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Video Interview
Note: The opinions presented are not necessarily those of the Government of Canada.
(Video players are available here: QuickTime | Windows Media)
Transcript:
On Canada House
My name is Debra Davis; I am managing director of a public affairs organization, Canadians in Europe—U.K. chapter. I came to London seven years ago, appointed as the counsellor of public affairs for the Canadian High Commission.
I believe that Canada House is still a centrepiece for Canada in the U.K. First of all, the location is surpassed by none. I think that it is a beautiful building and represents a beautiful opportunity. Since it was reopened in 1998 there is a vast opportunity to use this building as a platform to showcase our excellence in industry, in business, in academia. There’s a beautiful 52-seat cinema. We started a Canada cine-club, and once a month there is a full house enjoying the best of Canadian cinema. It is led by a group of volunteers but very much supported by the Canadian High Commission.
I remember, in the first four years that I was working here we used to have open days once a year. It was part of a larger tourist opportunity in London where very significant buildings were open to the public. Even though Canada House is a public building, not everyone knew that, and they never came to see what we had in our galleries, for instance. So on open house day we would have thousands of people come in to find out what was in this building. We could tell them a bit about Canadian heritage in the U.K., which is significant.
Keeping Canadians connected
My background is in public affairs and communications. I have done some work for clients such as an Arab businesswomen’s organization, which I find most interesting, including a conference that I just organized at the League of Arab States in Cairo. I also do some work for European women, setting up an organization to profile women of excellence. And most importantly, I am managing director of Canadians in Europe in the U.K.
Canadians in Europe is a public affairs organization. It was launched in 1999, in Paris. In November 2001 we had our first event, with Robert Mundell, who is one of the leading Canadian economists. He’s at Columbia University and considered one of the fathers of the euro.
We have a chapter in Brussels, so there are three chapters altogether—in London, Paris and Brussels. I run about 10-12 events a year, bringing in leading Canadian speakers as well as profiling Canadians who are working and living in Europe and the U.K. We recently had Jennifer Welsh, a very successful event where she talked about Canada’s foreign policy and being at home in the world.
We publish a quarterly magazine. My whole mission is to profile leading speakers and Canadians that are doing really interesting things in the U.K. It’s a bit of both the Canadians that “come in” and the Canadians that live and work here.
I think that it is really important to keep Canadians abroad connected. There are two types of people who are here. There are a lot of transients: people that are here on postings, who are here for four years, students that are here for a year or two doing post-graduate work at one of the leading universities, the London School of Economics, Oxford or Cambridge, a number of other universities. So you get the transients, who are in and out, and you want to keep them connected to Canadian issues because you want them to keep current. Then there are the other types of Canadians, who have been here for a longer term—they have been here for 15 or 20 years. They are a little bit out of touch but they are kind of interested in knowing what is going on at home. It’s a source of strength when you get together with like-minded people, and the debate is always exhilarating. There is a niche market for public affairs discussions, and I think that’s what we provide them, in spades.
We Canadians are noted so much because we are nice. I think that they like our level of tolerance, our interest in diversity, our understanding of issues like fiscal federalism, equalization and helping have-not provinces. I think as a liberal democracy, you couldn’t get a better place than Canada. People really recognize us for those kinds of values. As Jennifer Welsh says, “it’s not a middle power, it’s a model power”—we are a good example. I think that there are a lot of Canadians who believe that “in their bones” and practise this in their everyday lives.
What is really important is that when you have Canadians who are abroad, whether they are in the U.K., Europe or the United States, we have a vast outreach. We have good jobs in all sorts of different sectors of society and it’s not just in London—there are a lot of different clubs and organizations outside of London. So if we are kept up-to-date with issues, then our reach is actually quite vast. It is estimated that there are 200,000 Canadians in the U.K. and over 700,000 Canadians in the United States. Don’t tell me that that can’t make an impact, and I think it does.
The other thing that I think is really important, and people in Canada might forget, is that we never left Canada—the borders just changed, and we like to still make an impact. So when we are talking about healthcare policy in the U.K. and the problems of health care, we generally relate it back to what is going on in Canada. We want to stay connected to Canada. If we see something elsewhere that is done differently, we want to be able to tell Canadians, “but I’ve seen it better elsewhere.”
It’s a two-way communication. It’s not just us keeping Canadians connected, but it’s also keeping Canada connected to real Canadians that have moved abroad.
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On Canada House 