Proactive diplomacy in motion for Italy-Canada relations
TORONTO – It can never be claimed that Italy would allow an opportunity to be squandered by “the necessity to test the waters with empty rhetoric”. Or, for that matter, to underutilize a diplomatic posting as a mere “reward” for having fulfilled a role that may no longer require one’s services.
There is never a better opportunity than the one before begging for attention and satisfaction. It is an adage that there is no better client than the one in which you have an established relationship.
Canada is in an existential need to expand, grow its client base or risk undesired (exploitative) designs on its assets by its neighbour to the south. We know this to be so because our government repeats this “condition” daily as justification for its foreign and international trade policy initiatives.
What better “partner” than Italy to explore those alternatives to reciprocal, mutual advantage, says H.E. Alessandro Cattaneo, Italy’s Ambassador to Canada.
The conditions are ideal – now. That was his message throughout the day. With the help of Joe De Matteis, chief of staff to Anna Roberts MP, Cattaneo led a meticulously planned and executed visit in the GTA’s Italian community north of Toronto, where he coined a telling understanding of the psychology of its citizens when he admitted that the Embassy had long been overdue for a visit to the Greater Vaughan Area, as an introduction to the potential inherent in the manufacturing, scientific research, development, engineering, culture, consumption, learning and entrepreneurialism for which those citizens are known.
The luncheon crowd (in the video below) hosted by Mayor Steven Del Duca was delirious in its appreciation of the implied and explicit compliments directed at them as a collective. It was no “ordinary” gathering. Attendees included business leaders, administrators of educational, health, welfare, commercial, professional legal, financial, labour associations and various government and partisan political affiliations. These are not the types who are easily swayed.
In fact, Ambassador Cattaneo maintained a freshness in messaging from the first reception meeting at Bianchi Presta Law Offices to that last at Mario Cortellucci’s Venue Event Space, even as he stressed the theme that it’s time to build on the experience and expertise acquired by dint of contribution and effort through the years in Canada and adapt them to the changing conditions of the present an future.
In both, an invitation and exhortation to accept was the order of the day. People can attribute this “initiative” to whatever motive they wish.
What is incontrovertible is that the Ambassador has been travelling to areas of Canada heretofore ignored by Canadians, let alone those of Italian origin. I speak of the lumber/mining industry in New Brunswick and the steel industry and military/naval industry in Nova Scotia. Both sectors have experienced Italian participation that should increase.
Secondly, the deliberate decision by Anna Roberts, MP King City, to seek election, and secure victory, the position of Chair to the Parliamentary Italy Canada Legislative Association, signals a purposeful direction for Canada’s Conservative Party to pursue a pro-ethnically diverse inclusivity in its policy for economic development. She and her Party are already shaping plans to fill in gaps they perceive to have been outcomes of neglect by their partisan rivals in Ottawa and beyond.
An astute Ambassador Cattaneo, ably assisted by Consul General Luca Zelioli are actively promoting the Canada-Italy collaboration of the past as a basis for improving the productivity for the future.
Ad majorem. This augurs well.
Here below is a photogallery of the events (photos: Corriere Canadese)
