Atlanta was the first stop of David Johnston‘s May 24-27 U.S. tour promoting innovation, collaboration and encouraging cross-border cooperation. Mr. Johnston is Canada‘s head of state appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, and officially known as “his excellency.” While his schedule is to take him as far west as Colorado passing through Florida, and Texas, he got off to a good start in Georgia.
His itinerary in Atlanta called for a visit to the Tech Square Labs incubator where he attended presentations by representatives of three start-up companies: Luma, Stackfolio and Vericlean.
He also met with Atlanta youth involved in a coding-program for under-served students which, he said at a World Affairs Council of Atlanta luncheon, impressed him not only for the skills that the youth were learning but also for the exposure that they were getting to workforce habits and positive prospects for their futures.
During the luncheon, Mr. Johnston described his childhood growing up in the small community of Sault St. Marie, Ontario, close to the U.S.-Canada border and near the St. Marys River.
Recalling his grandfather’s employment on the river locks, he described them as “nothing short of an engineering marvel,” and said that he considers them as as “emblematic of the Canada-U.S. relationship.” “Like those waterways our two countries are separate, but parallel, and we work together to our mutual benefit.”
Delta Air Lines Inc‘s purchase of 75 C-Series jets from Montreal-based Bombardier with options for 50 more was a recent example of such mutually beneficial ties that he cited.
The deal motivated by the jets’ innovative and recently engineered geared turbofan, which even Delta President Ed Bastian has called a transforming innovation for the industry, is just one of a multitude of examples of how well the Canada-Georgia relationship is doing, according to Mr. Johnston.
He could have also cited the role of the Can-Am Steel Corp. in the construction of the new Mercedes-Benz/Atlanta Falcons stadium due to be completed by 2017. The Canadian company is supplying more than 700 of the highly engineered components for the retractable roof of the $1.2 billion facility.
Or he could have mentioned the 12,000 square-foot water treatment recovery facility at the Fort Wayne Hill Water Reclamation Center in Gwinnett County operated by Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, a Canadian company responsible for pumping safe, reclaimed water into Lake Lanier.
He didn’t, but he underscored that Canada has more than 250 businesses operating in Georgia, which together employ more than 10,000 people in the state.
He stuck with the Delta deal because it provided a platform for him to explain how Montreal has become one of the world’s leading aeronautics centers along with Toulouse, France, and Seattle, Wash., and to demonstrate “how learning and innovation reinforce each other.”
Montreal is home to 215 aerospace companies with 70 percent of total spending on research and development performed in Canada is centered there.
As a former president of McGill University, which is located in Montreal, he said that he had helped develop a master’s degree program in engineering along with five other regional universities and the local aerospace industry to educate a qualified number of Canadian employees.
Prior to the program that required “constant communication and close collaboration” Canada, he said, was reliant on hiring engineers from overseas who often left after a few years once they gained work experience in Quebec. By cultivating a domestic workforce of requisite engineers, Montreal has been able to achieve its current status as an aerospace center.
“The great lesson from that experience,” he said, “was how learning institutions, local industry and business and the community could work together to tackle challenges and create prosperity.”
“I see something similar happening here in Atlanta with Tech Square,” he added, “and innovators can be extended across our international border to the benefit of both Canada and Georgia.”
Following the luncheon, he told Global Atlanta that he thought the Southeastern U.S.-Canadian Provinces Alliance was a step in the right direction, but “only a first step, and many more steps must be taken.”
In stark contrast to what can be heard within the United States, he came out unequivocally in support of the accomplishments of Nafta, which he said had brought “enormous benefit” to all three countries involved, especially in regard to strengthening their supply chains.
Nafta has strenghtened Mexico‘s democracy by providing economic growth and helped shore up its justice system, he added. Meanwhile, Canada with its traditions of both civil and common law, he said, is well suited to working with both the U.S. and Mexico.
Canada’s success as a business partner, however, is dependent, he also said, on its belief in the benefits of “working together and learning from one another.”
According to Mr Johnston, his country’s keys to success have been what he has coded into five cs — curiosity, creativity, culture, collaboration and celebration, acting as motors for productivity.
He traced curiosity to the first Europeans willingness to learn from the First Nation people on whom they depended upon their arrival. Canada’s policy of making education available to everyone also has been an important factor in the country’s development, he said, especially because it insisted that “excellence” remain an objective of its educational systems.
Canadians also are encouraged to celebrate their cultures and languages with a fundamental appreciation of inclusion. “This approach fosters social harmony and makes out country more outward-looking and global,” he added.
Canada’s investments in research and innovation in a wide variety of areas including information and communications technology, energy, life sciences and the environment are all paying off, he said.
But during a question period at the end of his comments, he was asked what impedes Canada from achieving its full potential and he acknowledged yet another “c” – this one being “complacency.”
“Life has been good,” he added, indicating that this good fortune isn’t all beneficial to economic progress. “We are blessed with natural resources,” he added, indicating that this blessing also may be a hindrance to developing 21st century skills.
But, he added that the country has benefited from the influx of immigrants, who have brought with them a desire to start anew and renewed energy.
After the luncheon, Mr. Johnston was whisked away to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control where he met with Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, and other officials and visited its Emergency Operations Centre with which Canadian health institutions remained in close contact during the Ebola crisis.
Before departing Atlanta, he joined city officials at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site where he became the first Canadian dignitary to lay a wreath at the Memorial to show Canada’s solidarity towards the civil rights movement.
The Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Diplomacy Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Diplomacy newsletters.