I had the opportunity to hear Derek Burney speak yesterday. Mr. Burney is originally from Thunder Bay (Fort William to be precise) and went on to a distinguished public service career as a diplomat as well as chief of staff to Prime Minister Mulroney, president and CEO of CAE Inc, chairman and CEO of Bell Canada International Inc. and ambassador to the United States. Growing up in Thunder Bay and attending the same high school as he once did, Mr. Burney was a positive example often pointed out by my high school teachers of how one could go on to make a difference.
Derek Burney is currently the Chancellor of Lakehead University and was on campus to launch his latest book Brave New Canada: Meeting the Challenge of a Changing World. Co-authored with Dr. Fen Osler Hampson, Brave New Canada argues that a successful foreign policy cannot be crafted by looking at the world in the rear-view mirror. It then offers a number of prescriptions for both the public and private sectors.
What I got from his talk (have not read the book yet) is that Canada needs to move from a largely passive role in international affairs – one whose economy has largely ridden on the coat tails of the American market –to one driven more by self-interest and aggressive pursuit of opportunities elsewhere. A key message was the need to diversify Canada’s trade basket away from reliance on trade with the United States given the growth in other parts of the world as well as the increasingly difficulties in dealing with a United States that does not appear to be as open as it once was. In this respect, Europe and the Asia-Pacific are areas needing a more self-interested and assertive Canadian trade presence. As Burney noted, this does sound a lot like the Third Option of the Trudeau era.
His point is a good one but of course implementation will be a challenge. Canada was once dependent on the British market for most of its trade and during the course of the twentieth century this shifted to the United States. While the reliance on the US market has eroded in the recent decade, it is still over 70 percent. The United States is a extremely convenient market given its close proximity. Canada has always had extremely comfortable trade relationships with its two historic major trade partners – given the shared language and cultural roots. In some respects, Canada has never had to work that hard to sell its wares.
Expanding in Asia and Europe will require a lot more work and Mr. Burney did make a comment about the perception abroad in some quarters that Canadians were blessed with every natural resource and yet were soft and not assertive and perhaps did not deserve their bounty. At the same time, it is going to be a challenge to grow our trade in new markets. As the adage goes, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. The only way Canada will be weaned away from trade primarily with the United States will be if the US pushes us away with even more protectionism.
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Posted by: Frank Millihall | October 03, 2014 at 06:45 AM