foundation of canada asia pacific - Content Tagged with

ASIAN EXPERTISE
5
hidden advantage
or lost opportunity?
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Globalization is more than the liberalized flow of goods and capital across borders, or the
dispersal of various parts of a production chain across different countries. Globalization
has opened the doors to the freer movement from country to country of workers of all
descriptions, from labourers and domestic staff to skilled professionals and technicians.
Canadians, as much as most people, are aware of this because of the public debate about
the so-called “brain drain” of our own doctors, engineers and computer experts to the
United States. Canadian business is hard pressed to find ways to attract and hold the
staff it needs in the face of stiff competition from US firms able to bid for many types of
skilled Canadian workers under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Globalization opens the door out as well as the door in.
The situation facing staff with expertise in Asian trade and investment is quite different.
Rather than finding Canadian employers eagerly bidding to keep their services, they
must often look to foreign companies for jobs. Canadian business, it seems, is losing
Canadian-developed expertise in Asian business practices by default. In Asia, this is
because there are so few Canadian companies to employ them. In Canada, it is because
of a widespread lack of appreciation of the need for specialized cultural and business skills
in approaching Asian markets, or simply an unwillingness to see international experience
as a job asset. Some companies that do understand the unique business hurdles in Asia are
now looking for the expertise in the wrong place, by turning to young Asian Canadians
who often have no Asian expertise other than a language skill. This has the double
impact of ignoring trained Asian expertise while pigeonholing some Asian-Canadian
graduates into positions for which they feel unqualified.
Over the past decade, a number of Canadian universities and colleges have developed
business programs aimed at producing graduates with specific knowledge of Asia-Pacific
markets and business practices. McGill University in Quebec, York University and Humber
College in Ontario, Capilano College in British Columbia and Grant McEwan Community
College in Alberta all have programs with an Asia-Pacific focus, and together they turn
out more than 100 graduates a year. In many cases, the graduates also acquire competence
in one of the major Asian languages. Some of the programs offer students the opportunity
of working in an Asian country. Other graduates spend time in Asia under the federal