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<html> <head> <meta name="Generator" content="Corel WordPerfect 8"> <title></title> </head> <body text="#000000" link="#0000ff" vlink="#551a8b" alink="#ff0000" bgcolor="#c0c0c0"> 2004/13 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE BILL GRAHAM, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, TO THE WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL SAN FRANCISCO, California February 20, 2004 I consider it a great privilege to be invited to speak at this Council, which has such a long tradition of active participation in foreign affairs. It's also a great pleasure, of course, to be here in this city, which not only has your spectacular beauty to appreciate but also, from the perspective of this visitor, a truly spectacular lack of snow and cold. Of course I'm not the only Canadian to find this area so appealing. Roughly 350,000 of my fellow citizens are living in the Bay Area. And over a thousand of them are proud members of the Digital Moose Lounge, which, I have learned, is not a hip new bar but a social and business networking organization for Canadian expatriates in the high-tech industry. Furthermore, as some you may know, many of the best animators in Bay Area animation houses are graduates of Sheridan College, near my city of Toronto. My country's performing artists are also well acquainted with the attractions of this area on the cultural front. I've heard that this city has many fans of the wonderful Cirque du Soleil; and I can highly recommend to you the Canadian show Cavalia, an amazing equestrian performance that has its local premiere tonight, in fact. Your invitation to speak here was particularly welcome in light of the fact that it's the first chance I've had to meet with an American audience since Canada's new Prime Minister, Paul Martin, took office in December. I'd like to talk today about two things. The first is a Canadian perspective on the nature of the relationship between our two countries, and what we in Canada want to do to strengthen it. The second is a related, but less often talked about issue: how our two nations can strengthen the alliance that unites us in North America, by working together in the pursuit of goals and interests that we share in the wider global arena. I start with the belief that our alliance is a special one, one that has established new standards for the relations between states. Indeed, the ties that join our two countries run through almost every aspect of our citizens' lives. Geography dictates our closeness. Through NORAD, our countries are partners in the defence of North America. Our civilian authorities, our police and others work closely together on our security, not only from terrorism, but also from crime and other threats to our populations. We are increasingly interdependent in matters of energy. Natural gas and petroleum products flow back and forth across our borders, as does electricity. And as last summer's electrical collapse taught those of us in the northeastern area, this mutual dependence carries with it substantial risks that can be avoided only if we develop our relationship to manage that energy interdependence together. Our two countries also act as joint stewards of our air, water and wildlife, all of which cross our border along with millions of our fellow citizens. Our people marry one another, attend each other's universities, vacation in each other's countries, play on the same sports teams and entertain one another as actors, musicians and authors. We share bedrock commitments to many of the same values. Unlike many other countries, Canada and the United States appreciate and treasure the amazingly diverse societies in which we live. We both embrace democracy, good governance and respect for human rights. This means that, naturally, we want much the same things for our own societies, and we share a common vision of a world in which we can help to bring those benefits of open and democratic societies to others. When we look at our economic relationship, we clearly are each other's most important trading partners. With over $1.4 billion worth of goods and services traded across the Canada-U.S. border every day, ours is the largest trading relationship that has ever existed between two countries. We in Canada are keenly aware of your importance as a market for us. However, Americans often don't realize that we are your most important market, or that the United States sells more than $280 billion worth of goods and services to Canada each year. This means we absorb a quarter of all U.S. exports, more than any other country. Indeed, the U.S. sells more to Canada than to the entire European Union. To put these facts in a local perspective, California is one of 39 American states that has Canada as its number one export destination. Your state exported $8.1 billion to Canada in 2002, with high-tech constituting the largest sector of these exports. In turn, California bought $15.2 billion of goods from Canada in 2002, with over half of that being auto imports. Added to this is a great deal of cross-border investment, a fact that is brought home to me regularly when I travel through the United States, and am told by U.S. business people about the plants they own around Toronto or elsewhere in the country, or by Canadians who tell me about their high-tech investments here in the Bay Area. The complexity of all these economic, political and social elements points to some of the places we should look when thinking about how to improve the Canada-U.S. relationship. Prime Minister Martin has made it a top priority to strengthen dialogue and cooperation across the border in order to expand the breadth and depth of our ties with the U.S. I'd like to give you an overview of some of the many fronts on which this goal is now being pursued. To begin, there's a new relaxed tone in the relationship between the leaders of our two countries. At their first meeting in Monterrey, the Prime Minister and President Bush established an excellent rapport, and expressed renewed determination both to deal with bilateral issues that presently complicate our relationship, such as BSE or softwood lumber, and to examine how we can better work together on common problems. That new atmosphere is reflected within Canada by a determination to see our relations with your country managed through new levels of cooperation and coordination inside our government. Prime Minister Martin has created a new Cabinet Committee charged with that mandate, and a newly appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Canada-U.S. relations will be consulting widely to find ways in which not only the federal but also provincial and territorial governments can cooperate more closely on Canada-U.S. issues. This represents a long-overdue recognition of the fact that Canada-U.S. relations are a huge priority for our country at all levels of government. The government is also looking at ways to help Canadian parliamentarians develop closer links with their counterparts in the U.S. Congress, in order to improve our outreach in both Washington and Congressional districts. The U.S.-Canada Parliamentary Association is already one of the most successful in the world, and extending the ties it creates more deeply and broadly among our two countries' lawmakers is certain to produce a wealth of personal connections and initiatives that would not otherwise come about. Through our Enhanced Representation Initiative, Canada's diplomatic and trade presence will be substantially expanded across the U.S. Starting from the 15 offices we now have, there will eventually be 22 consulates and consulates general. New offices will be located mostly in the south and southwestern parts of the country, where much economic and political power has shifted in recent decades. I'm particularly pleased to note that next year we'll be upgrading our San Francisco consulate to the level of a consulate general, in recognition of the enormous importance of this region to Canada. Our office here will roughly triple in size, and we'll be able to issue visas and passports here instead of sending people to Los Angeles. My confidence in predicting that the Bay Area will only continue to grow in importance to Canada in coming years is based on more than just the thriving sectors of our trade and investment here. More generally, Canada has undergone an economic renaissance in the past decade, and that means that our outreach to your country as a whole will continue to expand. Canada has recorded six consecutive budget surpluses, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development projected us to be the only G7 country with a surplus for 2003. These ongoing surpluses have enabled us to reduce our debt by more than $47 billion since we first balanced the budget in 1997-98. Our debt-to-GDP ratio has seen a greater improvement than any other G7 nation, and by next year will be second only to that of Britain. With our GDP per capita growing by 20 percent between 1996 and 2002, sound fiscal management has allowed us to withstand last year's shocks of SARS, the BSE crisis, a massive blackout and a series of huge forest fires. Finally, this week we welcomed the results of the 2004 KPMG Competitive Alternatives international business cost study that, for the fifth year in a row, ranked Canada as the lowest-cost G7 country in which to do business. So in short, Canada is moving forward with substantial economic strength these days. We are looking forward to being an increasingly high-profile economic and investment partner to your country and the Bay Area in the years to come. While economic interdependence and shared prosperity are fundamental characteristics of our relationship, equally important is our dependence on one another for the security of our continent. A well-known Canadian General, Charles Foulkes, put it this way: "Canada is physically joined to the United States just like the Siamese twins. If one of the twins gets hurt the other one suffers. It is just as impossible to separate the defence of Canada from that of the United States as it would be to separate Siamese twins and expect them to survive." Since the terrible events of September 11, our countries' partnership has deepened through our joint response to the threat of terrorism. Canada is the United States' greatest natural ally in this fight. On the bilateral front, our security relationship is expanding into new areas, such as a binational planning group looking at ways of coordinating our countries' responses not only to terrorist attacks but also to national disasters and other transborder threats. Through the 32-point Smart Border plan that we've agreed to, we're finding ways of improving the efficient flow of people and goods between our two countries, consistent with our new security needs. That, by the way, is a model that many other countries are beginning to look to. As I mentioned earlier, Canada and the U.S. have a long tradition of defending our shared continent against attack through NORAD. We're currently building on this security partnership through the letters we exchanged last month concerning upcoming discussions about cooperation on ballistic missile defence. By setting out a clear path for negotiations, these letters allow Canada to have access to information that we will need to make a decision on whether we will participate in the missile defence of North America. This is a project in which we will participate if we can be assured that it will contribute to our joint security--but only if it is also consistent with Canada's important goals of advancing global disarmament, and is not a program destined to lead to the weaponization of space. I specify these qualifications because I think it is important to recognize that acts that we take together in North America can have an impact on global issues of concern to us both. Indeed, one area we need to explore further is the potential that our partnership in North America provides in pursuing wider global goals outside our continent. It is clear that Canada and the United States play very different roles in the global arena, but we often work together, as few other nations can, toward shared goals that neither of us can reach alone. Averell Harriman spoke of this idea some decades ago, when he said, "I place great emphasis on the importance of close cooperation between Canada and the United States. Our point of view is much the same, unhandicapped by prejudices and hatreds. Our task of closer cooperation is not as difficult as in other parts of the world: a leadership in international cooperation should come from us." That sentiment inspired the Prime Minister and the President at the breakfast in Monterrey that I spoke of earlier. They both suggested that Secretary Powell and I explore ways in which we could make common cause together in the international arena. This we are already doing in the case of Haiti, where we have a complete identity of views. Mr. Powell and I are committed to looking for other areas where our efforts can complement one another. We in Canada recognize the awesome responsibilities of the world's unique superpower to provide the leadership, resources and force when necessary to bring about a better global community. Americans, in turn, benefit from the fact that to your north there is a secure border; a friendly nation from which no threat has come since 1815; an ally who shares your bedrock values and goals, but who often pursues them in ways that a superpower cannot. And an ally who is able to promote these causes by speaking with an independent and widely credible voice on the world stage. As important as our partnership is, then, in advancing our common interests on this continent, it is equally important for us to advance our goals in the world at large. I believe that by recognizing what we share and how we can complement one another, our two countries can collaborate to make a more secure and prosperous global community. Overseas, we join with you in trying to build stable societies where terrorists once found refuge. Over 6,000 Canadian Forces fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan immediately after September 11. Today there are some 1,900 Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan leading the International Security Assistance Force under NATO's mandate to eliminate terrorists and support the new Afghanistan Administration. Their efforts are reinforced by our aid program that seeks to restore and improve Afghan society. This year, Afghanistan will be Canada's single largest country aid recipient, and that is because we are committed, with you and our European allies, to ensuring that Afghanistan will no longer be a threat to our societies, whether in the form of terrorism or the scourge of drugs. For a long time, Canada shared concerns with the United States about the potential threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We supported the decision to take matters to the United Nations. Through the debates that followed, we supported U.S. efforts to obtain strong language in Resolution 1441, but we maintained that UN engagement was essential, since disarming Iraq by force would require the greatest possible international legitimacy. When that was not possible, we believed that it was in Canada's interest, and in the interest of supporting the multilateral system that is so essential to our peace and security, that we should not join the coalition in the war in Iraq. But that was then. Now it is in everyone's interest for Iraq to become a peaceful and stable democracy. For that reason, Canada has pledged nearly $300 million toward reconstruction. We have sent police trainers into Jordan to train Iraqi police officers there, and we will provide further aid in governance, federalism, police and corrections reform inside Iraq, when local conditions permit. Canadians recognize, then, that Canadian and American security and prosperity are bound together, not just here in North America but also overseas. That said, we can often reinforce one another by taking different approaches toward those shared goals. And different approaches are inevitable by virtue of our history and our international perspectives. Canada's outlook is shaped by our history as country that began as a bilingual nation that combined French, English and Aboriginal peoples, and then added immigrants from every part of the globe. Our distinctive social fabric underpins our citizens' support for domestic policies that sometimes differ from your own, such as extensive gun controls, a national, universally accessible medicare system, restrictions on campaign financing, and family benefits, including a government-funded year-long maternity leave. Because our countries have divergent social attitudes and some diverging interests, sometimes we adopt different ways of proceeding in global affairs. Our different approach reflects the fact that Canadians tend to be highly aware of our interdependence with the rest of the world and the need to pursue our interests in concert with other nations. We recognize that the fight against terrorism is critically important to our joint security. But Canadians also believe that we cannot afford to let that issue dominate our vision to the exclusion of other global crises, such as poverty, disease, inequities in the global economy and environmental damage to lands and livelihoods. These issues must concern us too, not least because promoting our security here requires having friends and allies abroad who recognize our concerns about their urgent needs. Canadians also believe that there is no way of tackling any of these intertwined global issues except by working together with other countries, since these are problems that no country, not even a coalition of countries, can solve on its own. Establishing the conditions for their resolution requires partnerships with other countries that, in turn, require a respect for their perspectives as well. This view has guided my country in promoting the establishment of NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, as we seek to work with Africans to alleviate poverty and conditions of governance in their countries. And I am proud to say that Canada recently became the first country in the world to introduce legislation that will permit us to export affordable medicines to impoverished countries to address epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We also believe that to resolve these global problems, effective multilateral institutions must be established to coordinate the efforts of those states that need to address them, a message that no doubt resonates in the city where the United Nations was founded 60 years ago. Since World War II, Canada has worked with other countries to construct an international system that brings common benefits by imposing rules and obligations on all, and that allows us to accomplish by working together what none of us could achieve by ourselves. We are often able to take a leading role in multilateral forums because we are not embroiled in regional rivalries, and we do not have the burden of a colonial past; hence, we are generally respected as a country that strives to advance the common interest. Canada's extensive memberships in global networks give us scope for efforts on many levels. For instance, our history and commitment to the French language make us a member of La Francophonie, and we promote the values of democracy, human rights and good governance among the developing countries that share with us the use of the French language. Amid current global tensions, it is particularly valuable to have this forum for dialogue with moderate Muslim countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Albania. But while we are committed to multilateralism, we in Canada also know full well that existing multilateral institutions are not all that they should be, and that reform is urgently needed. It is crucial to improve the United Nations, particularly the composition and functioning of the Security Council, however complicated obstacles to this reform may be. We will follow with interest the work of the committee established to advise the Secretary-General in this respect. Over the next year, Canada's capacity to act in pursuit of our international goals will be defined and strengthened by an international policy review that the Prime Minister has asked me to lead. It's been 10 years since our last major review, and in that decade much has changed in terms of the global environment and the complexity of our country's interactions with the United States and with other countries. Global interdependence has brought a host of problems that transcend national boundaries; and within national boundaries, it also means that almost all branches of a federal government now have a substantial international component to their portfolios. For all of these reasons, Prime Minister Martin has asked us to undertake a comprehensive review and modernization of the way we act in the world outside our borders. The larger goal of the review is to find ways in which our country's international leadership and initiative can be developed to make us a catalyst in efforts to strengthen global governance, and advance equitable growth, social development and international security. Complementing this effort, the Prime Minister has also defined as a priority of the review ways of reinforcing Canadian interests in building a strong Canada-U.S. partnership in North America and globally. Many of the initiatives I've already mentioned are part of this latter effort to strengthen our partnership with the U.S. So too will be plans for strengthening multilateral institutions and developing new ones better suited to solving today's global problems. So too will be our efforts to reset the rules of the global economic game in a way that is more inclusive, and better reflects the realities of global interdependence. And so too will be the plans we develop to build a targeted Canadian capacity for counterterrorism and for assisting failed and failing states. In all of these ways, a Canada that is stronger in our capacities and more focused in our international goals is one that will be a more valuable ally and partner of the United States. Canada's distinctive experience and independent perspective complement the U.S. as you exercise your enormous responsibilities in the world. And where our governments and citizens disagree about how to pursue our shared aims, our relationship is strong enough to withstand frank discussion of these differences. That point was captured perfectly, I think, by U.S. General Norstad in 1959, when he said, "If stones are sometimes thrown across this friendly border, and they are, perhaps it is a good thing. It keeps us aware of one another, compels us from time to time to reassess the importance of our relationship, to appreciate how much we mean to one another." In that spirit, I believe that we in Canada are a better ally, a truer friend, when we hold fast to our convictions and advocate them with your country rather than starting from a premise that there is no room for divergent views between us. Honouring our countries' common values in building security and prosperity at home and abroad is something we can and will do while advancing within each of our countries those social, cultural and economic goals that give us our unique identities. I can assure you that Canada will continue working with your country in the months and years ahead, so we can build safer and stronger societies here in North America, and, to our mutual benefit, in the greater world beyond. Thank you. </body> </html>

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