Dr Janice Denoncourt, Associate Professor, NLS https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/law/janice-denoncourt
Tuesday, 18th July 2023, was an exciting day for me in London. As I made my way from Westminster station to the Black Rod entrance and through security to be admitted to a Committee Room in the House of Lords, I had time to reflect. I had now lived in the UK for as long as I have lived in Canada. We share Charles III as our head of state and after years teaching ‘English Legal System’ I was about to experience my first ever visit to the Upper House of the UK Parliament.
The occasion? I received an unexpected but welcome invitation to a ‘by invitation only’ event, run by the UK-Canada Council (CUKC), to celebrate the launch of the 50th Colloquium Report entitled, Canada and the UK in a Changing International Environment.
As the group was ushered in, I met a variety of interesting people including a banker, a mining CEO, a naval commander, an economic attaché and a journalist, among others. Old and new professional acquaintances! These encounters brought back good memories of an earlier time in my life when I was more directly involved in international relations; firstly as a military Visit Liaison Officer for captains of visiting naval warships and then as Aide-de-Camp for a Governor General. The setting felt familiar.
Over the last two years I have become more involved in the British Association of Canadian Studies (BACS). This group interests me as a UK-based academic with a Canadian and Quebécoise heritage, and as a British Council Chevening Commercial Law Scholar. I had the good fortunate to be awarded the Prix de la délégation de Québec à Londres earlier in the year for a corporate governance research project on the topic ‘Challenging Financial Opacity: Examining New Corporate Transparency Obligations in Quebec and implications for UK firms’. The UK-Canadian relationship is a deep one as we share many common values as liberal democracies, yet in my opinion this relationship tends to be undervalued. Yes, certainly it is more convenient to learn from countries with a shared language, but ideology also matters. It is less well-known that Canada has the most highly educated population in the world according to the OECD (2018), yet Britain has educated more serving heads of state at university level than any other country in the world – a real soft power (Higher Education Policy Institute (2017)). Indeed, I came to live, work, and study in the UK as a result of the award of a fully funded British Council Chevening Commercial Law Scholarship. My mind was filled with the potential for comparative Canadian and UK law themes.
Settling into our seats, we each received our own copy of the new Report, with a supportive foreword by the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak no less.
Our host, Lord Hayward, a dedicated rugby fan and campaigner for equality and gay rights, welcomed our group of about 50 leaders in their respect fields – political, diplomatic, military, economic, academic, and journalistic - to the Colloquium.
The Colloquia, alternating each year between the UK and Canada, are opportunities to strengthen enduring bonds. Passing the 50 year-mark, this is one of the longest standing bilateral policy fora of its kind, actively supported by the Prime Ministers’ Offices and foreign ministries of both countries. The Canadian High Commission is based in London and the Government of Quebec has a representative office at 59 Pall Mall. The UK’s High Commission is in Ottawa, with Consulates-General is several Canadian cities (Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver).
Anthony Cary CMG, UK Co-Chair, and former UK High Commissioner to Canada (2007-2010) introduced last December’s Colloquium and the new 2022 Report. The report format presents a series of opening propositions followed by a synthesis of the responses by way of knowledge exchange. On this day, the lead discussants provided critical, yet candid, commentary, followed by suggestions from those assembled as to how the two countries could further collaborate in an international context to meet specific policy objectives. Several invitees succinctly contributed their interdisciplinary perspectives on a wide range of pressing regional and global challenges facing Britain and Canada, from north to south and east to west, a veritable global analysis. It struck me that a better understanding of ‘complexity theory’ is needed as every aspect of our lives is being reshaped by innumerable disruptive events. Change is a threat, but there are also opportunities. Complexity theory studies a variety of disciplines with profound implications for the way think and act within the world.
As an academic with Canadian and UK qualifications from McGill University (BA) and the University of Nottingham (PhD), it was decidedly good to learn that a central goal of the Canada-UK Council is to nurture scholars who are ‘movers and shakers’. My participation at the event has already directly benefitted my research, through the timely establishment of important contacts on the topic of corporate governance norms.
Although the UK and Canada have been historically and economically linked for centuries and in many policy areas, the lessons easily translate, the law often take interesting turns so there is always more to learn from each other.
Thanks to the event co-sponsors which include the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development office, Canada House (La Maison du Canada), Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, City of London, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, and the Park Group.
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