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Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand attending meeting of EU foreign ministers in Co Wicklow
Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand attending meeting of EU foreign ministers in Co Wicklow Canada's minister for foreign affairs Anita Anand, at the Canadian embassy in Dublin on Tuesday.
Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish TimesAnand was speaking to The Irish Times in Dublin before travelling to Co Wicklow where she is attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers as part of Ireland’s European presidency. Canadian membership of the EU has often been mooted, with polls showing considerable – sometimes majority – support for the idea in Canada.
Irish trio who posed as tourists for ‘sob-story’ scam wanted by Spanish police, who has recently escalated his trade war against his northern neighbour and mused repeatedly – to Canada’s obvious irritation – about the country becoming part of the United States. Instead, many Canadians are looking eastward across the Atlantic for a more congenial and like-minded economic and security partner. Anand is keen to stress those links and deepen them.
trade deal and stresses that there is already deep security co-operation and a common approach to Ukraine. She talks about an “alignment of values, the alignment of objectives and priorities, and the willingness to work together”.
“This is not the issue that is on the front burner right now,” she says. Canada's minister for finance François-Philippe Champagne arrives for the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, on Monday. Photograph: Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images Countries all over the world are grappling with the changes to the global order, many of them wrought by Trump. Canada is in the front line.
Anand is phlegmatic.
“The shifts in the global trading order are largely due to a sovereign country, the United States, making decisions in its sovereign interests. We, therefore, have to respond accordingly, which is: how do we double non-US trade over the next 10 years? How do we continue to co-operate in multilateral settings like Nato? ” She noted that Canada is also building bilateral relationships; it has signed 15 free trade agreements serving 1.5 billion consumers across 51 countries.
“We are the only G7 country that has a free-trade agreement with every other G7 country. What we need to do is to continue to draw foreign direct investment, build those trading relationships, including Ceta,” she says.
“It’s an excellent question,” she says but goes on to avoid addressing it, talking instead about Canada’s commitment to the alliance and her concern about Russian threats in the Arctic. When asked more bluntly – is the Nato guarantee as reliable as it once was? – she says: “I believe it is. ” Nato countries, she says, have their own concerns and questions, but also the fortitude to stand together.
Canada is especially concerned with the Russian threat in the Arctic. But isn’t the biggest threat in the Arctic the designs that Trump has expressed on Greenland? She recalls being in Nuuk in Greenland earlier this year when Canada opened a consulate. As the flag was raised, the crowd, many of whom were Inuit, “who came from Canada for this ceremony”, sang the Canadian national anthem.
Then they were silent. This, she says, was a “poignant moment” that demonstrated the desire of the people in Greenland for support for their territorial integrity. Irish Government to summon Russian ambassador following Leipzig attackIrish trio who posed as tourists for ‘sob-story’ scam wanted by Spanish policeLoneliness in early motherhood: ‘My neediness shone through in my too-big smile’Public transport increases, creche overcharging, and Patrick Freyne’s Kardashian analysisWealth management shake-up continues as more senior figures exit Davy and Unio
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