Trudeau puts cash behind Indo-Pacific pledges during visit to Southeast Asia summit
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled a slew of funding announcements in Cambodia on Saturday aimed at deepening economic and academic ties with Southeast Asia, after decades of sporadic engagement with the region.
"This is a generational shift," Trudeau told leaders gathered in Phnom Penh for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
"I am announcing concrete investments that are part of our commitment to this relationship," he said, before listing $333 million in new funding.
He was speaking at an event commemorating Canada's 45 years of relations with ASEAN, which comes as the group negotiates a free-trade agreement with Canada.
The bloc of 10 countries includes some of the world's fastest-growing economies, and the Liberals say they want to shift trade away from China over concerns that span human rights to intellectual property.
"There are no surprises; the cards are on the table and our goal is to be present in the region," Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told reporters in French.
Trudeau unveiled funding for closer ties in Southeast Asia, spread over the course of five years.
The largest chunk, $133 million, will involve feminist-focused development aid in ASEAN countries, a quarter of which will be earmarked for Canadian civil-society groups.
Ottawa will also spend $84.3 million for a new Shared Ocean Fund aimed at cracking down on illicit fishing in the region, and $40 million for an engagement fund that will help public servants as well as civil society do research on the Indo-Pacific region.
The Liberals are allocating $24 million for a private-sector centre to inform businesses of opportunities in Asia, and the same amount for the Asia-Pacific Foundation to operate an office on the continent. There is also funding to run educational exchanges and to help ASEAN counties partake in trade-deal negotiations with Canada.
Meanwhile, Trudeau's office said ASEAN granted Canada status as a comprehensive strategic partnership, which is the highest tier of recognition for non-member countries. The U.S. and India were also granted this status Saturday, placing them alongside previously recognized partners Australia and China.
ASEAN as a bloc already makes up Canada's sixth largest trading partner.
The majority of the population in ASEAN member countries is under 30, a demographic shift that's shaping economic opportunities in the region. A rising middle class is boosting countries such as Indonesia and Thailand, while the prospect of cheap labour has companies relocating jobs from China to places like Vietnam and the Philippines.
As for Cambodia, Canada is one of its top trading partners, with bilateral trade amounting to $1.82 billion last year. Some 98 per cent of that involved goods Cambodia sold to Canada, such as garments and footwear, in exchange for just $38.5 million in Canadian goods like vehicle parts and artificial fur.
Trade between the two countries has ballooned despite a limited diplomatic presence. In 2009, the government of then prime minister Stephen Harper closed Canada's embassy in Phnom Penh, downgrading it to a consular office. At the time, Ottawa cited a "serious examination of Canada's current diplomatic representation abroad," but many chalked the move up to budget cuts.
Trudeau met Saturday with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen but made no mention of re-opening an embassy, and Joly was vague on the idea.
"Our goal is to be more present in the region," she said in English, noting the Liberals have opened embassies in Africa after their Conservative predecessors had closed them.
Wayne Farmer, head of the Canada-ASEAN Business Council, said Ottawa is falling behind the U.S., Australia, Britain and France in establishing strong trade ties with the region.
"It is the farthest part of the world from Canada; it's farther than Africa, it's farther than North Asia and farther than Europe. It's not that surprising that we would be latecomers," said Farmer.
"But in the world of today with communication and transportation as they are, that's also not as much of an excuse."
Farmer said Canada used to have a large presence in ASEAN countries decades ago, in the post-colonial period of the 1960s, as a major aid partner.
Canada is still renowned in the region for taking a leading role in a global effort in the 1990s to clean up landmines.
And yet, Canada pulled back from the region just as some of the countries had crossed the threshold into being considered developed and started to become economic heavyweights.
"We did have a reputation as the end of being in-and-out of the markets, as fairweather friends, and doing some strange things," said Farmer, who is based in Singapore.
"It would have been the natural transition to go from assistance with development to then developing business."
Still, Canada's private sector has a growing presence in the area, with Canadian pension funds investing across the region. Insurance companies like Manulife and Sun Life are household names in ASEAN countries like the Philippines. One of Cambodia's largest banks, ABA, is owned by Montreal-based National Bank.
Farmer argues Ottawa has made it harder to build on these ties. Canada requires a visa for business travellers from each ASEAN country, and upheld some of the strictest COVID-19 travel rules.
Immigration processing backlogs have delayed student visas, including for some who were halfway through their degree in Canada, and Farmer says Ottawa risks losing students to places like Australia.
Jeffrey Reeves, research director of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, said the West also hurt its reputation by doing little to allow developing countries to produce COVID-19 vaccines, such as through waving patents.
"China provided most of Asia with vaccines while the global West hoarded supplies and prevented technology transfers in overseas production," he noted at a Nov. 1 panel.
"Those sort of things don't honestly go unnoticed and they are not easily forgotten."
Reeves added that Canada's constant rhetoric about a rules-based international order does not resonate in Southeast Asia, where polling suggests many have a favourable view of China and Russia.
"Not only are these priorities out of tune with one another, but they can actually be oppositional," he said, arguing Canada is wanted for its commodities but not for "unwanted interference" in geopolitics.
Stephanie Martel, a Queen's University international-relations professor and leading expert on ASEAN, says Canada could instead play a role in building consensus on various issues.
She said Canada can build relationships with Southeast Asian countries by focusing on their individual trajectories, instead of painting them as under the thumb of China or the United States.
Martel says that comes down to "recognizing and respecting the fact that a lot of these countries do not fit neatly in these democratic versus authoritarian categories."
In Cambodia, for example, Sen has reigned since 1985, and Human Rights Watch accuses his party of persecuting its political opposition.
The country is beset by corruption, limits on press freedom and human trafficking. China is helping upgrade Cambodia's main naval base, which the U.S. sees as a threat to regional stability.
The ASEAN bloc is also dealing with an alarming human-rights situation in Myanmar, one of its 10 member states, where chaos has reigned since a February 2021 coup d'etat by that country's military.
The bloc has isolated Myanmar's leadership, but failed to reach consensus Friday on how to implement a peace plan developed months ago.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2022.
IN DEPTH
Jagmeet Singh pulls NDP out of deal with Trudeau Liberals, takes aim at Poilievre Conservatives
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pulled his party out of the supply-and-confidence agreement that had been helping keep Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority Liberals in power.
'Not the result we wanted': Trudeau responds after surprise Conservative byelection win in Liberal stronghold
Conservative candidate Don Stewart winning the closely-watched Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection, and delivering a stunning upset to Justin Trudeau's candidate Leslie Church in the long-time Liberal riding, has sent political shockwaves through both parties.
'We will go with the majority': Liberals slammed by opposition over proposal to delay next election
The federal Liberal government learned Friday it might have to retreat on a proposal within its electoral reform legislation to delay the next vote by one week, after all opposition parties came out to say they can't support it.
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
NDP needs to decide whether 4 million Canadians deserve dental care: minister
Procurement Minister and newly appointed Quebec lieutenant Jean-Yves Duclos is warning the NDP that the dental care program it helped put into place will be in jeopardy if it pulls its support from the governing Liberals.
What is the U.S. Electoral College? America's path to the presidency, explained
In less than two months, Americans will go to the polls to choose their next president. But the process that translates those millions of votes into one seat in the Oval Office is much more complicated than a straight tally.
'Imminent catastrophe': Hezbollah hits back with more than 100 rockets across a wider and deeper area of Israel
Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets early Sunday across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon. The sides appeared to be spiraling toward all-out war following months of escalating tensions.
Why an Alaska island is using peanut butter and black lights to find a rat that might not exist
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it.
Coffee could be more than a morning pick-me-up, according to new research
A morning cup of coffee may do more than just perk you up, according to new research.
Building collapse in Naples leaves 2 siblings dead and mother and another woman trapped
A two-story building collapsed in the southern Italian province of Naples early Sunday, killing two young siblings and leaving their mother and an older woman trapped, firefighters said.
Sunken superyacht believed to contain watertight safes with sensitive intelligence data
Specialist divers surveying the wreckage of the US$40 million superyacht that sank off Sicily in August, killing seven people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel, over concerns that sensitive data locked in its safes may interest foreign governments, multiple sources told CNN.
Childhood sleep issues may raise suicide risk, study finds
If your child sometimes has trouble sleeping, it may be easy to chalk it up to a phase they will grow out of one day. But a new study suggests possible serious consequences for this line of thought — such as a higher risk for suicidal ideation or attempts when they are older.
Republicans in swing states say they see scant signs of groups door-knocking for Trump
Republican activists in swing states say they have seen little sign of the teams tasked with knocking on doors and turning out infrequent voters on behalf of Donald Trump, raising concerns about the party's presidential nominee relying on outside groups for an important part of his campaign operations.
Local Spotlight
Cole Haas is more than just an avid fan of the F.W. Johnson Wildcats football team. He's a fixture on the sidelines, a source of encouragement, and a beloved member of the team.
Getting a photograph of a rainbow? Common. Getting a photo of a lightning strike? Rare. Getting a photo of both at the same time? Extremely rare, but it happened to a Manitoba photographer this week.
An anonymous business owner paid off the mortgage for a New Brunswick not-for-profit.
They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.