What Canada’s election means for New England, trade

Canada’s 36-day Parliamentary election concluded Monday with apparently no major change in the status quo: The Liberal Party has won enough seats to ensure Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can form a minority government and continue to lead Canada, but with no major shifts in the party makeup of the 338-seat House of Commons.

What could the outcome of the election mean for U.S.-Canada trade and political relations, particularly for New England states that count Canada as their number-one trading partner? And what does the election indicate about the future roles of Canada’s Liberal, Conservative, and New Democratic Parties and the Bloc Québecois in shaping Canadian domestic and foreign policy?

Those questions are the focus of a free webinar offered by the New England-Canada Business Council on Wednesday, September 22, from noon to 1 p.m. featuring five leading university professors from the U.S. and Canada analyzing the election outcome and its implications for the future of U.S.-Canada trade, political, and cultural relations.

The event is being sponsored by Rasky Partners, one of the largest and most respected independent public relations and public affairs firms in the U.S., with offices in Boston and Washington, and Bridgewater State University, known for its renowned Canadian Studies Program. Attendance is free, but pre-registration is required through NECBC’s website.

Panelists participating in the webinar are:

• Daniel Béland, James McGill Professor of Political Science and the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal. A Montreal native, he earned his PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Dr. Béland is a specialist on Canadian public policy and federalism in Canada and a frequent guest analyst on Canadian news programs.
• Stephanie Bangarth, Associate Professor of History at King’s University College at University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on Canada, Canada-U.S. relations, and Human Rights History, among other subjects. She earned her PhD at the University of Waterloo in 2004. She is a past president of the Middle Atlantic and New England Council for Canadian Studies and a member of the ACSUS executive council.
• Christopher Sands, PhD, Director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. He is an internationally renowned specialist on Canada and U.S.-Canadian relations. He is also an adjunct professor of Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) regularly called to provide testimony to the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Parliament
• T. Stephen Henderson, Professor of History and director of the Canadian Studies Program at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He earned his PhD at Toronto’s York University. Among his scholarly works is an acclaimed political biography of the mid-twentieth-century Liberal premier of Nova Scotia, Angus L. Macdonald.
• And as panel moderator Andrew Holman, professor of history and director of the Canadian Studies Program at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, where he teaches courses on Canada, the United States, and Canadian-American Relations. A native of St. Catharines, Ontario, he was educated at McGill, McMaster, and York universities. He has been a member of NECBC for several years and was appointed to its Board of Directors this past June. Among his recent publications is 1968 in Canada: A Year and its Legacies (with M. Hawes and C. Kirkey, 2021).

Bridgewater State University offers an extensive Canadian Studies program as one of its global programs through the Dr. Edward W. Minnock Institute for Global Engagement.

“On behalf of all the NECBC Board of Directors and our members, I want to express our gratitude to Professor Holman for convening and leading this superb, bi-national panel of leading academic experts, researchers, and commentators exploring the critically important relationship between the U.S. and Canada,’’ said NECBC President Peter J. Howe, a Senior Advisor at Denterlein, a Boston strategic communications consulting firm. “We also deeply appreciate Rasky Partners and Bridgewater State University stepping up with the sponsorships that allow us to offer this informative webinar on a complimentary basis to New Englanders and Canadians interested in exploring how the election could shape our future trade, political, and cultural relations.”