On September 21, 2022, Vladimir Putin escalated his war in Ukraine by declaring a partial military mobilization (i.e., limited conscription). The “partial” element of the declaration was somewhat of a misnomer – anyone may receive summons to the front lines. Although the Russian government stated that all the 300,000 drafted Russians would have previous military experience, this does not appear to have occurred. Reports abound of unprepared Russians receiving draft notices, including the old and infirm. Even a man in a wheelchair received a draft notice. The draft has been so poorly handled that Putin himself, who almost never acknowledges problems in his government, admitted that mistakes were made.

Facing the prospect of lining up against a motivated and successful Ukrainian army, hundreds of thousands of Russians are heading for the exits. Flights out of Russia immediately sold out. Lines to cross the border into Georgia and Kazakhstan, which offer visa-free entry to Russians, stretched for dozens of kilometers. At least 200,000 Russians fled the country following the announcement of the draft.

These events present Western countries with a choice: should we let Russians in or not? European governments have expressed different views, partially rooted in their perception of the potential risks and rewards of an open-door policy, as well as historical experiences vis-à-vis Russia. Germany seems keen to accept Russians fleeing the draft. Its Justice Minister tweeted that any Russian who “hates Putin’s way and loves liberal democracy” is welcome. France seems broadly aligned with Germany, although the government has been less forthcoming about its policy intentions.

The situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban is increasingly dire. Lacking access to foreign currency (and a government that knows how to run a country), Afghanistan’s economy has completely collapsed. Few Afghans are getting enough to eat, with estimates of food insecurity reaching as high as 95% of the population. The country’s women have suffered most. Secondary education for girls has been effectively banned, and women are forced to cover from head-to-toe and travel with a male chaperone. In early 2022, 94% of Afghans considered themselves to be suffering, a chilling statistic to say the least. Without a doubt, the current situation in Afghanistan is one of the greatest humanitarian and human rights disasters in the world today.

Many moral implications of these facts are obvious. No doubt, people feel an obligation to help the poor and starving. This is reflected in the donations that have flowed to the country. About $1.8 billion was pledged in 2021. For 2022, the United Nations made its largest ever call for donations for a single country: $4.4 billion. Although only about $2.4 billion of this sum has been committed by (overwhelmingly Western) donors, this still represents an enormous humanitarian contribution from the international community.

Inflation. Inflation. Inflation. It’s high, persistent, and global. And everyone is talking about it. Politicians in the European Union are implementing massive public spending programs to offset skyrocketing energy costs, which are increasing the price of almost everything. In Canada, newly-selected Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre made inflation a central plank of his leadership campaign, which clearly resonated with the Conservative membership. In the U.S., where prices across almost all classes of goods continue to rise rapidly, data suggests that 52% of Americans view inflation as the most important issue facing the country.

Inflation is hated across the political spectrum. In the United States, although Republicans are comparatively more concerned about rising prices, it also tops the list of concerns for Democrats, beating out gun violence, political extremism/polarization, and climate change by significant margins. In a country where the two political parties can’t agree on much, they have managed to come together on this issue. In Canada, polling suggests that inflation is a top-tier political concern of the public, alongside the political mainstays healthcare, the economy, and the environment.

Last week, I opened a discussion on harm reduction policies for drug users. Despite their effectiveness at reducing incidents of disease and death, many harm reduction programs, such as needle exchanges or safe supply to users, remain controversial and underutilized.

Although supporters of harm reduction often portray opponents as lacking in empathy or critical thinking, values analysis exposes a far more complicated moral environment. Opponents of harm reduction often view drugs as inherently dirty and corrupting, so any effort by the government to facilitate drug use would seem morally wrong, even if such efforts would ultimately save lives. As well, drug decriminalization could be viewed as a surrender, with the government basically admitting to its own impotence in battling drug use. But if drugs are inherently bad, then this approach could be viewed as a dereliction of duty.

In recent years, drug policies have begun to shift dramatically in many countries. After decades of viewing drug users as criminals, governments have started to implement more measures focused on harm reduction. In selecting these policies, governments accept that drugs are never going to be eliminated, so it is best to give up the quixotic fight and make drug use as safe as possible.

Approaches to harm reduction are varied. Minor steps include the creation of needle exchanges, sites where drug users can receive sterilized equipment, and Good Samaritan Laws, legislation that protects individuals present at the scene of an overdose from arrest or prosecution. Perhaps the most widely discussed and studied approach to harm reduction is the creation of safe consumption sites, where users can take drugs in a supervised environment without fear of legal prosecution. Canada has long been a leader in this space. Insite, North America’s first legal supervised consumption site, opened in 2003 in Vancouver, and there are currently 37 similar facilities across the country.

Fearing the erosion of the French language in the province of Quebec, the right-leaning government of François Legault passed Bill 96 on May 24, 2022, which was the culmination of months of public debate over the Bill’s reach and scope. The government claims that Bill 96 would protect the use of French in the public sphere, while opponents charge that it would infringe on the rights of linguistic minorities, such as anglophones and Indigenous communities. Regardless of the Bill’s impacts, it is broadly popular in Quebec: 62% of residents support the law, with 38% opposing. No doubt, François Legault’s ability to pass popular and far-reaching reforms like Bill 96 helps his electoral prospects; he appears to be heading to another safe majority government in elections scheduled for October.

The dispute over Bill 96 is more than a polite disagreement about policy, however. Moral values permeate the debate, most visible on the extremes. Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne called it a “hideous new language law” and claimed that the Bill challenges whether or not Canadians are “a genuine political community, with moral obligations to one another”. On the other end of the spectrum, the leader of the Parti Quebecois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, opposed the law because it didn’t go far enough in protecting the French language. He called the firm protection of the French language a “moral duty” and argued that the government of Quebec was too soft. Interestingly, both Andrew Coyne and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon believe their causes to be morally right, despite disagreeing about seemingly every aspect of this debate. This suggests a difference in underlying values rather than in policy preferences, and when emotions run hot, we should use values analysis to better understand the issue.

If you haven’t heard, Elon Musk intends to buy Twitter and unlock its potential as “the platform for free speech around the globe.” As Musk tells it, an overbearing and biased board of directors at the social media site has stifled conversation and unfairly targeted conservatives. Under his private ownership, such censorship would be relaxed – even former President Donald Trump would be allowed to return.

No doubt, Elon Musk believes in his cause, and he has described it in terms of a moral crusade. In his letter to the board of directors announcing his intention to purchase the company, Musk called free speech a “societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” To him, Twitter’s ban of former President Trump was “morally wrong and flat-out stupid”, as it undermined trust in the platform and restricted speech.

With the Great Recession, the European Debt Crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the past fifteen years have been remarkably difficult for the European Union. In early 2022, the next major challenge emerged: the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the resulting refugee crisis. As of writing, there are currently more than five million Ukrainian refugees in neighbouring European countries. An additional 6.5 million are displaced within Ukraine itself, and as the war progresses, it is possible the situation will worsen, as more and more people cross international borders to find safety. Most deeply affected will be those countries that border Ukraine to the west: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.

Prior to the invasion, you would have been forgiven for assuming that Eastern European countries would resist a major influx of asylum seekers. After all, in 2015, when the EU was struggling to manage a huge wave of refugees (arriving from primarily Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan), these four countries in particular were hesitant to open their borders. The Polish government, magnanimously, offered to accept just 100 Syrian refugees between 2016 and 2020, hardly an outpouring of support. Not to be outdone, Slovakia offered to take 200, but they had to be Christian, and Romania was willing to accept a few thousand. Hungary’s nationalist government was particularly strict, building a 523 kilometre-long fence to keep migrants out and forcibly removing more than 71,000 asylum seekers who made it into the country anyway. With this historical record, these four countries may have been expected to show a similar unwillingness to grant Ukrainians asylum in 2022.