Bill Graham takes part in the conference on April 9 (photo by Jean-Marc Carisse)
Trinity Chancellor Bill Graham reflects on Canada's international role
A look ahead at U of T conference celebrating 50th anniversary of the Pearson government
Published: April 8, 2013
The Honourable Bill Graham, Chancellor of Trinity College and former acting leader of the federal Liberal party, has been a key contributor to the growth and development of Centre for Contemporary International History (CCIH).
On Tuesday of this week, the Centre plays host to a conference at U of T to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Lester B. Pearson government.
The conference has attracted an impressive array of speakers and attendees, including former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and John Turner.
Chancellor Graham will be making a significant donation to the centre, located at Trinity College and the Munk School of Global Affairs, which Trinity Provost Andy Orchard will formally announce at the conference luncheon.
The following is an edited transcript of a Question and Answer session with Chancellor Graham, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Minister of Defence under Prime Minister Paul Martin.
Graham (Trinity, 1961, LLB U of T, 1964) became the Chancellor at Trinity in 2007.
What role can the Centre for Contemporary International History (CCIH) play in the world given the tumultuous times we are facing internationally?
There is no question Canada needs a greater exposure to international affairs in the educational process. When I was Foreign Minister, I met regularly with the presidents of universities and colleges and the thrust of what they were always saying was today’s world needs more of our students getting outside the country and more exposure for students to international affairs. I personally taught international law and international trade law at the law school for some time and while I was there we started a chair called the William Graham Chair in International Law and Development. It was already an idea of mine that what I wanted to do was to make sure young lawyers were getting exposed to corners of the world they didn’t normally get exposed to.
When I came to U of T after politics, when I was very flattered to be asked to be the Chancellor of Trinity, John English and I started teaching a course together called International Contemporary History which was really a cover for an opportunity to bring in outside voices that students could be exposed to, who were not only experts in their field but practitioners in their field.
That led to the idea that we could create a centre where these experts and practitioners could not just benefit students but enrich the university itself.
We had a very successful conference last year on Afghanistan, which will produce a book and we are going to replicate that conference this year in Australia, because the last conference was done in conjunction with the National University of Australia. The topic will be Iraq. Scholars from the countries will share experiences and another book will be written to enable future generations to analyze those events.
I felt more and more that what all these diverse activities needed was a coherent, central home where everything could be drawn together. It has to be properly funded to do these things and enrich the life of the university and its students.
The latest extraordinary gift that you are making will then enhance both the teaching and research components of the centre?
The gift will serve as a core for activities, but it probably won’t be enough to satisfy the total ambition of all of us, I hope. We will be able to go out and raise some more money and get other people to contribute. We already have one very generous person who is interested in funding visiting persons from a certain part of the world he is interested in. We can draw in other people who are interested in building on that. The gift entails a substantial amount of money, but in the university world, it is a beginning, not an end in itself.
Once you get a centre, somebody there full time – Professor English will be the first director – the centre will be able to build relationships. We have already built one with the Australian national university. I will be travelling, going to a conference in Doha in May. There will be a constant way to build these links around the world.
We get very good students at Trinity College and we get a very diverse group from around the world. So this (the centre) very much reinforces the International Relations program. Trinity’s vocation for international relations certainly drew me to the fact that this was a logical place to try and make this effort to benefit undergraduate students, and I think it will. It could also be a vehicle for some form of graduate activities at the college.
You have done some writing recently, including a retrospective with your son Patrick about Mr. Chrétien’s decision to stay out of the Iraq war, and your take on post-Chávez Venezuela. Is it your plan to speak out more about the conflagrations that continue to break out around the world?
I’m going to give my papers to Trinity for the archives, but I’m looking at the possibility of producing a book out of that that would be helpful to scholars. The other thing I’m doing is speaking at events such as the Rotary Club in Calgary, where I spoke about Iraq, and I will be speaking at the conference in Australia, and they will be publishing those remarks. I am very interested in Latin America and may write some things as we go along.
During the Pearson era and well beyond, Canada was known for its role as a peacekeeper and an honest broker, with its quiet diplomacy leading other nations to seek its advice. Some critics say Canada is more isolated today given its withdrawal from Kyoto, its failure to gain a seat on the UN Security Council and the recent withdrawal from the African drought convention. Would you agree with that? How do you think Canada’s role could change?
I don’t want to get into a partisan sort of thing, because there are some aspects of the present government’s policies that I would totally approve of – their more active interest in the Arctic; their more active interest in the Americas, are things that I actively tried to pursue when I was there. But I do think during my time as foreign minister under Jean Chrétien and defence minister under Paul Martin that there was a recognition by the Canadian government, by the Canadian people and by foreign governments that Canada, because of its historic and geographic and other attributes, had a special role in bringing countries together, around creating international institutions…like the International Criminal Court or all the other work done at the United Nations. I hope with the centre we will help our students understand that and understand the role of language, and culture, tolerance and acceptance of one another. Those are all factors in how you build relationships.
The Munk School of Global Affairs and John Kirton’s research group working at the G8 and G20 meetings are providing in-depth analysis of how governments are reacting to world events. Do you see this type of research becoming increasingly important?
The students who have worked with the G8 and G20 have had terrific experiences. I used to go to those meetings and it was amazing to see what those students were doing. Sometimes they were the only people getting reports, meeting heads of states. It was a very valuable experience for them. And they produce very good work. If you were to ask foreign experts where they go to for research on G8 or G20, that’s where they all turn. John Kirton has done an amazing job with that.
