A Conversation on Canada-Asia Relations
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400407 |
| Subject Matter | Canada and Asia |
A conversation on
Canada-Asia relations
| International Journal | Autumn 2009 | 953 |
On 30 March 2009, the president and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation
of Canada, Yuen Pau Woo, met with fou r di stinguished Canadians for a
conversation on Canada-Asia relations. The panel consisted of the
Honourable Jack Austin, retired senator and president of the Canada China
Business Cou ncil (1 993-2000); Donald Campbell, former ambassador to
Japan (1993-97) and deputy minister of foreign affairs and international trade
(1997-2000); the Right Honourable Joe Clark, Canada’s 16th prime minister;
and Wendy Dobson, director of the Institute for International Business at
the University of Toronto and former associate deputy minister of finance.
Also present were Jill Price, executive director of the Asia Pacific Foundation
and Ryan Touhey, co-guest editor of this issue of
International Journal
.
Woo: Thank you for agreeing to be part of this distinguished panel. I’d like
to hear your reflections on Canada-Asia relations in the last 25 years, as well
as your views on the current situation and the challenges that lie ahead. Let
me begin with a broad-brush question: how would you characterize the
Canada-Asia relationship in the last quarter century?
Dobson: When we talk about the last 25 years, there’s been some activity,but
one of the remarkable features in Canada is the absence of continued high-
level discussion about our relationship with Asia.
Campbell: The role of government has not been coherent or strategic. The
role of business has been spotty and unsustained. The role of media has been
zero. The role of academia has been specialized. The role of civil society has
| A conversation on Canada-Asia relations |
| 954 | Autumn 2009 | International Journal |
not be en sustained either. That’s one of the biggest i ssues we h ave with
Canada and Asia.
Clark: There’s a reason for that. A similar situation applied to Latin America,
Africa and other parts of the world where “old Canada” didn’t come from.
The exception has been Europe where there is a plethora of connections that
loomed very large in our actual behaviour and in our historic memory. Those
natural connections multiplied and intensified in the Canada-US relationship
but that wasn’t the case in any dominant way in Latin America. It was the
case in sporadic ways and on occasional issues in Africa, the Middle East,
and Asia. That’s the larger condemnation of the reach of Canadian foreign
policy.
Woo: And yet, we’ve always described ourselves as a country bounded by the
Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. Ou r motto after all is
“a mari usque ad
mare”—
from sea to sea.
Austin: I don’t put much weight on an imagery created in an imperial
tradition where the British empire circled the world and the sun shone
somewhere on the British empire all the time. The Canadian image of the
Pacific Ocean was as a boundary, not a pathway.
I agree wit h Don’s summary of Canadian attitudes. If you go back
historically and look at Canada’s view of Asia, it was to dismiss the region, at
least in comparison with the Euro-American world. Canada sent a few
missionaries over there. In their view, Asians weren’t really civilized and had
a corrupt economy. Canada’s focus was on domestic nation-building, and its
relationship with the US and the British empire. Asia was of no consequence.
Our problem today is “how do we change the paradigm totally?” Now
Canadians are not negative about Asia; they’re just not aware of their own
self-interest in terms of what’s going on in Asia.
Campbell: I offer a different take on the idea of “sea to sea.” Along with
other Canadians, I saw building the railroad to British Columbia as nation-
building. It’s interesting that the then-chairman of Canadian Pacific Railway
was not at the ceremony of the last spike that has been immortalized in
photographs. Instead he was off in London buying ships to the “Orien t.”
The posts of the CPR at that time indicate that the company and people in
business saw the railway as the “roa d to the Orient” and not as a trans-
Canada project as such. It was the original Pacific gateway.
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