MANILA, Philippines — Cheerleading for Canada’s nascent multilateral trade deal with the 28 countries and 500 million citizens of the European Union must be tempered by the fact that the Old World’s economic future is grim while the market in the Pacific region is 10 times larger and the economies here are growing exponentially.
As Der Spiegel, the German weekly, bluntly reasoned in an essay last week, if Europe “persist(s) in its current lethargy” it risks becoming no more than “a cultural amusement park that will be visited and admired by the winners of globalization as something of a well-preserved museum.”
To be one of those global winners and not become part of a Trans-Atlantic museum, Canada must obviously do what business it can with a fading Europe. But nostalgia for comfortable trading patterns of a bygone era must not prevent Ottawa from establishing a new global identity by maintaining a laser focus on the Pacific region. Even impoverished economic backwaters such as the Philippines have been posting phenomenal growth rates of seven per cent and more that mock the negative growth rates of some European countries.
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]Next up for Canada’s trade negotiators is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Harper government was shockingly late getting to the TPP table, only joining these talks last year. But the negotiations to reduce trade barriers and establish fairer trade rules, which involve 12 nations in Asia and the Americas, although not China, are suddenly in the home stretch. Whenever the TPP is concluded, either a meeting of trade ministers in Singapore beginning Dec. 7 or, more likely, sometime early in the New Year, it will be a sweeter victory for Canada than CETA.
The $15.1 billion Chinese deal for Calgary-based Nexen Inc. and the $5 billion Malaysian takeover of Calgary-based Progress Energy Corp. — which will apparently come with an additional $30 billion investment in infrastructure — has already gone some way toward establishing Canada’s Pacific identity. But there is so much more aside from selling low hanging fruit such oil and natural gas from Alberta and British Columbia that Canada must do if it is to prove its commitment to Asia and nab a greater share of the action. If not, it could be pushed aside by countries not endowed with such phenomenal natural resources, but which have a comprehensive plan to capitalize on their agriculture and burgeoning high-tech fields such as communications and cyber security.
China might not be too impressed but most other Asian nations would welcome Canada doing a modest military pivot, transferring a couple of warships and surveillance aircraft to Vancouver Island from the east coast, where they are relics of Canada’s ever more distant connection to the NATO alliance. Such shifts would dovetail with Canada becoming more involved in American and Australian plans to strengthen military ties with their Asian allies.
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]Canada must also do far better to get its Asian skill sets right. There have been great strides recently to encourage Asian students to study in Canada rather than in the U.S., Australia and Britain. But much more must be done or Canada will be left behind.
At the same time, Ottawa and the provinces must push much harder to get Canadian kids to learn Asian languages. Language departments and university faculties that remain largely euro-centric should be overhauled and classes in language and culture should be heavily promoted in primary and secondary schools. Moreover, far more Canadian students should be offered serious incentives to study in Asia.
The trade agreement that Canada has made with the EU represents what is likely to be the last substantive negotiation on anything involving these two old partners. To avoid the “Europe-is-becoming-a-museum scenario,” Canada has to get Asia right, while not neglecting new opportunities in Latin America and Africa. To create a Pacific identity Canada has to be much bolder and much more creative.
