Don’t expect a return to normal geopolitical conditions — at least not if you think the past several decades were normal.
That was Janice Gross Stein’s message March 8, in an opening address to the Canadian Crops Convention. The noted political scientist and founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, said the era of “globalization on steroids” is firmly over.
“Great power competition is back. It’s back with a vengeance,” she told conference attendees. “There’s at least a decade ahead of us before I think the world finds its feet again as great powers find their feet again, and learn to compete. But compete in ways that we have rules of road.”
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In historical perspective, she compared it to the postwar years where the Soviet Union and the Western powers learned to live together. The 1950s and 1960s were rocky, but relations got smoother as the rules got ironed out.
“I say I am a long-term optimist, but I am predicting a lot of turbulence in the next ten years,” Gross Stein said.
She spoke with Glacier FarmMedia’s Gord Gilmour following her speech, about what that means for Canadian farmers and how they can compete in a changing world.
