Action Diplomatic

To:

The Minister of Foreign Affairs

Subject:

Canadian strategy for collaboration with Japan to adopt new healthcare strategies for promoting maximum communication between the patients and Canadian doctors

Summary: The Conference will present an opportunity for the Canadian states to focus on improving their healthcare by signifying the importance of online communications between the healthcare physicians and the patients. The quick communication between the two sides would be enabled with the integration of Japanese technology and professional expertise to address the current challenge during the global pandemic. Canada plans to be an active participant at the Conference so that no stone is left unturned for providing its citizens with the best healthcare services and facilities that would require institutional reform, despite being equipped with the best information technology tools in the country. Unique prospects of smart healthcare within its medical bedrock would be discussed keenly in the upcoming Conference.

Recommendations:

i. You agree to ask Japan for support in making healthcare improvements for the social welfare of its citizens.

ii. That you approve the objectives mentioned in this memorandum.

iii. That you approve the proposed steps mentioned in the memorandum.

Background

Economic cooperation and assistance could be gained from other countries to maintain peaceful relations between both regions. Trade-in healthcare could result in cross-border delivery of products and services that one country lacks and the other country is proficient in or has an abundance. The movement of professionals and technologies across borders can be counted in economic cooperation in healthcare that could be made possible with appropriate national and state policies. Capitalizing on globalization is not new in the contemporary world, and the countries who already on good national terms, such as Canada and Japan, take safeguard measures for benefitting from these efforts.

Canada’s healthcare system has not developed to the level that could ensure online communications of doctors online, especially for discussing medications, health conditions and emailing them in critical needs. Japan has made progress with leaps and bounds in the healthcare industry. However, it supported Canada in other areas of the economy, such as automobiles, information, communication, sustainable technologies, financial services, and assistance in forestry (Government of Canada, 2021). However, Canada has not pressed to the mark that could guarantee obstacle-free communications with doctors. Approximately one-fifth family doctors in Canada allow their patients to have the option of contacting them online, despite the country’s vigorous use of online communications for studying, ordering food, and even online banking (Philphott & Bhattacharyya, 2019). Contacting doctors via online means remains a hindrance for the Canadian population. Moreover, being one of the eleven high-income countries of the world, it has scored worst in a survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians (Philphott & Bhattacharyya, 2019). This becomes an issue of national concern when health on broader terms needs to be understood in difficult times like today’s pandemic.

It would not be wrong to say that Canada possesses state-of-the-art technology. Still, there is an assumed lack of skills or awareness from the family doctors’ side and the patients that the healthcare technology should be incorporated well. Japan can support its supreme quality information technology in the healthcare industry to help Canada with its dilemma. Furthermore, funding from the federal government accounted up for $2.5 billion for the regulation of accrete funds in the concerned departments, especially for adopting digital tools that would assist in recording electronic patient data; however, the matter at the moment does not require documentation and billing. Rather, it must focus on seamless integration of methods that could be used for knowledge advancement for primary care teams in Canada for promoting online healthcare to their patients. Since healthcare is of prime concern for every geographical region these days due to pandemics, Canada wants to be on the top to adopt enhanced healthcare infrastructure for its citizens. The tools and methods that helped Japan gain a top place in healthcare technology could be shared with the Canadian government to encourage the economic development of both countries.

Considerations

Following considerations must be taken when making the policy recommendations so that all crucial factors are addressed and thoroughly contemplated when the decision is to be made.

· Canada’s overall objective is to maximize its citizens’ social well-being, mainly in times of the current pandemic. Each country citizen is given equal healthcare services without any discrimination of gender, race, sex, religion, or ethnic background. This philosophy is clearly in line with Canada’s Constitution, The Charter, Section 15 as well that states that every individual in Canada has the right to be treated fairly regardless of any discrimination based on national, religious, ethnic origin or even in the name of the color, sex, physical or mental disability (Canadian Department of Justice, n.a.).

· The economic collaboration between Canada and Japan should be strengthened since the economic relationship would help build a peaceful environment between the two countries. Japan is the third-largest economy globally, with the support of whom Canada can eliminate healthcare barriers and lead in important industries like healthcare. Gaining a competitive advantage in this industry with Japan’s cutting-edge technological interventions and knowledge from its healthcare field would lead Canada to become one of the sophisticated healthcare technology proprietors.

· The bilateral trade policies and agreements should be revisited to reduce tariffs, taxes, and trade quotas related to this initiative. The cross-border exchange of professionals and healthcare technology would become convenient to encourage healthcare trade and investment within Canada. Also, this would give further rise to fortification among the two countries’ partnership on Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in which one of the domains in science and innovation. When coordination for sharing of knowledge in the healthcare field would be launched, the OECD, along with Canada and Japan, should emphasize the Ministerial discussion for increased engagement on global economic activities.

· Canada should contemplate the healthcare sector’s role in reducing climate change, which is 10% greenhouse gas emission in the United States (No Harm.org, n.a.). Incorporating telemedicine, such as online communication between doctors and patients, would help reduce carbon-emitting activities when transport would be reduced (Tsagkaris et al., 2021). The patients would not have to visit hospitals frequently, reducing the healthcare carbon footprint in the current pandemic situation.

Resource Implications

The human and financial resources flowing from the recommendation could be estimated to $3billion for the improvement in healthcare infrastructure for the promotion of online communication. For that purpose, the incoming of Japanese professionals who have been successfully able to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) in their smart hospitals and envision their future healthcare with smart technology in Japan (Nature Portfolio, n.a.), and training of Canadian physicians with the same skills is expected.

Communications Implications/ Actions

Japan has the world’s third-largest GDP worldwide has a large market share in the healthcare industry. Japanese citizens have good health conditions since the population is huge, and people need to be catered with the best health facilities that are certified through its tech-friendly health infrastructure. Hence, with the integration of such sturdy information technology, it would be the responsibility of the Canadian government to let its citizens know about the advancements in the healthcare field for the social upgrade that it is planning for its people. The news would be disseminated through all media, including television, social media, newspapers, etc.

The pertinent public and private sectors would be informed about the new phase in healthcare and the people related to this industry so that the government’s objectives are communicated across all levels of the hierarchy of these departments. The Canadian government, therefore, expects active participation from stakeholders of the healthcare industry in attending the Conference to guarantee inputs from resourceful position holders.

Also, when news should be broken to the community, it is expected that civil society, non-profit organizations, and social welfare firms would come forward for support. The news should thus be distinctly communicated via the platforms mentioned above. The Canadian standpoints should be presented to the international media and website, and social media activists highlight these measures. Posting the opening statement should be circulated with accurately emphasized areas that are to be improved with clear objectives. Background briefings to the concerned professionals and departments of all levels of the healthcare hierarchy would be targeted through media support.

Parliamentary Implications/ Actions

The aim of the initiative to provide accessibility and quality healthcare services to the citizens of Canada without discrimination so that resource gaps could be identified and fulfilled, for which Parliament is requested to show participation through statements, committee hearings, and opinions from the opposition leaders. The duplication of the resource inputs and activities should be avoided so that better, not the same, healthcare facilities should be offered to the people. Since Canada has lower-cost healthcare services and already endeavors to give universal access excluding the financial barriers for the patients (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012), to lower the mortality rates that are expected to result from the current pandemic should be addressed via vigorous political contribution and devising of policies that could be practiced soon after the Conference.

References

Canadian Department of Justice. (n.a.). Section 15- Equality rights. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art15.html

Government of Canada. (2021, February 18). Canada-Japan relations. https://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/japan-japon/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/index.aspx?lang=eng

Nature Portfolio. (n.a.). Using AI to make healthcare more human. https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-020-00350-2

No Harm.org. (n.a.). Climate change, health, and healthcare: How physicians can help. https://noharm-uscanada.org/sites/default/files/Climate.Physician.Network.pdf

Philphott, J. & Bhattacharyya, O. (2019, December 18). Canada falls behind in healthcare technology. Macleans. https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada-falls-behind-in-healthcare-technology/

Ridic, G., Gleason, S. & Ridic, O. (2012). Comparisons of healthcare systems in the United States, Germany, and Canada. Materia Socio-Medica, 24(2), 112-120. https://doi.org/10.5455/msm.2012.24.112-120

Tsagkaris, C., Hoian, A.V., Ahmad, S., Essar, Y., Campbell, L.W., Grobusch, L., Angelopoulos, T. & Kalaitzidis, K. (2021). Using telemedicine for a lower carbon footprint in healthcare: A twofold tale of healing. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100006

Narrative Essay Covering “How the UN Migration Pact Got Trolled”

The UN migration pact has been under debate from the right-wing extremists in Europe as they wanted Europe to abstain from the pact. The paper aims at providing a narrative essay of the article “How the UN Migration Pact Got Trolled,” written by Laurens Cerulus and Eline Schaart. The following sections of the paper introduce the article, its issue, highlight its strengths and weaknesses, and the discussion questions for further delving into the reading.

Content and Structure of Reading

The authors of the selected article are renowned researchers in their respective fields. Author Laurens Cerulus is a graduate of City University London and found his passion in researching geopolitics and technological issues. In contrast, Eline Schaart studied Liberal Arts and Sciences and Journalism for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She pursued her career in research for legislation, economy, chemicals, and water pollution.

The authors talk about the online campaign in the selected article, including the tweets and posts on various social media platforms that came from right-wing activists to stop the support towards the UN migration pact (Cerulus & Schaart, 2019). The article’s content focuses on the chaos created after far-right activists continued their pressure over their European parties to drop their assistance towards the UN migration pact. The pressure was seen coming from the social media sites considered the most powerful tool to bring about a change in the modern world. The online activity created rapid political movements, which even resulted in the collapse of the Belgium government. The article further talks about forming a global network consisting of the same extremists who did not want the UN migration pact to become practical since they wanted their social, economic, and political conservatism to sustain. The authors noted activities in specific regions by naming the geographical regions affected by the online networking of these extremists, such as Austria and Italy forced to change their track on the UN pact. The journalists revealed that activists were quick enough to notice the pact when it was not officially on the internet and started spreading opposing statements to the countries. The names of the online platforms where it was initially started are mentioned with the illustration of a graph that indicates that it created hype in the subsequent months. Among these names, YouTube is the most talked-about site that has been influential for the right-wing activists to create a transformation. For this, a graph is again presented for an exhaustive overview of the situation.

The article’s structure moves on to provide detail about the petition that started circulating after the UN pact news was on the rise. The vice-chancellor and the head of the far-right activists’ party were strongly against the pact and mentioned in the video about ‘information war’ whose aim would only be to spread the fire. The leader’s opinions indicated that he was against the inhabitation of the elites in their country, and the European people’s lives in terms of economic and social welfare would be threatened. Consequently, the Austrian Chancellor had to opt-out of the UN migration pact and formed a coalition government with the right activists’ party leader.

Author’s Thesis or Principle Argument

The authors’ principle argument in the chosen article is the rash online behavior that far-right-wing extremists have shown for the UN migration pact for the betterment of people living away from their country of origin. Although the article is only a piece of informational writing and does not seem to be asserting a specific point from the authors’’ side, still it could be inferred that authors wanted to proclaim that right-wing extremists played their part well in convincing the European leaders to bail out of the migration pact.

The general and overall outlook of the article mentions certain incidents that took place one after the other to force the European leaders to bow down to the wishes of the extremists, which the Austrian leader had to do subsequently. The influence of the surge created from these extremists took extreme forms when the online movement started in May 2018, and the highest number of posts was seen in November 2020, as shown in the article’s graphs. The authors emphasize that the extremists were not taking it lightly as they kept on pursuing their movement with equal pace since the beginning. Only when the pact got known through the UN officially and the posts that started appearing on the social media platforms that the hype was discerned.

There is no solution given in the article by the writers that might have shown their take on the issue. The purpose of the article remains to disseminate the information from various angles, including the researchers that saw the online campaign on YouTube, regarding the havoc that was reaped by a mere online movement that was so strong that it created a huge impact on the political and economic decisions of the European leaders. It was even fiercer in the sense that it compelled the Austrian leader to make a coalition government with their right-wing activists’ party head. Hence, the thesis statement is evident in the article’s title that online progression from the right-wing activists created in Europe.

Strength and Weakness of the Author’s Argument

The strength of the article is the detail in which the information has been presented; especially, it is supported by the graphs. The graphs depict that writers have thoroughly researched their topic of interest, as the trends the online movement created were unmistakably observed through these illustrations. This shows that writers were presenting the information independently, but they had supported it with strong evidence. They wanted the readers to believe what they were telling and wanted to see what they meant. Besides, the graph about the videos created by the right-wing activists and other related groups such as conspiracy theorists, German mainstream media, the Russian state, and conservative parties was also shown unambiguously. The reason for displaying this graph is the highest involvement of the right-wing activists on YouTube, with 75 out of 100 most popular videos made by this group only. The writers knew what they were giving the readers to believe with substantiation from the ISD research department (Institute for Strategic Dialogue). They even mentioned the social media accounts made active for this purpose only, such as Epoch website Times, Journal Listen Watch website by the right-wing columnist Thomas Bohm, and anti-Islam blogs presented by Philosophia Perennis. The entire data showed that authors knew their facts and were confident enough to present them to the readers with hardcore proof not to circulate false information. They are aware that they have a responsibility towards society being journalists.

Another strength of this article is the numerous standpoints from various angles that give new dimensions to the same topic. The information is dispersed without their personal bias, which makes the article even powerful. For example, the writers have mentioned the thoughts of the researchers that had their eyes on the online campaign and the impact it was generating through YouTube. They believed that YouTube was being misused for spreading false information that was baseless regarding the UN migration pact from the right-wing extremists’ side. They strongly believed that half of the videos that topped the lists of YouTube’s most-watched list regarding the UN migration pact were misleading and were only made to make conspiracies that had no basis or agenda. Also, the views from the head of the digital analysis unit in ISD were demonstrated that involved collaboration of the US and European groups. He mentioned that the mainstreaming of the ideas that were being spread by the right-wing was more organic and wanted to push people to think otherwise. Their major aim was to astray the common public and the European leaders from the actual path that led to support of the UN migration pact and were taking over the thoughts of these people by their online movement.

The one weakness detected from this piece of writing is the writers’ take on the issue. It is understood that journalism does not require one to present own views on the issue since the main duty of the journalists is to gather data and educate the public about the events that took place. The article writers performed their job well in this context; however, the expert view on the plan could have given a new line of thought to the readers. The view could have unbiased that should not have depicted their attitudes towards the situation. It could be surmised that a conclusion with a ‘call to action’ was missing.

Discussion Questions

The discussion questions emerging from the reading to help lead a discussion are given as below:

1. It is explicitly deduced from the article and its findings that social media is the strongest tool for social change. It can create an intense impact even on the political leaders of the world. It does not matter if the information is right or wrong, should there be criteria for the spread of information on social media?

2. Is it ethical enough to enforce one’s views on the minds of others and pressurize them to take action accordingly? Does ‘free will’ actually exist or not? As in the case of right-wing extremists who were of the view that the UN migration pact should not be allowed and wanted European leaders to withdraw their support from the pact, which they successfully had done so, it leads us to think whether the movement was ethical with even credible information that was spread online?

Conclusion

The selected article opened new horizons on the issue of right-wing extremists forcing the European leaders to draw out their support from the UN migration act that gave rise to another dilemma of ethics and free will on the social media platforms. Though people using social media platforms are free to voice out their concerns by merely sitting at their homes, using their fingers on the screens to influence other people’s thoughts, it should be considered that it could be both used positively and negatively. The use of online websites should be equal for all users. It should be open for all positive and negative opinions but not more extensive for some users, such as right-wing activists that were more apparent than the rest of the parties.

Reference

Cerulus, L. & Schaart, E. (2019, January 3). How the UN migration pact got trolled. Politico. https://www.politico.eu/article/united-nations-migration-pact-how-got-trolled/

Initial Statement From The Perspective Of AOSIS Delegation

The five delegations that are here today to address the emerging challenges of climate change are requested to consider the implications of greenhouse emissions on AOSIS countries that close to coastal areas and are highly subjected to coastal area erosion, variations in sea levels, and saltwater disparity. On behalf of the AOSIS group of states, it is pleaded to reduce the activities that increase the levels of carbon dioxide and the newly evolving forms of emission critical for ozone layer depletion and safety of our planet.

The particular concerns for AOSIS countries in response to climate change are as below:

i. If climate change persists, the ocean waters would warm, enforcing the sea level around the AOSIS states to raise that would wreak havoc to the economies and social welfare of the small islands.

ii. Extreme weather would be evident if climate change continues in the form of storms and hurricanes, causing drastic consequences for the countries.

iii. Since the AOSIS countries are the smallest among the rest of the economies of the world, the food supply from the water, on which these countries highly dependent for fulfilling their own demand and export as well, would be affected adversely.

iv. Being the smallest of the other world countries, these states are extremely reliable on the flourishing of the coral reefs. If these reefs become exposed to bleaching and exposure to high temperatures, the reef system would be eradicated, causing problems for the islands’ survival.

v. The immediate effect of the above factor would also be susceptibility to the fishing and tourism industry of these states.