To Know and Be Known
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400412 |
| Author | Greg Donaghy |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Canada and Asia |
Greg Donaghy
To know and be
known
The Department of External Affairs and the creation of the Asia
Pacific Foundation of Canada, 1978-84
| International Journal | Autumn 2009 | 1039 |
In the winter of 1989, five years after his department led the effort to
establish the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APFC), the secretary of state
for external affairs, Joe Clark, met with the foundation’s board of directors in
a small meeting room just off the reception area on the ninth floor of the
Pearson Building in downtown Ottawa. The minister’s comments were
upbeat and supportive. He was “very pleased” with the foundation’s progress.
He understood the frustrations that accompanied its “lonely task” as “a
catalyst for others ,” and the difficult challenges it faced wrestling with an
imprecise mandate and uncertain funding.1In private, however, his advisors
Greg Donaghy is head of the historical section and deputy director, policy research division,
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. He has written extensively on the history
of Canadian diplomacy. The views expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not
represent the views of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade or the
government of Canada.
1 Jean McCloskey, assistant d eputy minister Asia and Pacific branch, to minister’s
office, and attached briefing for the secretary of state for external affairs, 13 February
1989, RG 25, vol. 13003, file 35-4-Asia Pacific foundation, Library and Archives Canada
(LAC).
| Greg Donaghy |
| 1040 | Autumn 2009 | International Journal |
were less kind. “The jury is still out” on the foundation, they wrote. Its staff
“worked in isolation and at cross-purposes” and its programs suffered from
a “lack of urgency and too much dispersed activity.” The foundation’s
progress, they concluded grimly, was “disappointing and has not met
expectations.”2
The department’s disillusionment with the APFC was unfortunate but
understandable, and perhaps even predictable. The foundation concept
emerged as an important initiative of the Asian and Pacific bureau of the
Department of External Affairs in the late 1970s. At a time when the
department was searching for new roles and new ways to relate to Canadians,
the prosp ect of a f oundation that wo uld unite policy makers with a cross-
section of Canadians interested in Asia was novel and exciting. As Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government sought to demonstrate “the reality
that Canada is a Pacific country,” the foundation idea e merged among its
main bureaucratic supporters as a potent symbol of Canada’s future Asian
destiny.3Promoting the foundati on as a vehicl e to underscore Canada’s
maturing political commitment to Asia, they confronted officials and
politicians who continued to define Canada’s stake in Asia in traditiona l
terms as largely, if not exclusively, economic. However satisfying, victory in
this struggle was short-lived. As the department sought the public support it
needed to transform its vision of a foundation into reality, it was forced to
cede some control to its outside partners. Led by John Bruk, the Vancouver
businessman and mining executive recruited to study the foundation’s
feasibility, the department’s collaborators increasingly forced the pace,
naturally determined to create an independent voice on Canada’s relations
with the Asia-Pacific world. The tension that emerged during the final round
of activity leading to the establishment of the APF hinted at the unsatisfactory
partnership to come.
In the spring of 1979, Tom Delworth settled into his new job in the
Department of External Affairs as director general of the bureau of Asian
and Pacific affairs. Like many foreign service officers recruited in the 1950s,
Delworth was more familiar with Asia and Canada’s stake there than most
of the diplomats who had joined the department in the 1930s and 1940s.
2 Ian Dawson, director of evaluation and resource review division, to McCloskey, RG
25, vol. 17761, file 35-4-APF, LAC.
3 Pierre Trudeau, “Canada and the world,” 29 May 1968, Canada, Department of
External Affairs, statements and speeches, no. 68/17.
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