Event Archive

The Kakehashi Interactive Learning Forum is organized and hosted by the Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE), and will take place over two days in Tokyo. The forum is open to all Kakehashi alumni residing in Japan. Organized around the theme, “What we can do to ensure a sustainable future – learning from Japanese initiatives”, participants will have the chance to learn about and discuss the 17 universal SDGs and hear from an expert speaker from the Japanese energy sector.  

In this discussion, Ambassador Ian McKay, Canada’s Ambassador to Japan and Special Envoy for the Indo-Pacific, will touch upon the current political dynamics in Japan and what they might mean for Canada-Japan relations. 

Amb. McKay will also share his thoughts on the state of Canada’s Indo-Pacific engagement two years into Ottawa’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, as well as takeaways from his recent participation at last month’s ASEAN-Canada Special Summit in Vientiane, Laos and the recently concluded APEC Leaders’ Summit in Lima, Peru. 

Click here to register. 
 

The Canada-ASEAN Business Council (CABC) is hosting the first Canada-ASEAN Energy Transition Summit in Singapore, on November 29th, 2024.

By 2040, the Indo-Pacific will represent 50% of global GDP.  Energy transition is a key consideration for this high-growth economic region to support rapidly growing electrification needs and to meet net-zero goals.

Canada offers world-leading energy solutions, resources, and technology. This high-impact, inaugural Summit will profile Canada’s role as the go-to partner to meet the region’s unique energy security and sustainability needs. This will also serve as a landmark initiative to establish the Canada-ASEAN energy transition partnership, which will generate value for the Canadian economy and create long-term commercial opportunities for its energy sector.

This Summit will provide a sought-after platform for exchanging insights, forging partnerships, and exploring bilateral investment opportunities. By convening senior stakeholders and decision-makers, sharing best practices, and exploring the immense investment potential Canada poses, this event will result in mutually beneficial economic outcomes and an acceleration of the energy transition on both sides.

Objectives:

• Establish Canada as a global leader and key partner to ASEAN in meeting the region’s unique energy security needs.
• Showcase Canada’s clean and renewable energy expertise, solutions, resources and R&D in nuclear energy, LNG, hydrogen/ammonia, CCUS, and more.
• Foster outcome-oriented dialogue between Canadian and Southeast Asian policymakers and businesses on how to form partnerships to advance the energy transition in the region.
• Raise awareness among multinational corporations and energy companies on the opportunities that Canada presents for energy investment.

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada invites you to attend the CPTPP Policy Forum on Inclusive Trade, an event for strategic policy dialogue co-organized by APF Canada and Global Affairs Canada.  

DOWNLOAD OUR FORUM PROGRAM

This half-day event will feature an opening panel with The Hon. Mary Ng, Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development, alongside ministers from the international Inclusive Trade Action Group (ITAG). 

It will be followed by four consecutive panel discussions tackling trade diplomacy and the role of inclusive trade, utilization success stories and challenges, and exploring how data and AI can be used to make the CPTPP more inclusive. 

Participants will hear from a diverse lineup of domestic and international experts.

Seating is limited; please register here to attend. Registrants will receive further event details prior to November 25. 

As a co-supporter of this event, APF Canada invites you to join the Business Forum: Enhancing Connectivity between Vietnam and Canada in Manufacturing and Energy Sectors on November 26, 2024 in Vancouver, BC. 

Register Here

This forum is organized by the Vietnam Trade Office in Canada in the framework of the visit to Canada of The Honorable Nguyen Hong Dien, Vietnam Minister of Industry and Trade; together with Vietnam businesses and leaders from agencies regulating industry and energy sectors in Vietnam. 

This forum provides a platform for businesses to better understand why the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) can improve Canada’s economic links with Vietnam as well as how Vietnam is important to Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. 

Attendees will gain insights from experts on strategies to leverage the CPTPP to enhance the supply chain and production chain connectivity between our two countries in energy and manufacturing sectors. This event is where businesses and governments come together to explore new venues for collaboration between Canada and Vietnam.

APF Canada's Vice-President Research & Strategy Vina Nadjibulla will participate in the 10:30 a.m. panel discussion: 'New international business context and the reshaping of energy and manufacturing’s supply chain.'

Please note: Participation is by invitation only and confirmation of attendance will be required prior to attendance in person.

Hosted by the Parliament of Canada, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s 70th Annual Session will take place in Montréal, Canada from 22 to 25 November 2024.

APF Canada Vice-President Research & Strategy Vina Nadjibulla will moderate the 'Meeting the China Challenge' panel on November 23.  

Panel 3: Meeting the China Challenge  
 

Panelists:

• Vina Nadjibulla, Vice-President, Research & Strategy Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
• Colonel (retd) Robert E. Hamilton, Head of Eurasia Research, Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
• Paul Evans, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia
   

Click here for more information. 

Join us with Business in Vancouver Editor-in-Chief Hayley Woodin Hastings and EDC’s Chief Economist, Stuart Bergman for an exclusive event where industry leaders, experts, and 2024 BC Export Award nominees and finalists will gather to explore the challenges and opportunities in global trade amid geopolitical risks.

Learn about export strategies, supply chain security, and emerging market trends from a distinguished panel, and connect with key players in the industry during the panel discussion and networking reception.

APF Canada's Vice-President Research & Strategy Vina Nadjibulla joins Stuart Bergman, chief economist and vice-president at Export Development Canada and David Kratochvil, president and CEO at BQE Water, as a panellist at this event. 

Click here to register. 

For over 30 years, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit  has been the premier business event in the Asia Pacific. In 2024, it will be held in Lima, Peru from November 13th to 15th, bringing together over 1,000 C-level executives, thought leaders and government representatives under this year’s theme, "People, Business, Prosperity."

The Canadian business delegation for the CEO Summit will be led by the Canadian members of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Ms. Jan De Silva and Mr. Joseph Fung, supported by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in our capacity as the Secretariat of  ABAC Canada. 

The curated lineup of speakers will present groundbreaking ideas and innovative solutions to address the region's most pressing challenges in trade, energy transition and the role of critical minerals, the future of work, financial inclusion, and sustainability; aiming to spark innovative solutions that promote economic growth and prosperity across the region. The Summit will also highlight the latest trends and disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence and digital health, that are transforming businesses and society today. 

Participants will also hear keynote addresses from world leaders. 

Join us for an encore presentation of the acclaimed social justice project Ek Khaale with photojournalist Greg Constantine, who spent the past three years with the international Rohingya community to create this collaborative, co-participatory storytelling and visual restoration project. 

Constantine will share microhistories, journeys, historical narratives, and other notes from the Ek Khaale project, which opened at Hart House at the University of Toronto and contributed to Rohingya and Burma-related events in Toronto, Ottawa, and online this October.

Click Here to Register

Returning to the West Coast of Canada, Constantine will lead a presentation and discussion on this groundbreaking project at the Foundation’s offices in Vancouver. 

About the Project

For people in Myanmar, the Rohingya community’s history has been, at best, questioned, and at worst – and in reality – rejected outright. Much of the Rohingya’s visual history has been lost, confiscated, or destroyed during waves of violence, forced displacement, and genocide over the past 60 years. This destruction continues today. This has severely undermined ways in which the Rohingya preserve and share their collective memory, identity, and history with others. 

In late 2021, several years after genocidal violence forced three-quarters of a million Rohingya into Bangladesh, the project Ek Khaale was launched by photojournalist Greg Constantine. Ek Khaale is the Rohingya expression for ‘Once Upon a Time.’ It is a collaborative, co-participatory storytelling and visual restoration project. It was launched in collaboration with Rohingya in refugee camps in Bangladesh, as well as those still living inside Burma, and among the diaspora in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Malaysia, and Europe.

Working with Rohingya youth and Rohingya elders, the project seeks out historical visual materials that Rohingya have miraculously preserved, secretly held on to all these years (often at great personal risk) or have salvaged and carried with them under the most unimaginable circumstances. Old photographs, family collections, documents, letters and illustrations contributed by Rohingya are combined with historical materials from a variety of public and private archives. These memories of family and evidence of historical existence as a community have been displaced and separated into pieces all over the world, just like the Rohingya community.  

This project brings these materials and stories from the past back together again and activates them in the present. By exposing this unseen past, this project aims to share a visual portrait of the Rohingya most people have never seen before. It also challenges narratives and reconstructs what Burmese regimes and other communities have spent decades trying to destroy.

Constantine will talk about the history of this groundbreaking project and its significance for the Rohingya community, share several of the most important discoveries over the past three years, and discuss the stories behind them.  

About Greg Constantine

Greg Constantine is an award-winning documentary photojournalist and author. He has dedicated his career to long-term, independent projects that explore the intersection of human rights, inequality, injustice, citizenship, identity, belonging and the power of the state. 

His long-term projects include Nowhere People,  Exiled To Nowhere and Seven Doors. He is the author of three award-winning photography books, and his work has been exhibited in over 40 cities worldwide. Constantine has been documenting the persecution of the Rohingya community for the past 18 years. In 2021, a major exhibition of his work on the Rohingya genocide, titled Burma’s Path To Genocide, opened at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. For the past four years, he has been working with Rohingya on the Ek Khaale project.

Greg received his PhD from Middlesex University and most recently was an Early Career Fellow with the Independent Social Research Foundation and Queen Mary University in London.  

What does a Trump Presidency mean for Canada and other U.S. allies? What will be the possible impact of President-elect Trump’s foreign policy on Canada’s objectives and relationships vis-à-vis the Indo-Pacific? 

View the encore video presentation of this webinar. 

In this webinar, our panel of experts weighs in on these and other questions.

A special panel discussion with the University of Victoria's Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies on the results of the U.S. election and geopolitical implications for Asia brought to you by University of Victoria.

Our Vice-President Research & Strategy, Vina Nadjibulla moderated this virtual event. 

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s Investment Monitor: 2023 Year in Review: Navigating Canada-Asia Investment relies on primary sources and in-depth research to assess Canada’s foreign direct investment relations with the Asia Pacific at the national and sub-national levels. It explores the deepening investment relations between Canada and the region, highlights leading investors, and identifies key industries driving these investment flows. 

The launch event will not only introduce these trends and contextualize them in the current geo-economic environment but also suggest trends to watch for in the upcoming years. 

We invite you to join us as we take stock of the current Canada-Asia investment relationship and examine the importance of strategic engagement going forward. 

For colleagues based in Asia: We recognize the time of this event might not work for you. Please register to receive a link to the webinar recording.

Speakers

Dr. Anastasia Ufimtseva
Senior Program Manager, International Trade & Investment,
Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Dr. Ari Van Assche
Professor, Department of International Business;
Co-Director, International Institute for Economic Diplomacy,
HEC Montréal

Ms. Vina Nadjibulla (Moderator)
Vice-President Research & Strategy,
Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada
 

The Chile Pacific Foundation and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada will be addressing the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP in Child, Canada, and other Asia Pacific countries, focusing on trade and investment.

Our Vice-President Research & Strategy, Vina Nadjibulla will speak at this event. 

Encore Video (En español)

Canada and New Zealand share common values and interests in the Indo-Pacific region, including navigating shared challenges within this dynamic and evolving landscape. In light of these shared priorities, and one year after the government of Christopher Luxon took office in New Zealand, the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada is pleased to host a roundtable discussion on economic and security matters shaping the Indo-Pacific with three leading academics from New Zealand: 

• David Capie, Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies and Professor of International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington
   
• Natasha Hamilton-Hart, Professor, Department of Management and International Business, University of Auckland
   
• Jason Young, Director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre and Associate Professor in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations

Join us in a timely conversation with distinguished speakers and guests on how intelligence influences, and is influenced by, geopolitics at this partner symposium, Looming and Open War: The Role of Intelligence in a Time of Shifting Geopolitics

Our Vice President Research & Strategy, Vina Nadjibulla, will present during an afternoon panel, "Security and Intelligence Cooperation Beyond the Five Eyes."  

This event is presented by the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS), a nonpartisan, voluntary organization established in 1985 to provide informed debate in Canada on security and intelligence issues.

Join us to learn about the unique opportunities for networking, collaboration, and learning at the Canada-in-Asia Conference 2025. 

Visit our conference website for more information on CIAC2025 in Singapore Feb. 19-21, 2025.

View the encore video presentation of this event
 

This event will provide Kakehashi alumni with an overview of programs and resources available to Canadians interested in working in Japan and with Japanese firms. Speakers will include experts from the public and private sectors speaking on opportunities available, supports in place, and how best to position yourself to enter the Japan job market. There will also be a presentation from a Kakehashi alumna on their experiences working in Japan. The presentations will be followed by Q&A.

Presentations:

• The Embassy of Japan in Canada - Working Holiday visas
• JETRO - Resources and supports available to Canadians seeking jobs in Japan
• Pasona - Finding work with Japanese firms: Preparation and expectations
• Kakehashi alum

Explore how Canada and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can enhance economic security and foster collaborative resilience.

Join us on October 22, 2024, for an insightful symposium on Strengthening Canada-ASEAN Economic Security and Resilience at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa.

Learn about ways to integrate supply chains across sectors, dive into strategies for closer collaboration between governments and industries and hear from our VP Research & Strategy Vina Nadjibulla.

Make sure to register for this partner event by October 17, 2024, to secure your spot. Email info@canada-asean.org using your institutional email. 

The annual Arctic Circle Assembly brings together governments, organizations, corporations, universities, think-tanks, environmental associations, Indigenous communities, citizens, and others for a comprehensive and democratic Arctic dialogue. The Assembly is the largest gathering on Arctic affairs. It is a place for international engagement, co-operation, and celebration.

Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada is organizing a panel at this forum: The View of the Canadian Arctic Through an Indo-Pacific Lens (October 18; 5:10 p.m.-6:05 p.m. IST). APF Canada Program Manager Dr. Hema Nadarajah is speaking on this panel. Dr. Nadarajah is also speaking on the panel Arctic Connected: Strategic Connections Between the Arctic and the Indo-Pacific (organized by the Ted Stevens Centre for Security Studies; October 19 10:05 a.m.-11:00 a.m. IST).

The Government of Canada released its long-awaited Indo-Pacific Strategy in November 2022. The direct geopolitical linkages between Asia and the Arctic are highlighted as the Indo-Pacific region sees the Arctic as a region of opportunity. As part of the strategy, the need for responsible and sustainable engagement in the Canadian Arctic was highlighted. 

The Canadian Arctic is in need for innovative energy, shipping, and telecommunications infrastructure. With the accelerating climate, biodiversity, and energy crises, collaborative efforts to ensure sustainable development of the North are increasingly critical. 

Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which affirms its commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the Arctic region and the health and safety of Indigenous Northern communities, presents an opportunity to address these issues while also deepening its engagement in Asia. It is also crucial that an integrated whole-of-government approach is taken to address these pressing issues. 

While the Arctic is geographically remote, many different Canadian interests are at stake, which are discussed separately in various strategies. Integrating the Arctic strands of these strategies is necessary for Canada to achieve its aims and provides opportunities for new avenues of engagement with Indo-Pacific partners. These panels will raise the importance of examining the Arctic through various strategies– the Indo-Pacific Strategy, the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, the updated Defence Policy, and the Arctic and Northern Policy Framework – each of which make references to the Arctic.

Notable Speakers: 
 

• Hema Nadarajah, Manager, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada; Arctic360, Canada: Integrating Canada’s strategies on the Indo-Pacific, Defence, and Critical Minerals in the Arctic
• Ken Coates, Director of Indigenous Affairs, Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Professor, Yukon University, Canada: Yukon Security Council and Its Role In Driving Canadian Arctic Interests
• Jessica M. Shadian, President & CEO, Arctic360, Canada: Innovation, Investment, FDI, Infrastructure, Critical Minerals In The Canadian Arctic
• Shioichi Itoh, Senior Fellow, Institute of Energy Economics, Japan: Japan's Role in the Arctic