Panda politics

This article argues that China's agreement in 2012 to loan Canada two panda bears is emblematic of animals’ simultaneous material‐symbolic inclusion and exclusion in contemporary politics. Employing a material focus, this article draws a connection between the panda gift and the promise to which it is attached: a promise of material flows; of Chinese access to Canadian resources, especially; and controversially, tar sands oil. Common to geographical flows of both pandas and oil is a devaluation of nonhuman life. In one flow, two pandas cross the Pacific for a decade of captivity at the Toronto and Calgary Zoos, where visitors will pay to view the permanently visible pandas. In the other instance, oil will be shipped across the same ocean, oil whose production comes at great cost to wildlife, including caribou, birds, and fish, and whose spill at any point along its journey to China would devastate marine and terrestrial wildlife populations. Stark power imbalances between species are at the heart of both of these flows and their material consequences. This article argues that, in emphasizing what the pandas symbolize, the extent to which their own and others’ lives are materially affected is elided.     

The politics of water security in southern Saskatchewan

This paper examines long-term water and resource management in Saskatchewan. Agriculture has long sustained Saskatchewan's economy, but the province experienced a resource boom in oil and potash in the 2008–2015 time period. What potential water-related risks are posed by oil and potash? And is the province able to balance the short-term economic gains of these developments with the long-term goal of water security? The research is based on interviews with policy elites in the province of Saskatchewan and argues that four factors explain why the government continues to favour industry over water security: low-issue salience, economic and political interest, ideology, and political culture.