Digital Diplomacy: The federal government's multi-million dollar experiment
Ottawa has just earmarked millions to partner with the University of Toronto's Munk Centre, to expand a project that allows private citizens in Iran and eventually elsewhere to circumvent oppressive government firewalls, to start sharing information, to hold their governments to account and even enable dissent.
Canada doesn't talk much with Iran these days ... and that's what makes Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's announcement yesterday all the more interesting.
Traditional diplomacy between Canada and Iran has been cut entirely since 2012, when Canada shuttered its embassy in Tehran. But the up-to $9-million investment John Baird was describing there, is for a construction project of sorts in Iran.
It's what's being dubbed a "digital public square" for Iranians, and the federal government has partnered with the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs to build it.
David Anderson is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and he was in Frontier, Saskatchewan.
Even as we open up the "digital public square," Canada's bricks-and-mortar embassy in Tehran remains shuttered...with Iranian diplomats kicked out of Canada.
And for all the promise of going digital, there are still those who say the way forward lies in more traditional diplomatic ways.
Michael Bell is a former Canadian Ambassador who spent 16 years in posts in the Middle East. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.
This segment was produced by The Current's Catherine Kalbfleisch, Ines Colabrese and Julian Uzielli.