Canadian culture an important pillar of Canada’s foreign affairs policy: Graham

Foreign Affairs minister Bill Graham noted that projecting Canadian values and culture is an important third pillar of the country's foreign policy in a speech given on March 22. Speaking to representatives of Canadian arts organizations at the Canadian Arts Summit in Banff, the minister also noted that Canadian artists have a role to contribute to his department's ongoing Dialogue on Foreign Policy. The initiative launched in January involves public consultation, town hall meetings, written submissions and expert round tables on where Canada's foreign policy should be heading. Below is an excerpt from his speech. The promotion of Canadian culture abroad is something I consider an important dimension in my current portfolio of responsibilities...It is particularly suitable to be addressing you this year, in light of the ongoing public consultations of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) called A Dialogue on Foreign Policy. …It might strike you, as it has me in recent months, that these are rather busy and complicated times in which to be launching public consultations on long-term directions in foreign policy. …One of my responsibilities as minister of Foreign Affairs, then, is to ensure that Canada's foreign policy responds to present day requirements, that it reflects our values, and that it serves our interests in a changing world. To do this well we must consult with Canadians, in order to draw on the best resources our society has to offer…As a way of eliciting citizens' views, I've released a dialogue paper laying out an overview of recent global changes and current challenges within major areas of our foreign policy. …I would like to take the opportunity today to talk in a bit more detail about what the third pillar of Canada's foreign policy is about. ..0ur 1995 government statement called Canada in the World...addressed our foreign policy goals within three themes, or pillars: first, protecting our security; second, promoting our prosperity; and third, projecting Canadian values and culture. For most of the audiences I address, the third pillar needs considerably more explanation and often justification than the other two. …At its most elementary and practical level, the place of culture in Canada's foreign policy can also be explained in simple and instrumental terms: by promoting Canadian arts abroad, we create a market for our cultural industries that directly contributes to Canadian economic prosperity, and indirectly creates an attractive Canadian "brand" for other commercial fields as well. While all of this is true, in fact the importance of the third pillar cannot be fully captured in such terms alone. …Since the end of the Cold War, it has become increasingly apparent that countries' power to influence others is exercised not just through military and economic might, but also through the attractiveness of their culture, their ideas and the example they set. ...As Joseph Nye has argued in his excellent book The Paradox of American Power, a country may also obtain the outcomes it wants by making other countries want to follow it through the power of its ideas - in other words, its cultural influence. This is the idea of soft power, and it is a part of the rationale for the third pillar of Canada's foreign policy. …I'd like to shift to a broader set of reflections about the place of the third pillar within Canada's foreign policy, and the increasing importance it may come to have at this point in our country's history. In thinking about our foreign policy, it might be said that the third pillar is the raison d'etre of the other two pillars, since its components define who we are and what we consider most important in the international arena. …A final reflection I'd like to share with you has to do with my own sense that this may be a time when the third pillar of our foreign policy becomes particularly important for Canadians. In many ways, this is a particularly strong moment in terms of the resources we have to draw on. Recent years have seen remarkable international recognition for Canadian writers, musicians and filmmakers, which is drawing attention to the whole spectrum of our cultural riches.

Canadian culture an important pillar of Canada’s foreign affairs policy: Graham

News | 03/27/2003 5:00 am EST

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