October 1966 — VOL 47, No. I0 —
Canada: Part of
the World
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Canada cannot be viewed on a small
screen, bounded by her geographical limits. Her life is world-wide.
In an age when distances are measured in terms of jet plane
time, India is in Canada's backyard.
It is natural and beneficial to look with indulgent eyes
on one's native land, but love of one's land, or province,
or city, or home no more implies despising other places than
love of one's mother implies despising other mothers. Canada
has been fortunate in that most of her leaders and most of
her people know that they are members of a parish of planetary
size, and that the public affairs of the twentieth century
are world affairs.
All nations are faced with adjusting to new conditions,
but Canada has features and attributes which, if used sensibly,
put her well in the lead of building a good world. She stands
between the big and the small powers, with light manpower
but great economic weight. Canada is part of the British Commonwealth
of Nations and a member of the United Nations, and she has
a special relationship with the United States of America,
with whom she shares the bulk of the North American continent.
Some people deride the poet Rudyard Kipling as an imperialist,
but imperialism was not to him a matter of national aggrandizement.
It was a matter of technocracy. His verses on "The White Man's
Burden" were not addressed to his own people, but were an
appeal to America to join in the task of civilizing the backward
territories, an appeal to them as technicians: "Send forth
the best ye breed," he urged. Canada may be, as Kipling called
her, "Our Lady of the Snows" but her interests reach into
tropical Africa.
Canadians do not allow absorption with their internal affairs
to blind them to what is going on elsewhere. They may not
always agree with what is being said and done in other countries,
but they know that they must participate. As the Manchester
Guardian said recently: "the starved, the deprived, the dying,
the rejected, the despised, the criminal, are all part of
ourselves, part of the great half-submerged continent of humanity."
Canada & trusted
It has been said that a true man never fails those who trust
him, and Canada is trusted among the nations small and great
as few others have been. She is respected in world councils
for her demonstrated willingness to assume varied obligations
around the globe.
Canada is contributing in no small way toward solving the
great issues of national and international security in a world
that is becoming afraid under the shadow of its space missiles.
In every international crisis she has held to the principle
of flexibility and compromise to ease tension. In the words
of President Johnson of the United States to the Prime Minister:
"You have followed the difficult path to peace that can save
the world, and have been a principal architect of that profound
achievement."
This is evidenced by the very substantial role Canada has
played in peace-keeping abroad. Since 1948 Canada has assigned
Canadians to every peacekeeping operation of the United Nations
except one. Her General Burns became the world's first commanding
general of a truly international peace force. She played a
leading role in establishing the United Nations Emergency
Force. The United Nations Military Observer Group in India-Pakistan
was formed with Canadian participation.
She has served on Supervisory Commissions in Cambodia, Laos
and Vietnam, and is respected for her services in Cyprus and
on the Israel - U.A.R. border. Her role in the Suez crisis
was a vital one. More than 15,000 men and women of Canada's
armed forces are stationed in sixteen countries around the
world.
Canada's Prime Minister took a leading part in the 1966
Commonwealth meeting of prime ministers in London, being entrusted
with preparing a formula to resolve differences of opinion
on African affairs.
The underdeveloped countries
Peace-keeping does not consist entirely of armed guards.
Many nations have been jet-propelled into a new age straight
from their primeval ways of life. Some of these nations have
high ideals, but they are compelled to think material thoughts
if they are to keep their people alive — thoughts of
food, medical care, hydro power, commodity production.
There is a crisis of the peasantry in the Orient, in Africa
and elsewhere. Public health, improved agriculture, industrialization,
and education are all essential, but they must be developed
simultaneously if they are to be effective. A drop of only
two cents a pound in the world price of its principal commodity
may threaten an emerging nation's health campaign, or its
national school programme, or the stability of its government
struggling to use democratic means in the solution of manifold
problems.
Many individuals and organizations within Canada are contributing
toward betterment. Country after country has turned toward
Canada with requests for help. Application of methods learned
in our northland has given us an international reputation
in charting the rivers, soils, and forests of tropical Asia
and Africa.
A few examples will illustrate the breadth of the Canadian
effort. The Freedom from Hunger Committee co-ordinates the
activities of some fifty non-governmental organizations which
support self-help projects related to increased food production
and better nutrition. The Red Cross Society carries out aid
programmes of two sorts: long-term assistance including clothing
and bedding made by volunteers; and emergency assistance including
the sending of personnel and supplies to disaster areas.
CARE of Canada provides underprivileged areas with food,
agricultural and other tools, clothing, seeds, books and educational
equipment. The Foster Parents Plan gives funds for the care
and training of orphaned children in several countries. The
Grail Movement sends trained women to Asia, Africa and Latin
America to do medical, social, cultural and community development
work among women.
The Unitarian Service Committee supports eighty projects
in the fields of child care, education, health and social
welfare, primarily in the East. The National Farm Radio Forum
supplies radios and establishes farm radio forums in India,
to educate the people in health, farming, and citizenship.
The diplomatic service
The Department of External Affairs was established by Act
of Parliament in May 1909. Today there are Canadian embassies
and high commissioners accredited to more than 80 countries,
staffed by a personnel of more than 900. All of these must
count on spending at least fifty per cent of their career
outside Canada. There are 76 accredited Commonwealth and foreign
representatives in Canada.
Diplomacy is the conduct of affairs, the carrying on of
business, between nations. The work of a mission abroad is:
to conduct negotiations with the government to which it is
accredited; to keep the home government informed of political
and other developments of significance in the country in which
it is serving; to watch over Canada's interests in the country;
to make information about Canada available, and to serve Canadians
in the country. During the peak of the season passports for
foreign travel are issued to Canadians at a rate of up to
6,000 a week.
Canada plays an active role in a broad range of economic
consultations, meetings, seminars and projects which comprise
the main work of the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development.
A France-Canada Interparliamentary Association, with ten
delegates from the Canadian Parliament, discussed economic
and cultural relations and migration from France to Canada.
In November 1965 the two countries signed a general cultural
agreement to contribute to the strengthening of the traditional
bonds of friendship between Canada and France.
When a Secretariat was set up by the Commonwealth, a Canadian
diplomatist became Secretary-General, a title that carries
with it grave responsibilities and enormous possibilities.
The United Nations
Canada is a hard-working member of the United Nations. Since
it participated in drawing up the Charter in 1945, this country
has, through its Department of External Affairs, taken an
important and sometimes distinguished part in United Nations
deliberations. Canada is a member of the thirteen specialized
agencies of the UN, all of which have wide international responsibilities
established by intergovernmental agreement. The United Nations
Association in Canada, with 32 branches, is devoted mainly
to an educational programme concentrating on young people.
The National UNICEF Committee has eight Canadians at work
on the project in New York, and one in New Delhi. This is
a project which won the 1965 Peace Prize. The aim of UNICEF
is to promote permanent health, nutrition and welfare service
for children. The Save the Children Fund carries out emergency
aid programmes throughout the world and supports self-help
projects in education, health, housing and welfare.
Canada has decided to play a part in three ambitious educational
programmes of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization with a 1980 dead-line: to get all
children into school, to get ten per cent of children
into secondary schools, and to make 500 million adults literate
in the sense of fully participating in community development.
The World Refugee Year appeal brought together some 45 Canadian
voluntary organizations in support of their own programmes
and those of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Great appreciation has been expressed for Canada's role
in providing resettlement opportunities, especially for handicapped
persons.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
was founded at Quebec City in 1945. This year, 33 Canadians
are serving it in expert capacities in 21 countries.
Canada is well represented abroad in the trade and commerce
fields. There are Canadian Government trade commissioners
in fifty countries and trade specialists in six. In addition,
the Atlantic Provinces have a representative in London, and
Nova Scotia has information offices in Boston and New York.
Quebec has Agents General in London, Paris, Milan and New
York. Ontario has five offices abroad, in Chicago, New York,
London, Milan and Duesseldorf. Saskatchewan has an office
in London, Alberta has offices in London and Los Angeles;
and British Columbia has offices in London and San Francisco.
The Canada Immigration Division overseas branch has 550
persons employed in 37 major world centres with the prime
object of helping to meet Canada's needs for professional,
managerial, skilled and educated people. The Government Travel
Bureau has twenty offices in the United States and overseas.
Canadian newspaper, radio, and television reporters are
exploring every country on earth for news about what is going
on there. The CBC has sent 21 advisers to developing countries
during the past six years, and about 160 broadcasters have
been given training in Canada. Up to 25 staff members of the
CBC are serving at strategic points throughout the world.
There are ten Canadians serving on the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission, responsible for the preservation of the
graves of those who gave their lives in the 1914-1918 and
1939-1945 wars. Of the Commonwealth total of 880,000 identified
burials, the figure for Canada is 81,000, second only to that
of the United Kingdom.
Canada, NATO and the U.S.A.
It is trite to refer to relations between Canada and the
United States as "unique", but there are elements in our situation
which are not to be found in that of any other pair of independent
countries in the world.
Canada and the United States are, in Churchill's phrase,
"mixed up together", but there are important differences,
and acceptance of this fact is essential to the successful
working of the partnership.
It was because of the deep involvement of each country in
the other that the President and the Prime Minister decided
to commission a working group to formulate the general guidelines
which should govern the complex economic relations. The report
said: "There are large opportunities for mutual advantage
in the extension of the partnership of our two countries.
For our part, we are satisfied that the process can be as
mutually rewarding as it is inevitable."
Canada was one of twelve nations that signed the North Atlantic
Treaty in 1949. Her military contribution includes ships of
the Royal Canadian Navy, infantry, and an air division.
This organization is a guarantee of Canadian security within
the Western alliance, and it is a forum for consultation on
international matters. NATO still has to proceed to deal with
Article II, inserted at the insistence of Canada: "... they
will seek to eliminate conflict in their international policies
and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all
of them."
Canada's aid programmes
In recognition of the pressing needs of the developing areas
of the world, Canada participates in a number of economic,
educational and technical assistance programmes abroad.
She is a substantial contributor to the United Nations Development
Programme, the UN Children's Fund, and the International Development
Association (the World Bank).
Canada's assistance given direct to needy countries is for
agriculture, forestry and fishing; transport and communications;
energy resources; industrial raw materials and fertilizer
components; food, education and housing; technical assistance
and industrial development. Canada is demonstrating her ability
to adapt men, machinery and methods to development work in
more than sixty countries of widely varying character.
Canadian aid is related to Canadian capabilities. Contracts
for capital projects are given to Canadian firms only, scholarships
and fellowships are tenable only in Canada, and advisers and
teachers sent abroad are exclusively nationals of Canada.
Last year, Canada undertook such diverse projects as irrigation
and land reclamation in Ghana; fertilizer supply to India
and Pakistan; resources survey in Malaysia; and river basin
development in Ecuador. She also assisted the West Indies,
Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Thailand in projects associated
with agricultural benefits.
There are some 340 Canadian advisers overseas in such fields
as taxation, wheat breeding, plant pathology, soil and geological
surveying, forest inventory, community development, transportation,
neurology, orthopaedics, nurse training, management training,
and machine accounting.
Work in Asia
The purpose of the imaginative Colombo Plan, of which Canada
was a founding member, is to raise the standard of living
in South and South-East Asia by accelerating the pace and
widening the scope of economic development by a co-operative
approach to their problems, with special emphasis on the production
of food. It differs from most other schemes in that it combines
technical assistance, such as training scholarships and the
provision of experts, with capital aid.
Canada's manpower activity is restricted to areas in which
it is clear that Canadian technical experience can make a
valuable contribution, for example in harnessing the waters
of the River Indus and dividing them between India and Pakistan.
Her capital assistance is directed toward helping to establish
basic facilities upon which the assisted countries can develop
their own economics.
Many groups and individuals are engaged in helpful work
in Asia, adding to Canada's governmental contributions. Private
groups in Laval University and the University of Toronto organized
a scheme by which young Canadian graduates in medicine, education,
engineering and agriculture would live in villages, as far
as possible at Asian standards, while giving their services.
Saskatchewan, marking the Centenary, is raising a fund of
$60,000 to provide a food processing, packaging and storage
centre at Mysore, India.
Dr. Roby Kidd, formerly executive director of the Canadian
Association for Adult Education, is developing a programme
of adult education at the University of Rajasthan, in India.
Dr. Edwin and Dr. Vivien Abbott, of the Canadian Friends,
spent twelve years in rural India, where they developed farm
equipment, introduced new and improved crops, and started
a training programme for outcaste Indians.
Two reports will illustrate the value in human terms of
the constructive work of Canadians abroad. Ten years ago Canadians
dreamed of harnessing the small Kundah River in India and
its tributaries for the economic development of the State
of Madras: today their vision is a reality in concrete. It
provides power to run 100,000 pump sets, irrigating 400,000
acres of land to produce 600,000 tons of food grain a year;
it supplies power for manufacture of textiles, chemicals,
cement, sugar and iron.
Second is the Warsak Dam in the Khyber Pass. Ten thousand
Pakistanis employed on the dam became for the first time part
of a regularly employed work force, with educational, welfare
and health services supplied. More than three thousand received
special training to semi-skilled or skilled levels. Many of
them are contributing to the economic sufficiency of the area
now served with hydro power and irrigation water.
Canadian engineers with experience on the massive Manicouagan
dam in Quebec were called upon by India to design a huge power
project in the rugged canyons of the Periyar River. It will
supply power to much of Southern India.
At work in Africa
A tidal wave of political independence broke upon tropical
Africa in the 1960's, leaving behind a score of new sovereign
states woefully lacking in knowledge of how to cope with their
responsibilities. Africa is today a place of hopes unrealized,
of dangers round every corner, of the burdens of political
office weighing heavily on those who have assumed them in
desperately poor countries.
Time is pressing. Experience has to be piled on very thickly.
What Canadians have learned in a century has to be learned
by Africans in a year.
Because many Africans tended to think of Canada as being
rather different from the other white powers since she herself
had been a colony and had no record of imperialism, they turned
to her for help.
The bulk of Canadian assistance has been directed to the
development of educational facilities. Rwanda, the most densely
populated nation in Africa, is to have a national university,
open to all citizens, non-sectarian. Twenty-three French-speaking
professors went from Canada to staff the university.
When Nyasaland became independent under the name Malawi
in 1964, its prime minister wrote to the Canadian government
requesting help. His country had only three qualified doctors
of medicine, of whom he was one. Today there are three Canadian
doctors and eight Canadian nurses working in Malawi.
A programme called the Special Commonwealth Africa Aid Programme
was launched, in which Canada participates. Twenty-two commonwealth
governments set up an "aid to Zambia" sub-committee in July
1966 to produce a programme for technical, financial and logistical
help.
There are thirty volunteers from the Canadian University
Service Overseas in Tanzania, engaged in teaching, medicine,
agriculture and administration. The University of Toronto
is assisting in the establishment of a department of anaesthesia
in the University of Lagos medical school in Nigeria.
Canada's bicultural capabilities in education have enhanced
her ability to mount a programme of educational assistance
for the French-speaking countries of Africa. School buildings
and equipment have been provided, educational films have been
supplied to eight countries, and paper has been made available
for the production of textbooks. Toward the end of 1965 there
were 155 Canadian teachers serving in French-speaking Africa,
and 41 trainees from the area studying in Canada.
Many participants
The Directory of Canadians with Service Overseas,
published in 1964 by the Overseas Institute of Canada, lists
almost 1,200 Canadians in more than a hundred countries and
regions. This Institute is a private, non-profit organization
designed to mobilize Canadian efforts in educational and technical
assistance.
The essential dynamism for overseas service came initially
from university students. National action was taken on June
6, 1961, when the Canadian University Service Overseas was
born. In September, long before the United States Peace Corps
got moving, seventeen young Canadians were in Ceylon, India
and Sarawak, working as teachers, nurses, engineers and in
other helpful professions.
These young people are not serving in any spirit of "do-goodism"
but with the practical purpose of being of practical service.
The Bulletin of CUSO is packed with the stories of
service, adventures and triumphs in places that are to most
Canadians merely names on a map. The Marianopolis College
Alumnae Review had a letter in Spring which said: "It
seems strange to hear of people saying how wonderful we are
to be out here working with these kids. We are having the
time of our lives."
Not only youths are engaged. Overseas service has no age
limit: the oldest CUSO volunteer presently overseas is 53;
the youngest is 20. Donald Lowe, 78 years old, a Vancouver
engineer, is tackling a highway problem in Uganda.
Education
Not all universities keep track of their alumni, but several
responded with accounts which may be taken as typical of how
the institutions of higher learning are carrying Canada into
the world.
Queen's University knows of 750 of its graduates who are
overseas. Queen's has been lauded for its contribution of
alumni to the diplomatic service — it has 44 now serving
in embassies and as government representatives — but
these 750 include 155 engineers and scientists and 100 teachers,
while others are serving in medicine, the armed forces, business
and missions.
At one time the University of Toronto had 17 Canadian diplomatists
with the rank of head of mission. It has sent members of its
staff to establish a regional engineering college in Mangalore,
India, and it has others serving in Tanzania, Nigeria, Sierra
Leone, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Greece and India.
Four out of six applicants from the University of Windsor
were accepted by CUSO this year, and it has had representatives
in important positions in Guyana and Zambia. Carleton University
has alumni teaching abroad in institutions ranging from universities
to village schools, in Israel, Lebanon, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia,
Malaysia, Tanzania, Trinidad, Ghana, Egypt and Japan. Carleton's
school of public administration has helped to educate civil
servants from developing nations, and a Japanese graduate
of its school of journalism has returned home to write a book
about Canada for his countrymen.
Several graduates of the University of Waterloo are CUSO
volunteers teaching in Trinidad and Africa. The University
of British Columbia was selected by the United Nations as
the site of its first regional training centre to prepare
administrators and technologists from underdeveloped countries
for senior positions. Five of its professors from the faculty
of commerce have set up courses in accounting and business
administration in Singapore and Malaya.
Education is not an overhead cost but a capital investment
in the future of the developing countries. In 1965 there were
874 teachers and advisers serving abroad under Canadian Aid
Programmes, made up of 130 in South and South-East Asia, 130
in the Caribbean, and 614 in Africa.
Canada's aid has provided the equipment for scores of secondary
schools, assisted in the building of three engineering institutes,
set up a teacher training college and schools of accounting.
Four secondary schools, constructed, equipped and staffed
by Canada were opened in the Little Eight Islands of the West
Indies, and two more are to be provided.
The University of Manitoba has supplied eight staff members
to establish faculties of engineering and agriculture in Thailand.
Laval University sent thirteen volunteers overseas under the
CUSO scheme in Autumn, 1966. A husband and wife team, Mr.
and Mrs. L. O. W. Burridge, setting out from Loyola College,
wrote asking that the Monthly Letter be sent to them
in Uganda.
The University of Guelph has a particular place in foreign
service because of its specialized colleges in agricultural
and veterinary sciences. Participation of its staff and graduates
in work abroad includes setting up schools and educational
programmes in Ghana and Jamaica; a programme in horticulture
in Turkey; sociological study in Peru, and service in Canada's
embassies. Many graduates are abroad in the Crossroads Africa
and CUSO programmes in Ghana, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Kenya
and Tanzania. Sir George Williams University has several graduates
serving with CUSO, and two of its graduates, from Bangkok
and Caracas, are serving as YMCA fraternal secretaries.
The Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire has offered scholarships
to students from other parts of the Commonwealth, and its
library programme is helping schools in the West Indies, British
Honduras and Guyana. The African Students' Foundation sponsors
a hundred African students in Canadian universities.
Canada, the province of Manitoba and Malaysia came together
in a training project which sent graduate native teachers
out to cities and towns in Malaysia where new schools had
been built — 54 schools equipped with three million dollars
worth of Canadian instructional equipment.
It is evident that just as important results are obtained
by bringing students from other countries to Canada, care
having been taken to select young people who will not become
alienated by their sojourn here. In 1965 there were 2,500
training programmes arranged in Canada for students and trainees
from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
Many students are placed with private industry for practical
training. Under the technical assistance programme, a total
of 842 students from India had received training here up to
the end of the latest academic year, and there had been 533
from Pakistan, 191 from Burma, 103 from Singapore, 398 from
Malaysia, and 145 from Ceylon.
Students from fifty other countries have come to Canada
for courses in social leadership at the Coady International
Institute, while some twenty of the Institute staff have been
working abroad in the interests of the Antigonish Movement.
A youth who studied at St. Francis Xavier University became
vice-minister in charge of Korea's agriculture and forestry.
The churches abroad
The Overseas Missionary Fellowship reported 104 Canadians
abroad in 1965, engaged in medical and religious work. Its
current programme includes medical work in Japan, Taiwan,
Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and
Laos. The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada Overseas Missions
Department has 119 missionaries in full-time activity in South
America, the West Indies, the Orient, and Africa, along with
twenty associate missionaries.
The Canadian Friends are presently co-sponsoring three overseas
projects, in India, West Pakistan and Algeria. Baptist foreign
missions have fifteen missionaries in the Congo, engaged in
medical, educational, vocational, agricultural and Bible training.
There are 26 in service in Bolivia and 71 in India.
The Young Men's Christian Association has a world service
now in its 77th year. It sends experienced secretaries to
serve overseas, short-term specialists, student service workers,
students who serve in foreign summer work camps, and volunteers
who work with the United Nations Relief Works Agency.
Monseigneur N.-A. LaBrie, National Director of Mission Work
of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, reports 4,700 Canadians
engaged abroad, 1,900 of them in Africa, 1,400 in Latin America,
1,100 in Asia and 230 in Oceania. Monseigneur LaBrie emphasizes
that people of the advanced nations learn from those they
teach. As to the purpose of the Church's widespread missionary
activity, he says: "Now, more than ever, the cultural effort
of the Church mission consists not only in bringing to these
people western values but at the same time Christian beliefs
and laws."
The United Church of Canada publication Outreach published
a supplement in 1966 which has 92 pages filled with reports
of missionary endeavour in sixteen countries. The 1966 budget
for world mission work totals nearly $3½ million.
The qualities needed
Individual service abroad is most attractive to young Canadians,
and it is well to look at some of the qualities needed.
In Chaucer's day a favourite way of escaping from the dreariness
of a narrow environment, and giving a deeper meaning to one's
life, was to go on a pilgrimage to a holy place. The modern
pilgrim seeks through secular commitment to knit the bonds
which will form mankind into one community.
Taking part in world affairs does not mean demanding that
other nations be remade in our image.
Host countries shudder at the notion of dewy-eyed "do-gooders"
who want to set the world right, just as earnestly as they
resent people who seek to impose a way of life on them. A
Ghanaian official wrote: "Don't send underdeveloped people
to underdeveloped countries."
The men and women going out from Canada under the various
national and international plans are people who have seen
the wideness of Canada's place in the world; they are adaptable
and flexible; they have acquired skills and the ability to
use those skills in different environments; they have learned
to improvise apparatus and methods in the new framework.
Patience and humility are necessary: patience in the Western
sense of perseverance when the road is rough, and in the Eastern
sense of merely waiting; and humility to understand that he
is not sent abroad as a self-righteous pedlar of Western values
and ways of doing things. These are virtues commonly associated
with women, and women make up almost half the CUSO assignees.
The Confederation lesson
Confederation, the centenary of which will be celebrated
in 1967, was an example of national emotional maturity. It
meant the coming together of the provinces of Canada in an
effort to work harmoniously for the good of all the country
from sea to sea.
Canada today is an independent nation, formulating its own
policies, negotiating and signing its own treaties, accrediting
its own diplomatists, and settling in its own right the issues
of peace and war. A hundred years of effort, understanding,
and self-discipline have wrought this Canadian fabric. But
it is clear that a partnership such as that of Canada's provinces
can only freely function within an international organization
of like-minded people.
As Canada enters her second century as a united nation she
has chosen the course of helping the underdeveloped countries
to gain a reasonable hope of freedom from ignorance and economic
stringency and disease and to become truly democratic nations.
Many Canadians believe passionately that Canada has a great
contribution to make to the welfare of mankind. They believe
that Canada will participate in the attractive ideal expressed
by Arnold J. Toynbee: "Our age will be remembered not for
its horrifying crimes or its astonishing inventions, but because
it is the first generation in history in which mankind dared
to believe it practical to make the benefits of civilization
available to the whole human race."
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