Opinion | I’ve known Janice Stein for three decades, yet there was still one question I’d never asked her

Originally published in The Toronto Star

Has any policy adviser stayed more relevant after the age of 80 than Janice Stein of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy? Stein maintains a schedule that many people half her age couldn’t handle. And don’t try to find out (as I tried) whether she’s advising the current federal government on foreign affairs. That line of inquiry leads to, well, a polite “mind your own business.” We’ve known each other well for three decades, ever since she started appearing on TVO’s Studio 2, but there was one question I’d never asked her.

Steve Paikin: I’m guessing somebody as smart as you probably could’ve gone into political science, sociology — any number of different fields. Why international relations?

Janice Stein: When I was a kid and the newspaper came to the house one morning, there was a big headline: “War in Korea.” And I turned to my mother and said, “What does that mean? Are they fighting and killing one another?” And she said yes. And I said, “Why are they doing that? Can’t they just sit down and figure it out?” And she said, “I can’t answer that question.” Well, that hooked me.

There are days when I wake up and I think the world has never been more on the edge than it is right now. My hunch is that that’s not true — but it feels true. Is it?

It is! We’ve had some scary times. You probably don’t remember the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, but I do.

I was two years old when that happened.

Then you weren’t worried that the world would blow up. I sure was. We all knew this was dangerous. But there was a set of rules in place that had come out of the Second World War, and the great powers committed to it: never again. We’re never going to allow a war of this magnitude again. We now have a generation of leaders who have no direct experience of war. Their kids are not being drafted.

Are you telling us that you think the world is more on the edge today than it was when we had tens of thousands of nuclear missiles pointed in every direction during the Cold War?

Yes, I am. We have a president in the United States who doesn’t believe in multilateralism. Rules are for suckers, right? Donald Trump is systematically destroying institutions and ignoring rules at home and abroad. That’s very scary.

Mark Carney is fairly new to the job of prime minister, and I’m sure he’s taking advice from all sorts. Has he sought advice from you?

I would never answer that.

Why not?

Let me put it this way: When you provide advice to somebody, part of its value is that it’s confidential. There’s a trust relationship that you establish with people, and I respect that. Not only is what I say confidential, but the very fact of someone asking me for advice is confidential, too.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been all over U.S. television, giving press conferences two or three times a week and suggesting that Canada needs to hit America hard and often. Is there a better approach?

How good is it to double-team like this? One can say all the things in public that the other can’t, right? There’s a good relationship between Ford and the prime minister. Ford can go out and say the things that Canadians are thinking, but Carney doesn’t have to own that. And there’s an advantage to that, because when Carney walks into the Oval Office and there’s a private discussion, he can just say, “Well, Ford’s the premier of Ontario, and he’s from a different political party, and I can’t control these guys, just like you can’t control state governors.”

So this a strategy that the two of them have agreed upon?

I don’t think they’ve scripted anything out, but the prime minister did stay at Ford’s cottage. And I think it works for the country, frankly, when the premier of Canada’s largest province is doing that kind of thing.

What signal do you think it sends to the world that Anita Anand is perhaps the millionth foreign minister we’ve had in the past nine years?

That’s not a good look for this country. We need continuity. Anand is experienced, capable and a hard worker.

Let me ask you something personal. The past five years of your life have been particularly tough, as you lost your husband, Michael. How you have managed all that?

It’s been tough. That’s one of the most difficult experiences I’ve been through. We were together for five and a half decades: that’s a long time to be together. And all of a sudden, it was gone from my life. I’m not going to minimize how hard this has been. It’s been really hard. Yet, in one way, I think that I was more fortunate than many of my peers who’ve gone through this experience, because I still had my busy professional life and was able to remain focused on the issues that I care about. So I got to go back to work — literally. There’s a lot of engagement with other people in my life, too, and that’s also very different from what many of my peers have experienced. When the official mourning period is over, you wake up, and your kids have gone back to their own lives, and your friends have gone back to their own lives, and there’s just this abyss. The fact that I’ve been busy and still lead an interesting life has been helpful for me. Does it fill the gap that my husband left? Of course not.

Finally, what’s it like to be at the top of your game as an octogenarian? There aren’t many people who can say that, people who are still relevant and whose opinions are still sought. What’s that like for you?

Steve, I’m astonished! I’m often in rooms with people 25 years younger than I am. I used to be the youngest person in the room, as well as the only woman in the room. Now I’m the only older person in the room. It might be this: We’re going through a period of intense change. Everything is up for grabs. In that context, people who have a historical memory matter more than they otherwise would, right? People are looking for anchors. I think having people with experience, people who’ve seen it or know about it, is valuable, because we’re all very anxious right now.