BC Premier Calls for Canadians to Seize Opportunity with Asia-Pacific
Release Date: May 30, 2011
Although British Columbia’s current and potential role as Canada’s Asia Pacific gateway has long been recognized rhetorically inside the province and across the country, recognition has too often lacked a call for action. That call came loud and clear from Premier Christy Clark at a Vancouver community dinner on May 19th, hosted by the Canada West Foundation.
It was a call directed not just to her home province but to western Canadians and Canadians at large. While strong ties have long been a feature of the relationship between BC and many Asia-Pacific countries, the Premier’s passionate remarks set out to broaden and deepen those relationships and carry them east across the Rockies. Judging by the enthusiastic audience, it was a call whose time had come.
Premier Clark set out a three pronged policy approach. First, focus on economic opportunities for expanded engagement with Asia-Pacific markets, both in rapidly developing and mature markets. Second, engage in a targeted advertising campaign to maximize the potential to unlock demand for Canadian goods and services. Third, sell the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region to Canadians across the country—particularly those living in central and eastern provinces.
Opportunity and Need for BC’s National Leadership
The Premier highlighted the need to focus. This means leveraging BC’s natural geographic advantage as home to North America’s closest major shipping points to Asia-Pacific markets, resulting in increasing Canada’s overall trade output and assisting with market diversification beyond existing customers in the United States. While the US will remain Canada’s best friend and number one strategic trading partner, it’s clearly in Canada’s interests to establish and nurture links with other customers at the same time.
Canada has what the world wants and deliberate marketing to Asia is a strategy that has paid off for other resource rich countries like Australia. Canada is endowed with vast and diverse natural resources, we have a skilled and educated workforce, advanced infrastructure, rule of law and stable government—all contributing to a positive investment environment and standard of living. The Premier’s optimism is more than part of her job description; it reflects the reality in which we live.
The Premier’s remarks hinted at recent survey data from the Asia Pacific Foundation indicating that many Canadians in central and eastern parts of the country do not see emerging powerhouses like China as important to their future. And it’s true that two thirds of Canada’s exports to Asia-Pacific originate in the four western provinces, with BC accounting for 31 percent or $12.3 billion of total exports in 2010. The larger reality, however, is those Asia-Pacific markets accounted for nearly 35 per cent of global economic activity in 2010, almost as much as the US and the European Union combined. The value of western Canadian exports to Asia-Pacific markets rose by 134 percent to $25.9 billion between 1990 and 2010, with the fastest growth seen in Asia-Pacific’s developing markets. If Canadians are to “follow the money,” the trail leads to Asia.
What’s Good for the West is Good for Canada
It’s true that western Canada stands to benefit the most from focusing on resource-based economic growth, but vital that all Canadians realize that what’s good for the West is also good for Canada. The Premier picked up on the Asia Pacific Foundation’s call for a “national discussion on Asia”, but stressed the need to keep working on removing inter-provincial barriers through the New West Partnership. Regional and national leadership work hand in hand.
As Canada’s resource economy moves ahead fueled by rising demand in both existing and emerging markets, pressures on our system of government and regulation will also become more acute. Polling shows that Canadians understand the link between industry and prosperity but are concerned that we may not have the correct balance between resource development and environmental protection. To achieve this, Canada’s provincial and federal governments will need to put aside turf wars and work seamlessly together to develop and implement policy and regulation.
Finally, the Premier recognized that the Asia Pacific gateway swings both ways; it is as much about investment in as it is about export products. Developing Canada’s natural resources requires substantial capital investment and Canada will need to grapple with its appetite for foreign investment, including from China, in our increasingly “strategic” resources. The blockage of BHP Billiton’s takeover of Potash Corp of Saskatchewan in 2010 is an example of the type of policy decisions that provincial and federal governments will increasingly face in the future.
In her remarks, Premier Clark painted a bright future for families in BC and Canada, provided we can see ahead to future challenges and turn promise and potential into real prosperity. It is difficult not to share her optimism.
Roger Gibbins is President and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. Will Kimber is Vice President Research. Canada West Foundation is an independent think tank focusing on public policy issues of relevance to western Canada and all Canadians.