Blue Mountain Film Festival 2025

From May 29 to June 1, my spouse and I attended the Blue Mountain Film Festival near Collingwood, Ontario. We went in 2024 as well. If you are interested, this link navigates to a list of all of the films. 

I post film reviews to Letterboxd, but not everyone is on that platform. Here are my brief (slighted edited) reviews of the four films we saw:

Thursday: Holy Cow (2024) (French)

This is a story about a young man known for his drinking and fighting who is forced to grow up when misfortune strikes his family. He begins a romance and learns an artisanal craft. It's worth a watch.

Friday: Aontas (2025) (Irish)

It's a crime thriller that provides commentary about the importance of community, especially given the contemporary political economy. The story is told almost exclusively backwards, beginning with a scene from nearly the end of the movie and working back bit by bit. It manages to provide plenty of suspense despite this method.

Saturday: Eephus (2024) (US)

I've seen a *lot* of baseball movies and this fun flick is in the upper third (approximately). There are some nods to prior films even as this movie focuses on a seemingly meaningless adult game featuring Dads, very pudgy catchers, old outfielders, and others with modest talent. They love the game and want to finish their late October matchup even though the sunshine disappears, the umpires leave (but baseball has no clock!), and the supply of balls runs short. Bill "Spaceman" Lee has a cameo inning pitching in the game. The conceit is that the field is being destroyed to make way for construction of a new school.

Sunday: Souleymane's Story (2024) (French)

This is an exceptional film. The novice lead is terrific playing a version of himself -- a recent immigrant from Guinea seeking asylum. His hard life in Paris reflected on the screen is sometimes tough to watch and it reminds the viewer of the horror of the nationalist anti-immigrant fervor infecting the US and other nations in the current political moment.

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Canadian Film Festival

In late May my spouse and I drove to Canada and attended the Blue Mountain Film Festival at the ski resort just outside of Collingwood. From there we ventured over to Toronto for a few days, took in a Blue Jays game versus the Orioles, and then had a final stop in Rochester for a few days. 

At the film festival we saw three very good films. I think the best was probably Girls Will Be Girls, though I also really enjoyed The Missile and the Teacher Who Promised the Sea. These were all international films and each arguably offered some lessons about global politics.

The Orioles easily won the matchup against the Jays, but the home team was giving away Vlad Guerrero bobble head dolls and Vlad hit a HR that night. Loyal readers may recall that I saw Vlad on a Michigan vacation years ago (2017!) when he was playing for the Lansing Lugnuts. Bo Bichette was a teammate on both occasions.

In Toronto we enjoyed walking around downtown and in the Beaches neighborhood. We had some excellent ethnic food including Indian and Thai. Departing Canada, we crossed and visited Niagara Falls from the NY side.

In Rochester we ate some delicious local strawberries, some on a short cake served with ice cream and whipped cream, and drank a very tasty local beer, Unfettered Soul from Strangebird, that recently won a Bronze for its Hazy IPA at the World Beer Cup. 

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Michigan Beer 2023 update

I'm going to use this post to summarize my recent and prior visits to Michigan brewpubs. This is one instance when Google Timeline data is actually helpful, though this information only goes back to mid-year 2013 when I must have authorized the tracking software. I'm not listing breweries where I didn't drink. We went into Ludington's Jamesport once, but could not get a table for dinner in a timely fashion, and we quickly left Grand Armory in Grand Haven on the 2022 trip because it didn't offer outdoor seating. 

Given that Michigan has nearly 400 breweries, my personal list includes less than 5% of the total! I could move to Michigan and have a difficult time sampling all of them. 

2024 (1 new; 20 total)

Latitude 42°, Kalamazoo

We dined at Latitude 42° in April during a quick weekend trip north and quite enjoyed the food. I really liked an IPA on tap (Endless Summer), but it was not available in cans to take home. Another night we visited the Kalamazoo HopCat, which is not a brewery but is certainly beer-friendly. We've now visited HopCat locations in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Holland, Kalamazoo, and Louisville (closed permanently). 

2023 (1 new; 19 total)

Griffin Claw, Rochester Hills near Detroit

Brewery Vivant, Grand Rapids

Founders, Grand Rapids

We dined at Griffin Claw and Brewery Vivant and the food was pretty good at both. We stopped at Founders to buy a crowler of one of my favorite beers generally unavailable in Kentucky (Red's Rye IPA) and I had a taster of Nitro Rubaeus. We had hoped to have a dessert, but they didn't offer it that night and so the smooth raspberry ale had to suffice. 

Incidentally, while we were in Ontario we visited Heritage Hops brewery in Stratford for a slice of chocolate cake (I paired it with a dark lager) before attending the play "Casey and Diana," and dined at Toboggan brewing in London on Father's Day. 

2022 (4 new; 18 total)

Odd Side Ales, Grand Haven

Unruly Brewing, Muskegon

Rare Bird Brewing, Traverse City

Cherry Republic Brewing Company and Public House, Glen Arbor

Founders, Grand Rapids

We dined at all of those places, though at Odd Side we had to order takeout from a nearby restaurant. They don't have food. 

2021 (2 new; 14 total)

Big Lake Brewing, Holland

Guardian Brewing, Saugatuck

Brewery Vivant, Grand Rapids

We also dined at all of these.

2019 (2 new; 12 total)

New Holland Brewing, Holland

Big Lake Brewing, Holland

Clam Lake Beer Company, Cadillac (2)

Filling Station, Traverse City

Workshop Brewing, Traverse City

MiddleCoast Brewing, Traverse City (was called Monkey Fist at the time)

We did not dine at Big Lake or MiddleCoast, but both have food (I think).

2018 (2 new; 10 total)

Workshop Brewing, Traverse City

Clam Lake Beer Company, Cadillac

Filling Station, Traverse City

We dined at these.

2017

I was on antibiotics that trip and did not visit any brewpubs and avoided alcohol. It was kind of sad. 

2016 (2 new; 8 total)

Saugatuck Brewing, Saugatuck

Filling Station, Traverse City

2015 (2 new ones, 6 total)

Short's Brewing, Bellaire

Rare Bird, Traverse City

We dined at these.

Older trips: (at least 4 visited)

New Holland Brewing, Holland

Mackinaw Brewing, Traverse City

North Peak, Traverse City

Jolly Pumpkin, Traverse City

We did not dine at Jolly Pumpkin, but they have food -- and various other locations across the state.

* It is possible my memory has failed me in recalling other brewpubs visited before 2015 as we have been going to Michigan as a family since the 1990s when my children were quite young. Then again, we didn't really take the kids to brewpubs when they were young -- maybe restaurants that happened to brew some of their own beer. 

I've also tried a good deal of Michigan beer in restaurants and taprooms, but I'm not going to list all of those here. I would put in a good word for the 7 Monks in Traverse. 

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Detroit

Earlier this month, my spouse and I drove north through Detroit, entered Ontario at Port Huron / Sarnia for a long weekend in Canada, and then returned to Detroit to visit the Detroit Institute of Arts museum and to attend a Tiger game. It was my first visit to DIA and to Comerica Park. It was also our first return trip to Canada since the fall 2018 sabbatical. 

After leaving Detroit we spent several days in our usual western Michigan destinations, Grand Rapids, Holland, and Saugatuck. We managed to visit a couple of additional brewpubs, as per usual.

The DIA features some interesting contemporary work, some pieces by enduring masters, and a terrific room filled with murals/frescos by Diego Rivera. You probably recognize the artist responsible for this self portrait:

Van Gogh

"Welfare Queen" by Amy Sherald comes with an interesting backstory:

It is nearly impossible to do justice to the murals with photos.

As for the Tiger game, Detroit beat the KC Royals 9-4. KC infielders made a couple of key misplays that directly or indirectly led to a handful of runs. I liked Comerica Park, but perhaps not as much as PNC, which seems to have the advantage of being on the river with its statues of former stars outside the park and accessible to the general public. 



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Research update

In the last year, I've had several publications appear online and/or in-print.

1. Rodger A. Payne (2020) Canada, the America First agenda, and the western security community, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, DOI: 10.1080/11926422.2020.1712219. 

If you want access, the journal publisher provided an eprint link I can share with 50 people. Send me a note.

2. Rodger A. Payne (2020) Stigmatization by Ridicule: From Dr. Strangelove to Donald Trump, in Non-Nuclear Peace; Beyond the Nuclear Ban Treaty, ed by Tom Sauer, Jorg Kustermans, and Barbara Segaert (Palgrave Macmillan), pp 87-113. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-26688-2_5.

I have a pdf if you are interested. This was tied to the conference I attended in Antwerp, Belgium, in May 2019.

3. Rodger A Payne (2019), Grappling with Dr. Strangelove’s “Wargasm” Fantasy, International Studies Review, , viz018, https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viz018 

This one is a bit older (online March 2019), but it remains forthcoming in print afaik. Any members of ISA can download this.

4. Rodger A. Payne (2019), “America First” and U.S.–Canadian Relations, in Canada–US Relations
Sovereignty or Shared Institutions? ed. by David Carment and Christopher Sands (Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 61-83. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-05036-8_4

This was related to my fall 2018 Fulbright in Canada, but I actually delivered the paper at a workshop at Johns Hopkins SAIS in June 2018.  It's already been downloaded over 200 times, so I presume it was used in some courses over the last year. That's one primary purpose of the Canada Among Nations annual volume. I think I have a pdf of this too.





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America First Project Update

Last week, I traveled to Iowa State University in Ames to attend a conference on "Canadian-American Relations in the Era of Nationalism and Populism." I reconnected with many of the colleagues I met at Carleton last fall and had a good time at the meeting. It was interesting and informative.

The conference organizers, Professor Jim McCormick of Iowa State, together with independent scholar Dr. Gerry Schmitz, intend to produce a special issue of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. Jim held the same Fulbright research chair at Carleton as I did, but during fall 2017. Gerry has his hand in many interesting projects, including an annual international film festival and a film blog. He used to work as a film critic and as Principal Analyst for the Parliamentary Information and Research Service.

A draft of my paper on "Canada, the Multilateral Order, and the America First Agenda" can be found here.  Comments would be welcome as our submission target is mid-May.

I tweeted a picture of the last panel at the end of the conference:

Final Roundtable at conference on Canadian-U.S. Relations at Iowa State University. pic.twitter.com/UDhCFA56g8

— Rodger Payne (@RodgerPayne) March 8, 2019

Fellow attendee Frédérick Gagnon from University of Quebec tweeted several pictures as well, including a photo of the opening keynote speaker Colin Robertson:

Glad to speak at @IowaStateU conference on #canada #UnitedStates relations today, with James McCormick, @FulbrightCanada Michael Hawes, @robcolin @sandsathopkins @RodgerPayne and others / cc @RDandurand pic.twitter.com/DRbskc6Quh

— Frédérick Gagnon (@gagnonfrederick) March 8, 2019

Soon, I will discuss additional news about my America First project, including a related paper accepted for delivery at the British International Studies Association Annual Meeting in London in mid-June and a new collaboration on "America First, Multilateralism, and the Human Rights Regime."

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December events

As I did for November, October, and September, I'm posting this to summarize my major Fulbright activities in Ottawa for a month of my visit. This time, I'm writing from Louisville as I've returned home. Once again, I won't detail the various meetings I had with colleagues to discuss my project. Several people generously gave their time, but I plan to thank them publicly when the work related to those meetings is produced.

Let's begin with professional opportunities and activities. On December 5, I went to hear former US Ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, talk about US-Canadian relations as part of the Canada 2020 event series. Much of Heyman's talk focused on the new USMCA trade deal. He more-or-less assured the audience that the bilateral relationship would be fine in the long run.

December 7, my spouse and I visited Parliament Hill and attended the Question Period. The office of the Honorable Catherine McKenna, MP for the riding where we lived in Ottawa (and the Environment Minister), provided tickets. It was especially interesting that difficult questions for the government were coming from both the right (Conservatives) and left (NDP). The Conservatives were pushing the government about economic conditions in Alberta, which they tied to poor management of energy pipeline politics. The NDP asked pointed questions about the lagging commitment to address climate change. Unfortunately, there were not many members of the Cabinet in attendance, meaning that answers for the government were delivered by lower ranking MPs.

I spent a fair amount of time in early December preparing for my Fulbright presentation, which occurred at NPSIA on December 13. It was well attended and I blogged about it here. Earlier that week, I also attended the Fulbright presentation of Purdue scholar Leigh Raymond at University of Ottawa. He talked about carbon pricing schemes with a focus on ongoing developments he was studying in Canada.

A week later, my spouse and I managed to tour the US Embassy in downtown Ottawa, thanks largely to a connection I made through Fulbright Canada. I had been offered a tour during the fall, but didn't actually follow up on that until seeing embassy personnel at the Fulbright holiday party.

We left Ottawa on the last day Carleton was open in 2018, Friday, December 21, ahead of a predicted snow/ice storm. We had originally planned to leave on the 22nd but it seemed unwise to wait. We spent nearly a week in NY and Connecticut visiting friends and family prior to driving back to Louisville.

I should also mention some other Ottawa activities that were not tied specifically to my project, but were nonetheless valuable. On December 4, my spouse and I walked to Gatineau in Quebec (just across the Ottawa River) to visit the Canadian Museum of History . I had gone through one floor during September orientation, but I wanted to see much more of the museum. It was educational and entertaining. We both certainly learned a good deal about Canadian history. The lower floor has an excellent section on indigenous peoples.

Sunday night, December 9, I attended my first NHL game as my spouse and I watched the Boston Bruins defeat the Ottawa Senators. Actually, I admit that we left the tied game and heard the final score after overtime on the radio. It was a brutally cold evening, it was getting late, and we are not hockey fans. Tip for anyone traveling to Ottawa: there were numerous cheap tickets available on Stub Hub. It was a fun cultural experience, though the game was sparsely attended.

We visited the Bank Museum the following week, which had a special exhibit on Viola Desmond (the Rosa Parks of Canada) -- a woman of color who refused to sit in the balcony of a movie theater even though the theater would not sell her a ticket for the lower sections. She is now on a $10 CAD bill, which explains why they had an extensive exhibit at the Bank Museum.



I brought some of those bills back to the US to give as gifts to our daughters.


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Films of 2018

Credit: Images Alight on Flickr

As I note every December, I watch a lot of movies, though most are viewed on my television -- on DVD, from DVR recordings, or streamed from Netflix or Amazon Prime. Because I have not yet seen that many new films in the theater, I cannot at this time write a credible post on the best movies of 2018. Most of the highly touted films are released in December, a very busy month. Eventually, of course, I will see them.

Again this year, I missed several of the summer blockbusters as well.

Indeed, many of the best films I saw this past year were movies that I originally missed in the theaters in prior years. I saw a number of late 2017 Oscar-bait films in theaters earlier this year. Again, I'll surely see most of the 2018 Oscar-bait films early in 2019. I tend to discuss those films in my posts about the Oscars.

To make this abbreviated 2018 list (also, to jog my memory), I scanned the top grossing movies of the year, as well as IMDB's most popular titles for 2018. I also consulted Metacritic, which my spouse and I use to point us towards good movies all year long.

In rough rank order of my preference, these were the top 2018 films I saw this year, as best as I can recall:

Roma
BlackkKlansman **
First Man **
What They Had **
Eighth Grade
Searching
The Sisters Brothers **
Isle of Dog
Tully
Death of Stalin
Annihilation
Private Life
Chez Nous (This Is Our Land) **

** I saw these films in the theater, mostly in Ottawa at the ByTowne Cinema.

I suspect there are some serious Oscar contenders on this list. Indeed, that's a very good set of movies; I'd recommend essentially all of them (though Chez Nous had some serious weaknesses). Roma is like a real-life look into Mexico City life in the 1970s. BlackkKlansman is perhaps Spike Lee's best film since the early days of his career. First Man was an impressive technical achievement with a riveting story and interesting main character. What They Had, Eighth Grade, and Searching all struck strong emotional chords and were gripping dramas. The satire of The Sisters Brothers, Isle of Dog, Tully, and Death of Stalin made for fine commentary on an array of human predicaments and life in the 21st century (and 20th).

Annihilation is a metaphor for self-destruction. I read it broadly, reflecting long-term human annihilation of the biosphere. The environmentalist in me liked it more than the film fan.

The remainder of my 2018 list consists of genre films -- comedies, action flicks, and science fiction. They are not ranked very carefully, though I think that the ones near the top are superior to the ones near the bottom.These were all good films too, but some are flawed:

Deadpool 2
A Quiet Place
Small Town Crime
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Black Panther
Game Night
Hearts Beat Loud
Polka King

I'm not typically a fan of comic book films and mostly avoid/ignore horror. The high rankings of Deadpool 2 and A Quiet Place demonstrate that it is possible to make quality movies in those genres. I was really entertained by Game Night and liked Hearts Beat Loud, so it would be hard to find a dud here. I liked Black Panther, but cannot see why critics place it among their top 10 films of the year.

Documentary

Science Fair **

This was a fun and entertaining doc and it features some fellow Louisville residents in prominent roles.

Here's the annual list of 2018 movies that I intend to see in the future (hopefully in 2019):

22 July, American Animals, Anna and the Apocalypse, Ant Man and the Wasp, At Eternity's Gate, Avengers: Infinity War, Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Beautiful Boy, Beirut, Ben is Back, Black '47, Blaze, Blindspotting, Border, Boy Erased, Burning, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Chappaquiddick, Cold War, Colette, Crazy Rich Asians, Dark Money, Destroyer, Disobedience, Don't Worry He Won't Get Far on Foot, Early Man, Far from the Tree, The Favourite, First Reformed, The Front Runner, Golden Exits, Goldstone, Green Book, The Guernsey, The Guilty, Happy as Lazzaro, The Happy Prince, The Hate U Give, Hereditary, Hold the Dark, If Beale Street Could Talk, Juliet Naked, Keep the Change, Kindergarten Teacher, Leave No Trace, Love After Love, Mid90s, Minding the Gap, Ocean's 8, Old Man & the Gun, Other Side of the Wind, Outside In, The Party, Private War, Prospect, Ready Player One, The Rider, Shoplifters, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, A Simple Favor, Solo: Star Wars Story, Sorry to Bother You, Stan & Ollie, A Star is Born, Support the Girls, Sweet Country, The Tale, Tea with the Dames,  Thoroughbreds, Thunder Road, Under the Silver Lake, Unsane, Upgrade, Utoya - July 22, Vox Lux, Widows, The Wife, Wildlife, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, You Were Never Really Here, Zama.

Keep in mind that I didn't (yet) get around to seeing many 2017 movies from last year's wishlist:

1922, Alien Covenant, All the Money in the World,  Ballad of Lefty Brown, Beguiled, Berlin Syndrome, Buster's Mal Heart, Call Me By Your Name, Catfight,  Detroit, The Founder, Foxtrot, From Nowhere, Gerald's Game, Girl With All the Gifts, God's Own Country, Happy End, Headshot, The Hero, Hostiles, Hounds of Love, I Daniel Blake, It Comes at Night, Killing of a Sacred Deer, Kong: Skull Island, Land of Mine (Under Sandet), Lost City of Z, Marshall, Moka, Molly's Game, Mother!, Norman, Personal Shopper, Phantom Thread, Professor Marston & the Wonder Women, Quiet Passion, Salesman, Sense of Ending, The Square,  Stronger, Super Dark Times, Survivalist, Sweet Virginia, T2 Trainspotting, To the Bone, United Kingdom, Wakefield, Wonder, Wonder Woman, You Were Never Really Here.


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November events

As I did for September and October, I'm blogging about my activities in Ottawa tied to my Fulbright research chair. Again, this serves as preparatory work for my final report to the funding agency.

Though I'm not going to detail every meeting, I talked to multiple local academics and regularly attended a security-related brownbag on the Carleton campus. A couple of those meetings with faculty will apparently lead to a future research project and I'll mention it eventually when I have more concrete details. It will tie together some of my past work on narratives and the Iraq war.

I will note a lunch with Dr. Gerry Schmitz, a former policy analyst with the Parliamentary Information and Research Service from 1981-2011. I previously blogged about a couple of important upcoming events on US-Canada relations that Gerry is helping to organize that will include my participation. Gerry is also a professional film critic and has a new book that compiles many of his reviews.  Film is a major common interest, of course.

On November 9, I attended a presentation by one of the deans of Canadian IR, Kim Richard Nossal, "I Mean, What's an Ally? The Trump Cession and Canadian Foreign Policy." Nossal outlined many of the horrible things Trump has said about Canada and Canadians--and discussed the potential implications for US-Canadian relations.

On November 14, I attended a panel at University of Ottawa on "What do the U.S. midterms mean for Trump (and Canada)?" NPSIA colleague Meredith Lilly focused on US-Canada trade issues, which was helpful for my research, and veteran international affairs analyst Michael Kergin offered some interesting relevant ideas as well.

Early in the month, I was interviewed by two Carleton Journalism students who wanted to talk about the upcoming US midterm elections. I correctly forecast that the Dems would win 35 or more new seats and that the Republicans would hold the Senate.

For leisure, early in the month, my spouse and I took our dog to visit the falls on the Rideau river, which is near the French Embassy east of downtown Ottawa.

On November 11 Remembrance Day, we visited the Canadian War Museum. It was too large to go through all the exhibits on one day, so we focused on the World War I exhibitions, including the special one to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the armistice, though I also went through the section on post World War II-Canadian policy.

On November 30, we visited the Diefenbunker Museum in Carp, which is located in the former bunker that was going to host top Canadian government officials during the Cold War in the event of a nuclear attack. There were rooms filled with old computers, communication equipment, and high-level meeting spaces. The Prime Minister's bedroom looked like a 1960s vintage college dorm room -- or summer camp room.

My daughters visited Ottawa for  American Thanksgiving. It was brutally cold, but we did visit the National Gallery (and IKEA).

I also played in a faculty poker game and won a few Canadian dollars.


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Climate Politics In Canada

When teaching, I often explain to my students that other western democracies generally don't have debates about the veracity of climate science. Instead, the debates often focus on the cost and appropriateness of particular policy measures.

In Canada, for example, I attended a Fulbright scholar panel recently that revealed this quite clearly. The business lobbyist on the panel, who used to work for conservative PM Steven Harper, favored a form of carbon pricing. That typically means either taxing carbon or creating a cap on carbon levels and auctioning permits.

Today, I was reading a recent magazine article (from an insert in the Toronto Globe and Mail) and found this interesting excerpt in a piece on Canadian oil sands:

Suncor CEO Steve Williams, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the most ardent critics of climate-policy footdragging you'll find anywhere. 

"It is a matter of profound disappointment to me," Williams told a Calgary crowd recently, "that science and economics have taken on some strange political ownership--why the science of the left wing is different than the science of the right wing." You could be forgiven for thinking he was directing his ire at opponents of his industry, but his actual target was the political right and its refusal to give a fair hearing to economists arguing that carbon pricing represents the most efficient way to take action. It was, in essence, an established oil sands CEO dressing down his most vocal boosters--telling them it's time to get with the program on climate change.

The article continues by discussing various efficiency innovations firms have introduced in the production of energy from oil sands:

Oil sands companies have embraced the need to act on climate change not because it might make them look better, but because the risk of not acting has proven to be so great--a fact made clear to the industry almost daily since the name "Keystone XL" first hit the international political radar. Oil sands companies know they have no viable future unless they can find a way to be welcome and profitable in a low-carbon economy. 

The other critical lesson oil sands companies have learned is that there is opportunity in taking action. For many, this has meant obsessive efficiency improvements. By consuming less fossil fuel in the digging and processing of bitumen, they have cut costs and boosted profits, even as they've shrunk the carbon footprint of each barrel of oil. It's mainly a question of competitiveness, but also an opportunity to develop pollution-reducing technologies that may one day be of enormous value in the marketplace. 

Canadians are also talking seriously about uses of those oil sand bitumen that don't involve burning it for energy. An interesting study on that theme was prepared by Alberta Innovates (provincially-funded) and was discussed in an October Corporate Knights article.

The study, known as Bitumen Beyond Combustion, gave a reasonably positive outlook for bitumen-based materials that are expected to see demand growth over the period until 2030, a time when demand for crude oil will grow at a slower rate than it has over the past decade. 

Chief among those materials are carbon fibres derived from bitumen. Carbon fibre is a fast-growing product that is both strong and light. Currently, the industry is growing at a compound annual growth rate of more than 10 per cent. 

Already in use in products like cars, the bitumen study found that future growth would be underpinned on carbon fibres replacing steel, cement and wood – and that bitumen-made carbon fibres could also find a market by being mixed with those materials. 

If carbon fibres took just one per cent of the global steel market by 2030, that would require 3 million barrels of bitumen a day, the study found.

That kind of usage would be significant. In 2017, Canadian oil sands production was about 2.6 million barrels per day. Recent projections suggest 3.8 mbd production by 2025.

The study also discussed asphalt as a major alternative use:

 Another avenue could be asphalt for roads. The market, currently US$50 billion in value globally, is expected to grow 4.1 per cent until 2030, the Bitumen Beyond Combustion report said. 

The oil sands already produce road asphalt for western Canada. The trouble with expanding into new markets is that it needs to be kept very hot for transport, as high as 150 degrees Celsius. But if the process of turning the material into pellets can be made cheaper, oil sands-sourced asphalt would fulfil large demand in China, said Nathan Ashcroft, an engineer with Stantec who worked on the study. 

“That’s something that can be achieved much, much quicker (than carbon fibre),” Ashcroft said. “The infrastructure, the rail cars, are out there, the global pull, the pricing mechanisms – people are building roads all over the world everyday.” 

Getting oil sands-derived asphalt onto international markets in five years is within reach, he said. Markets for carbon fibres mixed with other materials like concrete, which offer an opening for bitumen as a feedstock, will become widespread within the 10- to 20-year timeframe, said engineer Axel Meisen, who also worked on the study.

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NPSIA Presentation

Today at noon, I gave a talk on "America First, Canada, and the Prospects for Multilateralism." The room seats 18-20 comfortably and my spouse counted 24 people in the NPSIA (Norman Paterson School of International Affairs) Boardroom. I talked for about 40 minutes and then we had roughly 45 minutes of Q&A.

The audience was mostly students and faculty at NPSIA, though a Fulbright Canada program officer, a former principal analyst on international affairs on Parliament Hill, and at least three people from Global Affairs Canada were also in attendance.

The audience members peppered me with good questions that will help with the writing as I move forward on my project. I have a paper due in March when I attend a conference on "Canadian-US Relations" at Iowa State.

Steve Saideman of NPSIA tweeted about the event and snapped a couple of pictures:

.@RodgerPayne presents his end of @FulbrightPrgrm talk on America First and Canada pic.twitter.com/tdEPnbbaTK

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) December 13, 2018

This was not actually my research question, but we did discuss this:

.@RodgerPayne is Canada held hostage by the dynamics of an American game show where the host gins up crises so that he can declare victory?

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) December 13, 2018

The faculty and staff at NPSIA were terrific hosts and I have really enjoyed my time in Ottawa. I'm grateful to Fulbright Canada and to the many patient and accommodating academics at both Carleton and University of Ottawa.

If you are an IR scholar with some level of interest in Canada's relations with the U S, then I recommend you think about applying for this Fulbright opportunity in the future.



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October events

A few weeks ago, I posted about what I did in September during my Fulbright stint in Ottawa, Ontario. This post will summarize my October.

On the 2nd, I attended a Workshop at Carleton on North America 2.0. A group of scholars have been meeting to write an update of Bob Pastor's 2012 book on The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future. I attended a couple of panels and learned a good deal about current and potential ties linking the US, Canada, and Mexico. Coincidentally, Pastor's book was one of the few books I brought to Canada, so I read it in preparation for the meeting.

Based on my "America First" chapter in the forthcoming Canada-US Relations book (in the series on Canada Among Nations), I gave a presentation in David Carment's Canadian Foreign Policy class. Incidentally, I have submitted revised page proofs already and the book is slated to be published on February 14, 2019. On October 15, I attended a presentation about the new USMCA by Chris Sands, who with Carment edited that book.


On October 26, I attended a very interesting panel at Carleton on "Small Wars, Big Data."  It was part of the Conference of Defence Associations meeting, held on campus during Carleton's week of fall break. On the 31st, I attended a presentation on "The War on Terror Gone Wrong" at University of Ottawa by former Canadian diplomat Daniel Livermore.

For my research project on US-Canadian relations, I met fairly regularly with some local academics, read various public speeches by middle power Foreign Ministers, and tried to gain a better understanding of Canadian perspectives. I learned interesting lessons about the domestic appeal of modest anti-Americanism, the great dependence of Canada on trade with US, and the intense interest in the American midterm elections. I voted in Kentucky by dropping my absentee ballot at the American embassy.

During part of October, I also worked on a revision and resubmitted for journal publication my manuscript “Grappling with Dr. Strangelove’s Wargasm Fantasy,” based on a paper I delivered at the 2016 ISSS/ISAC conference at Notre Dame. Earlier this week, I learned that the paper will be appearing as a journal article in International Studies Review.

During the fall weather, my spouse and I walked all over downtown Ottawa (often with our dog Paddy) -- visiting Parliament Hill, the Byward Market, Lansdowne (for the Farmer's Market), the Rideau Canal, etc. We also drove over the Ottawa River to Quebec on Canadian Thanksgiving and hiked in the beautiful Gatineau Park.

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Multilateralism Project

Monday, I submitted page proofs for a chapter in the forthcoming 2019 volume of  Canada Among Nations, an annual book about Canadian foreign policy to be published by Palgrave. David Carment of Carleton's NPSIA and Chris Sands of Johns Hopkins SAIS are editing the volume, entitled Canada–US Relations; Sovereignty or Shared Institutions?

My chapter (4) focuses on "'America First' and US-Canadian Relations." Though Canada is a primary concern, the paper discusses the threat "America First" poses to multilateralism and the liberal international order. As I've previously noted, President Trump has labeled Canada (and other allies) a threat to U.S. national security in order to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on these states. He also called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "weak and dishonest" and repeatedly threatens to end NAFTA and bring "ruination" to Canada's economy.

My chapter discusses whether Trump's approach to international relations could be viewed as an especially intense version of realism that fails to recognize the potential virtues of multilateralism. Most of the institutions Trump threatens were built during the Cold War with the intent of aligning states with the US versus the Soviet bloc. Trump demonizes China, and at least one chapter in the new volume focuses on this strategy, but the President does not seem to recognize the potential  value of having allies working with the US to counter what he calls unfair and illegal Chinese trade practices. Every relationship is a transaction for Trump, a deal to be won or lost, and America can only win in his view if all other states lose -- even if that means demonizing long-time blue chip allies like Canada and Germany. Each relationship is ultimately bilateral and there is advantage to be taken.

I'm now working on a followup paper for a workshop on US-Canadian relations cohosted by last year's Carleton Fulbright scholar, James McCormick, at Iowa State in March. Former Library of Parliament International Affairs analyst Gerald Schmitz is the other host. I've been invited to submit that paper for consideration in a special issue of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal focusing on “America First”? Meeting the Challenges of the New Nationalism for Canada and the World.”  Schmitz is also helping to organize a one-day round-table in Ottawa on January 25th on "America First" and the International Order. I'm scheduled to partake via Skype.

For that paper and round-table, I'm expanding my work on multilateralism and looking at the proposals various western leaders are floating to save multilateralism in the wake of America First (and other threats), particularly in the areas of free trade and security.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has since mid-year 2017 called for "finding ways for like-minded democracies to act on our values and fight for the multilateral order." Though Freeland has urged the U.S. to join in the fight to save multilateralism, in October Canada hosted a meeting to fix and reform the WTO. The government invited about a dozen major trading states (including the EU as a single entity in that list). However, notably, the US was not invited to this "like-minded" summit "because it doesn’t share the views of the 13 invited countries, the new Canadian trade minister says."

German Minister for Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas has been calling for "an alliance of multilateralists" linking states like Japan and Canada. He has openly worried about the U.S. threat to the current order, though he too has invited the U.S. to join with its allies in saving multilateralism.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian similarly calls for a coalition of goodwill powers to address major international problems (including climate change). In his view, "Europe should align itself with countries like India, Australia, Mexico and other “powerful democracies” that share a commitment to multilateralism." Le Drian says the coalition should work with or without the U.S.

I'll stop with that list for now, but will end by noting that newly reelected Ohio U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D), who is sometimes mentioned as a 2020 presidential hopeful, was quoted in the Toronto Globe and Mail on November 3 outlining a potential alternative US strategy that would target China in a trade confrontation, but in a way that might fit with the multilateral aspirations of America's long-time allies:

Mr. Brown is trying to thread the needle: He trumpets his support for tariffs – and blasts Mr. Renacci for supporting free-trade deals under previous presidents – but criticizes Mr. Trump’s handling of the trade war. 

“You don’t play off steel workers against farmers, you don’t play off industry against agriculture, and he’s done that,” Mr. Brown said in an interview during a stop at a campaign office in a strip mall in Brunswick, Ohio, south of Cleveland. “You [should] align with our allies – Canada and Western Europe and Japan, maybe – to stop serial cheaters like China. But instead he attacked Chrystia Freeland for what she was doing and your Prime Minister.”

That approach could signal a Democratic justification for approving the new USMCA and a broader way forward for the party in 2020 -- a majority of the US population supports multilateralism and free trade (perhaps in polarized response to Trump's America First), but middle class blue collar workers in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are likely still vulnerable to protectionist appeals by politicians.



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September events

I've been in Ottawa for months and have barely blogged about my experiences. If you follow me on twitter, then you have a good idea of some of the things I've done.

This post will note a few September highlights.

I arrived in Ottawa on Labour Day weekend and stayed for the first 10 days at a hotel near the airport. Or near this intersection:

On the 14th-15th, I attended Fulbright Orientation at the Lord Elgin hotel just a few minutes walk from my rental house.  This is the view of Ottawa from my hotel room. The building that looks like a castle is a prominent hotel and the multicolored building is an Arts Center.

The group toured various local sights, including Parliament. The bottom photo was taken from the Peace Tower.

On September 27, I attended an event at the Macdonald Laurier Institute for Public Policy (a Canadian think tank) focusing on Russia's Challenge to North American and European Security. The main speaker was Tom Nichols of the Naval War College.



During the month, my spouse and I also took a brief road trip to Hartford, CT, to visit our youngest daughter, who is working in a theater there. I submitted a book chapter that is now in page proofs (more on that soon), and I worked on a revise and resubmit manuscript for a journal.


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Canadian Thanksgiving

Last weekend was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, creating a Monday holiday. That night, we went to the nearby Lieutenant's Pump pub and had a traditional turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and vegetables. There was some CFL football showing on one television, but I was more interested in the Dodger-Braves game on another. By the time the U.S. holiday rolls around, baseball is a distant memory.

My spouse and I took advantage of the long weekend by going for a hike in Gatineau Park, across the Ottawa River in Quebec. It is Fall Rhapsody season, so we were competing for tranquility with plenty of other tourists enjoying the seasonal changes. We ended up altering our destination on the fly as access to Pink Lake was limited on Monday. We ended up hiking around the MacKenzie-King estate.

This photo was taken after the hike at the Huron Lookout:

The far side of the river is Ontario, with Ottawa to the left.


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Trump and Canada

Though news reports suggest a new NAFTA deal is imminent, President Trump was tough on Canada again this week:

“We’re very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada – we don’t like their representative very much,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, in an apparent reference to Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland.

Trump also claimed that he turned down a meeting [in NY at the UN] with Justin Trudeau to discuss the prospects of a deal “because [Trudeau’s] tariffs are too high and he doesn’t seem to want to move – and I told him: ‘Forget about it.’”

Canadian officials were quick to deny that Trudeau ever requested a meeting.

I'm posting this a little after midnight, so it is possible that there will be a new trade deal by the time you have read this piece.

In any event, living in Canada, there are strong signs that the feeling is mutual. This is a very strong sign: On Friday September 28, the Globe & Mail Washington columnist John Ibbitson published a piece in my morning paper entitled, "NAFTA nightmare is quickly becoming reality."

In that column (online version September 27), Ibbitson explained that "a resolute Prime Minister [Trudeau] and Foreign Affairs Minister [Freeland] refuse to be cowed by this bully of a president, this predator, this Mussolini wannabe."

I read those words over breakfast Friday!!

Saturday, my spouse and I strolled through the Byward Market on a sunny afternoon and came upon this photo in a bakery, where they were selling "Obama cookies" and playing a video of Obama's visit on a constant loop. Thus, the picture provides a parsimonious explanation of Trump's policy toward Canada:

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Oh Canada

If you've been following the news the past month, you know that Canada hosted the annual G7 meeting and it ended with President Donald Trump bashing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after watching a speech on Air Force One. Trump called Trudeau "dishonest and weak."

Going into the meeting, Trump had already levied new tariffs against Canadian steel and aluminum. In order to justify the use of presidential power to apply the tariffs, Trump had to label Canada a threat to national security.  Remember, the US Constitution gives Congress the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations."

Canadians were surprised, puzzled, and perhaps even angered by the justification for these tariffs, so the meeting was bound to be somewhat tense. Canadian Foreign Minister Chyrstia Freeland called the tariffs "absurd," "unjustified" and "illegal." Canada has imposed retaliatory tariffs that went into effect on July 1. Items now facing higher import taxes include beer kegs, whisky, orange juice, and various metals. 

Last week, I flew to DC to attend a workshop at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) on Canada-US relations. Scholars at Carleton University in Canada annually produce a volume for a series called "Canada Among Nations."  The theme for the newest volume is Canada-US relations and I've been asked to contribute a chapter. Many Canadian scholars were there, including a number of faculty from Carleton, and a few other Americans.

My presentation was on the morning's initial panel: "'America First' and US-Canadian Relations." As you might suspect given my past research and writing on Trump's foreign policies, I argue that the Trump agenda is a threat to multilateralism, alliances (including NATO), and the liberal world order. Canada values all of those institutions, as has the US most of the time since World War II.

Indeed, last September, I proposed this precise research topic for a Fulbright position in Canada...and I got it! This fall, I will be Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Canada-US Relations at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.


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