Poland has recent clout and swagger. However President Andrzej Duda’s plea for Canada to step up was probably simpler at house than right here
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This can be a dialog collection by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a author and former Alberta cupboard minister, that includes newsmakers and intriguing personalities.
Greater than one million individuals of Polish descent reside in Canada. Within the rural group the place I grew up in southwestern Ontario, there was a Polish corridor the place I used to be generally recruited to serve up cabbage rolls and pierogis.
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Again then, that Polish cohort didn’t stand out from the remainder of their European friends — the Belgians, the Germans, the Hungarians. In the present day, Poland’s function in helping Ukraine has been a game-changer; the nation shares a 200-plus kilometre border with Russia and is the logistical hub for the transportation of navy gear and refugees from Ukraine.
Polish President Andrzej Duda just lately wound up an official go to to Alberta and B.C., house to 300,000 Polish-Canadians, not solely to advance Poland’s business pursuits in hydrogen expertise, however to wave the flags of NATO and the EU in Ukraine’s defence.
It was the primary go to to western Canada by a Polish head of state.
In a face-to-face with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, Duda had the temerity to publicly ask Canada, a NATO member, to pony up three per cent of GDP for defence spending — understanding full properly that the Trudeau authorities’s April price range laid the groundwork to maneuver Canada’s defence spending from roughly 1.33 to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2030, nonetheless shy of NATO’s really helpful two per cent dedication.
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Duda’s in his second time period as Poland’s president, and Trudeau’s in his third time period as prime minister; these two leaders are accustomed to each other. Trudeau would know that Poland spends over 4 per cent of its GDP on defence. And nobody actually expects Duda’s attraction to maneuver the dial on the Trudeau authorities’s defence spending.
However the ask will need to have landed properly again house in Poland, I put to Witold Dzielski, Poland’s ambassador to Canada, in a dialog a number of days after the presidential delegation departed from Edmonton and Witold returned to his diplomatic suite in Ottawa. The ambassador doesn’t deny my conclusion.
Should you don’t push, issues don’t change
The 47-year-old diplomat — who landed on this submit mere months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, having spent the seven earlier years working for Duda — is formally wearing a blue go well with, white shirt and blue tie, seated poker-straight in the midst of a white camelback sofa trimmed in ornate gold. Towering behind him are 4 monumental flags, representing Poland, Canada, the European Union and NATO.
“So the Polish voice is on the rise,” Witold says, “however there have been moments that individuals didn’t take heed to us, particularly within the safety context.” The outbreak of battle in Ukraine modified issues up for Poland; practically in a single day, the ambassador says, the nation turned a visual actor on the worldwide stage.
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Dreadful circumstances in Ukraine introduced this all about, however isn’t the chance for such relevance what many nations, and diplomats, dream of? Witold’s response is measured: “On this planet of wealthy nations, Poland is a brand new man on the town, so to talk,” he solutions, explaining how the nation rose to the extent of a developed nation solely just lately and is now the twenty first ranked economic system on this planet.
And whereas geo-political affect is puzzling to determine, Witold continues, he doesn’t outright deny the relevance of Duda’s latest go to to the U.S. (en path to Canada), to wave the EU and NATO flags in conferences with President Joe Biden, Home Speaker Mike Johnson, and former president Donald Trump — simply days earlier than Congress accepted $61 billion in critically wanted funding for Ukraine.
“Should you don’t push, issues don’t change,” the diplomat concludes. “And so, I’ve to say… President Duda’s assembly with former President Trump was, in that sense, an comprehensible and good thought.” Everyone knows how Trump brazenly complained America was bearing an excessive amount of of the burden in supporting Ukraine, even accusing Europe of failing to pay its share. Whereas Witold doesn’t credit score Duda with altering Trump’s thoughts, he acknowledges “President Duda had the power to have a dialog and an opportunity to affect former President Trump as a result of the gents labored collectively for 4 years when President Trump was in energy and it was a really shut cooperation … I don’t know which chief of a rustic met with President Trump greater than President Duda inside these 4 years.”
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It’s simple to get drawn into U.S. politics, and I redirect our dialog again to Canadian turf, asking if the Polish delegation’s go to to western Canada achieved what the ambassador wished. Witold’s diplomatic reserve lastly dissipates, and he responds affirmatively and with out equivocation.
“The go to was initially based mostly on two invites,” Witold explains, “one was the invitation from the hydrogen conference (in Edmonton) and the opposite was from the Polish group… There has by no means been a Polish head of state in western Canada.”
In an earlier phone chat, Witold caught my consideration along with his evocative quip: “Poland is the Alberta of the European Union.” Is he evaluating the tense relationship between an independently minded Alberta and Ottawa to the generally terse exchanges between Poland’s earlier right-wing authorities and Brussels? “That is one thing I’d not talk about, as a result of that is very political,” Witold counters, stiffly, after I ask. Maybe, he suggests, over a beer, we are able to sooner or later have that dialog.
Witold prefers to debate power transition. Poland, like Alberta, is dedicated to carbon discount, albeit we’re at totally different phases; Alberta has phased out coal-fired electrical energy era whereas Poles nonetheless depend on coal for 62 per cent of their energy. Each jurisdictions spend money on wind and photo voltaic however acknowledge pure gasoline as a key transition gasoline. “Figuring out the Russian bear is not going to sleep for too lengthy,” Witold explains, Poland is constructing power safety, developing a pipeline from Norway (the place Poland has shares in pure gasoline fields), and investing in liquified pure gasoline (LNG) import terminals to import gasoline (presently, from the U.S. and Qatar).
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And we each perceive how Canadian pure gasoline flows to American refiners, to then be shipped to Poland as LNG. Witold reviews paying nice consideration to indicators from Canada’s power minister on LNG exports, however he doesn’t see any progress. That’s one other dialog available over a beer or two.
Our shared dedication to hydrogen invigorates Witold. “Polish hydrogen is an enormous matter,” Witold reviews enthusiastically. Poland is the quantity three producer of hydrogen within the EU and quantity 5 on this planet, and the nation has found out the best way to use hydrogen to gasoline trains and buses. Whereas Germany and others are speaking to Quebec, the province selling itself as the long run exporter of inexperienced hydrogen, Poland, like Alberta, is specializing in methods to seize greenhouse gases emitted in hydrogen manufacturing — shifting from gray hydrogen to blue. Duda formally opened the Canadian hydrogen conference in Edmonton the place vital analysis collaborations have been introduced between Poland and Alberta.
Now the presidential go to is concluded, Witold is gearing up for the subsequent large Polish occasion in Canada. Parliament simply declared Could as Polish Heritage Month, which suggests the ambassador can be travelling from place to put throughout Canada, elevating flags, not simply Poland’s however the EU flag and NATO’s too.
“It’s good to be Polish in Canada,” Witold concludes.
You probably have story concepts, get in contact at dkennedyglans@gmail.com.
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