Report on “Celebrating Canada” – with H.E. Alain Hausser, the Canadian Ambassador to Latvia
07.06.2017

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“Celebrating Canada” took place on Monday, June 5^th, 2017 at the Radisson Blu Latvija Conference & SPA Hotel, Elizabetes 55, www.radissonblu.com/en/latvijahotel-riga

Ed Kalvins began the evening by welcoming new CanCham members Kalupe, Vladimirs Čamāns, RIPO and Abens Konsultants, and reviewed upcoming events, with the main ones being “Celebrating Latvia” on Friday, June 16^th,  a warm up to “Jāņi” with an afternoon field trip to the Brālis Brewery for a plant tour, and Canada Day on Saturday, July 1st celebrating Canada’s 150^th birthday, business after hours at Air Baltic on July 24^th, and Business After Hours at Circle-K with the NCCL on September 6^th. Ed also reminded about the business delegation being planned to visit Canada in mid September and that CanCham has undertaken a Sustainability Study headed by Daiga Štendenberga and that Member input was welcome. Special mention was made welcoming Signh’s Restaurant www.singhs.lv as CanCham’s first Senior Corporate member and R-Birojs (accounting and financial services) www.rbirojs.lv as a sponsor for the evening.

Ed then introduced H.E. Alain Hausser, the Canadian Ambassador to Latvia who presented an enlightening review of Canada and its economic development. Special attention was focused on CETA, the Canada/European Union free trade agreement that has already been approved by both Parliaments and is currently going through the ratification process to remove most tariffs between the EU and Canada. Latvia and Denmark have already ratified the agreement and Canada is adjusting its internal laws to conform to CETA. Most provisions will come into effect in June, this year. See europa.eu/trade/canada/ and http://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/campaign-campagne/ceta-aecg/index.aspx?lang=eng. This will provide major export opportunities for EU and Canadian companies and will also benefit Latvia. He expressed concerns that some are interpreting the CETA negatively without substantiation. Ambassador Hausser also mentioned the agreement between the EU and Canada which documented the political positions of each side, but noted that its significance was merely formal since Canada and the EU share common values. Of course, the Canadian NATO deployment was covered along with Canada’s commitment to the security of its NATO allies and the Ambassador concluded noting with pride Canada’s continuing evolution and its international commitment.

We thank Ambassador Hausser for an informative and interesting presentation.

Ed Kalvins then provided a short historical summary of the development of Canada which lead to our guests celebrating the event with a 150^th year Confederation of Canada cake and bubbly sponsored by R-Birojs.

Presentations can be found at http://cancham.lv/cancham-members/presentations.

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