By Andrew Cohen, Citizen SpecialJune 25, 2009Comments
At the opening of the session on identity and history, the ambassador of Canada was asked to say a few words about Canada. That was a mistake.
It was one of those international conferences drawing leading international thinkers. One expected our distinguished representative -- who is, after all, sent abroad to show a country's best face to the world -- to muse about our history, geography or diversity.
Perhaps a public service advertisement on behalf of our musicians, writers, artists, architects and athletes. Perhaps a paean to the depth of our democracy (largely the same political configuration since 1867) or our spirit of accommodation (the world's second most heterogeneous nation).
Perhaps our survival in a cold, big place. Or, failing that, how about our ambiguity? Our moderation? Our endurance?
But instead the ambassador talked about -- wait for it -- Tim Hortons. His Canada, it appears, is a Hockey Dad munching a pastry and sipping coffee in the stands on a Saturday morning.
Behold, Canada as a danish and a double-double.
It might have been funny had it not been embarrassing. His Excellency was earnest, congenial and fairly clueless about how to present Canada, beyond a cliché.
He didn't seem to have any idea about who Canadians are, and if he did, how to portray them abroad in anything but self-deprecating terms. No wonder the foreigners in the audience laughed; they probably thought this was a send-up. The Canadians, who knew it wasn't, cringed.
Could it be this bad for us? Paul Lavoie, who knows something about assessing ideas and creating brands, thinks it is. He is co-founder of TAXI, an innovative international firm that focuses on advertising and design. He is something of a guru in the field.
Lavoie, a Canadian, sees Canada as a brand. We have good things to say about ourselves and good things to sell, he argues, but we have "managed them poorly." Like the ambassador, we are inept at talking to the world.
It isn't just the inability of Foreign Affairs, for example, to celebrate Canada's influential role in the founding of NATO on its 60th anniversary in April. Or the reluctance of the Canadian International Development Agency to find good news stories about development assistance, when asked, to tell the world (and Canadians, who pay for it.)
Would that be boastful? Rising above our station? Actually, it represents a missed opportunity to celebrate the good things we do and to use that to build a constituency to support our internationalism when our politicians try to erode it. Canada suffers when it cannot make its case abroad.
As diplomat and scholar Evan Potter reminds us in his illuminating new book, Branding Canada, we must present a more compelling, coherent image of Canada to the world. We need to harness the tools of public diplomacy -- culture, international education, business promotion -- to present an image of a certain kind of country, with a certain kind of values, which reflects the people we are.
As a flavour, says Lavoie, we're celery. We have no singular, clear vision of ourselves. We define ourselves -- no news here -- by what we are not (American, British) rather than what we are.
Lavoie asks, for example, why we have wood and the Swedes have Ikea, why we have water and the French have Perrier, why we have iron and the Americans have Ford.
All true, of course. We lack innovation for the extraordinary human and material resources that we have in this, the second largest country in the world.
And what we do have we don't know how to market. Lavoie laments a television commercial that the federal government ran last winter on citizenship. The reality is that Jason Kenney and his department are doing excellent work strengthening the awareness and responsibilities of citizenship. But the ad was all about Mounties and Maple Leafs, tired and sophomoric.
Canada cannot learn overnight how to create Ikea and Perrier; we have a colonial mentality we cannot easily shake as hewer of wood, drawer of water and producer of energy. But we can learn how to leverage ideas and experience, such as our history of liberal internationalism.
We can embrace -- and sell -- an idea of ourselves as the good-governance nation, for example. That would mean, among other roles, keeping the peace, building federalism, writing codes of conduct, monitoring elections and encouraging mediation.
We can also trumpet a sense of self as a green society, the greenest in the world, harnessing conservation. Or a knowledge society, harnessing the Internet.
A smart Canada could exploit the brilliance of the BlackBerry as a national brand as the British have exploited the appeal of Burberry. A smart Canada could use Cirque du Soleil as the Russians have used the Bolshoi Ballet.
It will take a commitment to excellence and imagination -- and a lot less talk about Tim Hortons.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University. Email:
At the opening of the session on identity and history, the ambassador of Canada was asked to say a few words about Canada. That was a mistake.
It was one of those international conferences drawing leading international thinkers. One expected our distinguished representative -- who is, after all, sent abroad to show a country's best face to the world -- to muse about our history, geography or diversity.
Perhaps a public service advertisement on behalf of our musicians, writers, artists, architects and athletes. Perhaps a paean to the depth of our democracy (largely the same political configuration since 1867) or our spirit of accommodation (the world's second most heterogeneous nation).
Perhaps our survival in a cold, big place. Or, failing that, how about our ambiguity? Our moderation? Our endurance?
But instead the ambassador talked about -- wait for it -- Tim Hortons. His Canada, it appears, is a Hockey Dad munching a pastry and sipping coffee in the stands on a Saturday morning.
Behold, Canada as a danish and a double-double.
It might have been funny had it not been embarrassing. His Excellency was earnest, congenial and fairly clueless about how to present Canada, beyond a cliché.
He didn't seem to have any idea about who Canadians are, and if he did, how to portray them abroad in anything but self-deprecating terms. No wonder the foreigners in the audience laughed; they probably thought this was a send-up. The Canadians, who knew it wasn't, cringed.
Could it be this bad for us? Paul Lavoie, who knows something about assessing ideas and creating brands, thinks it is. He is co-founder of TAXI, an innovative international firm that focuses on advertising and design. He is something of a guru in the field.
Lavoie, a Canadian, sees Canada as a brand. We have good things to say about ourselves and good things to sell, he argues, but we have "managed them poorly." Like the ambassador, we are inept at talking to the world.
It isn't just the inability of Foreign Affairs, for example, to celebrate Canada's influential role in the founding of NATO on its 60th anniversary in April. Or the reluctance of the Canadian International Development Agency to find good news stories about development assistance, when asked, to tell the world (and Canadians, who pay for it.)
Would that be boastful? Rising above our station? Actually, it represents a missed opportunity to celebrate the good things we do and to use that to build a constituency to support our internationalism when our politicians try to erode it. Canada suffers when it cannot make its case abroad.
As diplomat and scholar Evan Potter reminds us in his illuminating new book, Branding Canada, we must present a more compelling, coherent image of Canada to the world. We need to harness the tools of public diplomacy -- culture, international education, business promotion -- to present an image of a certain kind of country, with a certain kind of values, which reflects the people we are.
As a flavour, says Lavoie, we're celery. We have no singular, clear vision of ourselves. We define ourselves -- no news here -- by what we are not (American, British) rather than what we are.
Lavoie asks, for example, why we have wood and the Swedes have Ikea, why we have water and the French have Perrier, why we have iron and the Americans have Ford.
All true, of course. We lack innovation for the extraordinary human and material resources that we have in this, the second largest country in the world.
And what we do have we don't know how to market. Lavoie laments a television commercial that the federal government ran last winter on citizenship. The reality is that Jason Kenney and his department are doing excellent work strengthening the awareness and responsibilities of citizenship. But the ad was all about Mounties and Maple Leafs, tired and sophomoric.
Canada cannot learn overnight how to create Ikea and Perrier; we have a colonial mentality we cannot easily shake as hewer of wood, drawer of water and producer of energy. But we can learn how to leverage ideas and experience, such as our history of liberal internationalism.
We can embrace -- and sell -- an idea of ourselves as the good-governance nation, for example. That would mean, among other roles, keeping the peace, building federalism, writing codes of conduct, monitoring elections and encouraging mediation.
We can also trumpet a sense of self as a green society, the greenest in the world, harnessing conservation. Or a knowledge society, harnessing the Internet.
A smart Canada could exploit the brilliance of the BlackBerry as a national brand as the British have exploited the appeal of Burberry. A smart Canada could use Cirque du Soleil as the Russians have used the Bolshoi Ballet.
It will take a commitment to excellence and imagination -- and a lot less talk about Tim Hortons.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University. Email:
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