ADAM CHAPNICK
  • Adam Chapnick
    • Contact
    • Biography
    • Employment
    • Education
    • Academic Honours and research grants
    • Professional Administrative Experience
    • Advisory/Editorial Boards
    • Scholarly Assessments
    • Academic Associations
    • Additional Relevant Information
    • Testimonials
  • Teaching & Learning
    • Teaching Philosophy
    • Teaching Experience
    • Supervisions and Thesis Defence Committees >
      • Supervisions
      • Thesis Defence Committees
    • Refereed Conference Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Publications (Teaching & Learning)
    • Teaching Blogs >
      • Virtually Learning
      • The First Sabbatical
      • The Scholarly Edition
    • Other Teaching & Learning Activities
  • Research
    • Articles
    • Book Chapters
    • Books and Edited Collections >
      • Situating Canada in a Changing World: Constructing a Modern and Prosperous Future
      • Canada on the United Nations Security Council
      • The Harper Era in Canadian Foreign Policy
      • Manuel de rédaction à l’usage des militaires
      • John W. Holmes: An Introduction, Special Issue of International Journal
      • Academic Writing for Military Personnel​
      • Canada’s Voice: The Public Life of John Wendell Holmes
      • Canadas of the Mind
      • The Middle Power Project
      • Through Our Eyes: An Alumni History of the University of Toronto Schools, 1960-2000
    • Conference Presentations
    • Newspaper and Newsletter Commentaries
    • Publications in Conference Proceedings
    • Reports
    • Reviews
    • Teaching & Learning Publications
  • Public Speaking
    • Guest Lectures & Invited Speeches
    • Invited Workshops & Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Arrange a Lecture, Workshop, or Presentation
  • Adam Chapnick's Blog

Adam Chapnick's Blog

On Canadian Studies and cultural diplomacy...

10/18/2021

3 Comments

 
The retired Canadian diplomat John Graham wrote a piece for the Hill Times last week recalling that it has been nearly ten years since the Harper government ended Ottawa’s support for the teaching of Canadian Studies overseas.
 
For 38 years, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s (DFAIT’s) “Understanding Canada” program had made about $5 million available annually to university faculty studying Canada from abroad who wanted to travel here for research.
 
In exchange for the financial support, the professors committed to teach Canadian Studies courses at their home institutions for a number of years thereafter.
 
At the time, eliminating funding for what practitioners call cultural diplomacy was supposed to be an easy political decision, especially for a government committed to returning the budget to balance in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
 
Indeed, withdrawing support to haughty university professors who might well have used their trips to produce research critical of the prime minister and his party must have pleased the Conservative base.
 
The only problem was that an internal DFAIT report had concluded that Understanding Canada was growing the Canadian economy by $70 million per year.
 
It turns out that those professors spent a lot of money while they were here. Many also brought their families, and their students, with them.
 
Nonetheless, the Harper government’s majority in the House of Commons assured the program’s demise.
 
Outside of international Canadian Studies departments that had to scramble to survive, Understanding Canada was rarely mentioned again until June 2019, when the Senate’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (chaired, ironically, by a Conservative, A. Raynell Andreychuk) released a 103-page report: “Cultural Diplomacy at the Front Stage of Canada’s Foreign Policy.”
 
The committee recommended that Global Affairs “support the creation of a modernized Canadian Studies program that would contribute to knowledge about Canada in the world.” 

Not much later, pollster and public commentator Nik Nanos assembled a coalition of senior educational, political, and cultural leaders who called on the Liberals to create a modernized version of Understanding Canada at a cost of $8 million - $10 million per year.
 
I take it from John Graham’s Hill Times article that Ottawa remains uninterested.
 
It seems to me that the lack of interest might stem from how the issue has been framed.
 
More specifically, I wonder whether this version of “cultural diplomacy” really belongs in the Global Affairs portfolio.
 
One could also see Understanding Canada as (1) a micro-commercial policy that pays for itself; and (2) a sub-set of Canada’s immigration strategy.
 
Students who take courses in Canadian Studies while living abroad are ideal potential immigrants: (mostly) young, well-educated, functional in at least one of our official languages, and relatively knowledgeable about our society and culture.
 
Their professors are members, or quasi-members, of the Canadian diaspora: “hidden assets” that can and should be leveraged to support the national interest.
 
But since federal departments report up individual, siloed chains of command, and Cabinet ministers are rewarded for fulfilling their own departmental mandates, there are limited opportunities for the type of cross-pollination necessary to recognize the value of this meagre “diplomatic” investment.
 
If Graham and Nanos want to effect change, perhaps they should lobby the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, or the Minister of Immigration.
 
I suspect that a program that could bring in $70 million per year and promote Canada to foreign university students would interest them quite a lot.
 
***
The Canadian Global Affairs Institute explored cultural diplomacy in a podcast back in 2018. You can find information about the North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative here. To learn more about Canadian Studies programs around the world, take a look at the International Council for Canadian Studies website.
 
***
To be notified of my next post, follow me on Twitter @achapnick. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter at https://buttondown.email/achapnick
 

3 Comments
Jean-Louis Wallace
10/18/2021 07:29:58 pm

Thank you for your insightful piece.

They are always interesting.

This was a valuable program in it's time, however so much has happen since it was first presented. For one, I do not think that Global Affairs Canada is necessarily well placed to deliver this programme. Perhaps might be better placed to coordinate a federal government approach. Secondly, there are new tools at our disposal that can permit us to reach a much wider audience. Once we determine the objective and what type of impact of legacy we want to leave with such a programme; what would be the best approach to deliver it. For instance, would it be of better value for Canadians if we had professors or organizations develop a series of podcasts of online presentations as a medium to promote Canadian cultural diplomacy. There are so many multimedia tools at our disposal to reach a wide range of age groups on a range of messages. Perhaps we need to first decide how effectively we are prepared to use these tools prior to considering re-introducing a programme that once was.

Reply
Adam Chapnick
10/19/2021 08:05:28 am

I see your point, but setting aside the notion of how to maximize the value of Canadian cultural diplomacy, the idea of spending a relatively small amount of money to fund research in Canada that also serves as tourism promotion and immigration recruitment seems like a reasonable idea to me when previous analyses indicate that the initiative was profitable.

Reply
John Graham
10/20/2021 04:09:25 pm

I welcome your comments and those of John-Louis Wallace on my op-ed in the Hill Times.
On your first point, there are 'glimmers' that, stimulated by Senate engagement, Global Affairs may be taking more interest in restoring funding for the Canadian Studies program in the context of revitalizing 'Cultural Diplomacy'. We hope so.

Should we be looking to other government departments for funding? Perhaps, but we still believe that Cultural Diplomacy, including 'knowledge diplomacy' should be a pillar of any balanced Canadian foreign policy - and there are practical reasons for looking to Global: key parts of the very successful Canadian Studies program were the linkages with local Canadian Embassies, High Commissions and Consulates - where the benefits ran both ways. And central to those linkages were the locally engaged Academic Relations Officers attached to those missions.
A last point. When the program was closed down 10 years ago, it was not because it was losing vitality or relevance. It was the decision of a minister who did not believe that intellectual cross-fertilization of this kind had much appeal for his voters. The program was working effectively and prosperously, although in need of updating, including the wider use of media tools as suggested by Mr. Wallace.
John Graham


Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Adam Chapnick is a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC). The views expressed here are entirely his own.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019

    Categories

    All
    Canadian Foreign Policy
    Diplomacy
    Iran
    Trudeau

    RSS Feed

Blog 

Click Here to Read the latest From Adam Chapnick

Newsletter

Subscribe to Adam Chapnick's Newsletter

Contact

  • Adam Chapnick
    • Contact
    • Biography
    • Employment
    • Education
    • Academic Honours and research grants
    • Professional Administrative Experience
    • Advisory/Editorial Boards
    • Scholarly Assessments
    • Academic Associations
    • Additional Relevant Information
    • Testimonials
  • Teaching & Learning
    • Teaching Philosophy
    • Teaching Experience
    • Supervisions and Thesis Defence Committees >
      • Supervisions
      • Thesis Defence Committees
    • Refereed Conference Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Publications (Teaching & Learning)
    • Teaching Blogs >
      • Virtually Learning
      • The First Sabbatical
      • The Scholarly Edition
    • Other Teaching & Learning Activities
  • Research
    • Articles
    • Book Chapters
    • Books and Edited Collections >
      • Situating Canada in a Changing World: Constructing a Modern and Prosperous Future
      • Canada on the United Nations Security Council
      • The Harper Era in Canadian Foreign Policy
      • Manuel de rédaction à l’usage des militaires
      • John W. Holmes: An Introduction, Special Issue of International Journal
      • Academic Writing for Military Personnel​
      • Canada’s Voice: The Public Life of John Wendell Holmes
      • Canadas of the Mind
      • The Middle Power Project
      • Through Our Eyes: An Alumni History of the University of Toronto Schools, 1960-2000
    • Conference Presentations
    • Newspaper and Newsletter Commentaries
    • Publications in Conference Proceedings
    • Reports
    • Reviews
    • Teaching & Learning Publications
  • Public Speaking
    • Guest Lectures & Invited Speeches
    • Invited Workshops & Presentations (Teaching & Learning)
    • Arrange a Lecture, Workshop, or Presentation
  • Adam Chapnick's Blog