Oceania and Canada: Building Bridges in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific

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As Canada formulates its own Free and Open Indo-Pacific policy that supports its interests, engages on development, and promotes a rules-based order in the region, Ottawa will have to decide how to balance between bolting on to the existing structures and approaches of allies and partners versus trying to find niches that are uniquely Canadian.

An example of bolting on was the recent Sea Dragon 2021 Quad (United States, India, Japan and Australia) Plus Canada anti-submarine warfare exercise in Guam. It is important that Canada show willingness and ability to work with allies and partners, but from the point of view of countries in the Indo-Pacific, there was little uniquely Canadian about the engagement.

In contrast, remnants of an example of Canada engaging effectively bilaterally can still be seen in the Kingdom of Tonga in the Oceania sector of the Indo-Pacific. Years ago, when Canada had a different approach, it prioritized human security infrastructure. In Tonga, Canada partnered with local communities to build much-needed water tanks that still today sport the maple leaf and keep families more secure. It was a practical Canadian approach that worked.

Today, Canada’s approach to aid in Tonga seems influenced in part by New Zealand’s approach (Canada doesn’t have direct diplomatic representation in Tonga; it is managed out of the Wellington High Commission).  The projects tend to be more about social issues, and most Tongans would be hard pressed to identify anything uniquely Canadian about the engagement.

The same is largely true across Oceania. Canada does engage – it is a Dialogue Partner of the Pacific Islands Forum, supports community-based projects across the region through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, and is a donor for the Global Environment Facility (to date it has approved $15 million USD for projects in Vanuatu to support initiatives of climate adaptation and resilience). It also works with Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and elsewhere through the Trade Commissioner Service at the High Commission of Canada in Australia and contributes to the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative, which provides Vanuatu with disaster risk assessment and financing tools, including sovereign risk insurance.

Additionally, Canada provides long-term institutional support to multilateral and global organizations that are present in the Pacific and has forged a partnership with UN Women to provide funds to implement the Pacific Islands Markets for Change Project, supporting female merchants in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands by ensuring that markets provide safe, inclusive, and non-discriminatory environments. In the Solomon Islands, the High Commission of Canada in Australia focuses on several areas of cooperation including but not exclusive to gender equality/women’s empowerment projects and climate change initiatives. Moreover, Canada and the Solomon Islands also share interests the fishing industry and are party to the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement.

While not an exhaustive list of Canadian activities in the region, Canada’s approach seems to work in familiar ways, with the stated goals of building social, economic, political, and environmental resilience and sustainability in the region and of supporting institutions that are considered transparent, robust, and rules-based for promoting sustainable development.

This resonates with the “Free” and “Open” Indo-Pacific Visions that several states including Japan are promoting to help build a more prosperous and stable region. And while important, and many aspects are worth continuing, they are hard to identify as uniquely Canadian, or unique to Oceania. This is cookie-cutter engagement and on the ground Canadian projects are difficult to distinguish from what comes from many other, often larger and more visible, partners.

Dovetailing with allies and partners is essential, but it is also worth considering if there are areas where Canada might be able to offer something unique – something that ultimately will be more helpful to allies and partners to support the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept while at the same time is more directly about Canada finding its own way to engage with the region, for the benefit of all concerned.

Cleo Paskal is an Associate Fellow with Chatham House, London, U.K. (aka Royal Institute of International Affairs) and Non-Resident Senior Fellow for the Indo-Pacific with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on Twitter @CleoPaskal. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.