Policy Lab / CIFAR online event, join experts Dan Breznitz, Zabeen Hirji and Peter Warrian for a deep dive into how COVID-19 will affect the next normal of the future of work.

To submit questions in advance, please email events.munk@utoronto.ca

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Join Professor Diana Fu for a webinar on applying to the Rhodes Scholarship in the China Constituency.

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How will COVID-19 shape the future of our cities? What are the most important priorities for our cities as a result of this pandemic?

Join experts Richard Florida, Nathalie des Rosiers, Anita McGahan and Shauna Brail as they discuss cities after COVID with Marcia Young, host of CBC’s World Report.

Marcia Young is the host of World Report on CBC radio one. She has lived in and travelled to cities big and small, in Canada and around the world. She is fascinated by the places people call home by choice, or by chance. World Report is a CBC national and international news program connecting listeners from coast to coast to coast, bringing them stories from across the globe with a Canadian perspective.

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As firms and communities adapt to current pandemic conditions, many entrepreneurs and creative/knowledge workers continue to work from home. While some predict this will spell a long term shift to working from home and a reorganization of businesses more generally, what are the implications for the role of entrepreneurial ecosystems in supporting innovation? This panel explores the short and long term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

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Defunding the Police: Rethinking Public Safety so that Black Lives Matter   

What does it mean to defund the police, and for whom? On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officer Derrick Chauvin murdered George Floyd. Cell-phone footage of this public lynching sparked protests in Minneapolis that quickly spread to hundreds of cities and towns across the nation and beyond its borders. Protestors displayed righteous anger that was met with tear-gas, batons, rubber bullets, and, in some cases, live ammunition. State violence spared neither peaceful protestors nor journalists. This political crisis has provoked a global reckoning with anti-Black racism and the failure of liberal “police reform.” Protestors have instead amplified radical demands to defund or, in some cases, to abolish police departments, which they argue are fundamentally irreformable. Legislators are now taking seriously demands that once seemed utopian. On June 12, 2020, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to disband the city’s police department and replace it with a community-led safety model. In San Francisco and Los Angeles, municipal leaders have proposed slashing police budgets and substituting social workers for police officers as first responders in cases involving mental health issues and potentially deviant but non-criminal behavior. In Toronto, too, calls to defund the police are gaining traction and several City Councilors have embraced the idea. These efforts reflect a growing belief that we cannot continue to fund a militarized police department, underfund social services, and expect to solve the problem of racial inequality and racist policing. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore reminds us, the slow death of “social abandonment” is intimately connected to overt state violence.   

This forum took up the question of what exactly it might mean to “defund the police” and how this demand can help us to realize the slogan “Black Lives Matter.” Is this the right demand? If so, which of the many models for defunding the police should activists and policy makers pursue? Is it possible to maintain community safety without a police force as we currently understand it? Can we simply talk about de-funding or divestment without thinking about investment? Is the reduction of police budgets sufficient to fund critical social programs or do we also need to think about raising taxes on the wealthy? Is police reform also a question of tax policy? Are there any parallels between new calls to defund the police and long-standing efforts to reign in military spending in the United States and Canada? Is defunding a step towards the outright abolition of police? Should it be? What kinds of enduring political coalitions might emerge from the current protest movement?