The Irish Diaspora in Canada and Mark Carney

The election of Mark Carney as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and hence forthcoming Prime Minister of that country reminds us of the Irish Diaspora there. Carney is a proud member of that group. There is little doubt but that in Ireland and throughout the wider Irish Diaspora, the Canadian element is often over-looked or just given lip service.

It is overshadowed by Irish America . This is surprising because the Canadian census regularly records the highest percentage of those with an Irish ethnic background of any overseas country, in 2016, approximately 4.5 million, or just under 14% of the population.



This is not an academic exercise but where people themselves self-identify their ethnic origins. This is about 2% higher than its southern neighbour, the United States . Much of the Irish settlement was pre-Famine migrants , concentrated in the eastern provinces of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, the Ottawa Valley, etc.

It is a long- and well-established community. Sign up to IrishCentral's newsletter to stay up-to-date with everything Irish! When I was Irish Ambassador, there was scarcely a town or city of any size in Canada that did not have an active Irish club or association , some dating from the 18th century and in rude good health. I occasionally even got invitations, while visiting an area, to meet with the members of the local Glasgow Celtic club.

This huge and influential community is an enormous asset. When the financial crisis hit Ireland seriously and I was the Irish Government representative in Ottawa, we were very lucky to have a whole raft of senior Ministers and officials in Canada, with Irish backgrounds who were anxious to assist Ireland. This included the Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty; Public Expenditure, Ted Menzies (father from Belfast); Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney; Public Safety Minister, Stephen Blaney; etc.

Similarly, among senior officials were the head of the Finance Ministry Horgan, and most notably the head of the Central Bank, Mark Carney . The Finance spokesperson for the then main Opposition Party (NPD), Nathan Cullen. also had an Irish background.

All were very well-disposed towards Ireland and anxious to assist us in our time of difficulties. As the crisis hit and Ireland was badly affected, Immigration Minister Kenney arranged with the Irish Embassy for a dedicated visa entry programme for Irish citizens (10,000 per annum), which were snapped up within minutes of becoming available as wholescale unemployment bit at home in the wake of the severe cutbacks demanded by Brussels. The Embassy used that renegotiation of the programme to ensure that Irish citizens in the North could apply.

Under the old restricted system, only residents of the Republic were eligible for the Irish quota. However, the real crunch occurred in the financial area. Minister Flaherty spoke publicly and often about the raw deal the EU was giving Ireland.

He developed close personal friendships with Irish Ministers of Finance of the period, Brian Lenihan and later Michael Noonan. Flaherty always asked me to keep in close contact with him and whenever an issue arose concerning Ireland, to keep him informed. As Finance Minister (equivalent to the Treasurer in Britain), he had influence right across Government.

Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose wife’s family was from Rathkeale in Co Limerick , was sympathetic and said to me after seeing the terms of the Bailout, “You guys were screwed." He was outraged that Brussels had forced the Irish State to take on the debts of private banks, much of whose lending was outside the Irish State. During that period, I met Mark Carney many times in Ottawa, especially in the company of Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty.

We had occasional social gatherings in the Parliament where those with an Irish background gathered, often in the Speaker’s rooms. Carney explained that his family had left Ireland soon after the founding of the Irish Free State. Two of his grandparents were from Mayo and a third from Cavan .

I joked with him that he got his banking and business acumen from the Cavan side. He had worked in London for a number of years, using his Irish passport . I regularly reported back to Dublin that the Canadian Government system was very eager to assist Ireland in any way it could.

That opportunity arose and I described it in the following passage in my book, "Ireland and the EU, Post Brexit." After the crisis had abated somewhat, Ireland found itself saddled with huge legacy debts, with penal rates of interest. The country badly needed a break so it could get on top of its repayments and start a virtuous circle rather than a spiral downwards similar to what happened to Greece.

At an informal meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos between Irish Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan with Canadians; Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Central Banker Mark Carney, a potential breakthrough was achieved. In what Noonan described as “back of an envelope calculation,” Carney, using his expertise in international finance, suggested to the Irish Minister a different way of calculating interest on Ireland’s promissory notes, essentially Governmental IOUs. Carney’s scheme would allow Ireland to pay less money upfront and give it a longer breathing space before it had to make heavy repayments.

If accepted, it would be a major boost towards allowing the country time to recover. When Ireland proposed the new calculations to the ECB, all the other countries, apart from Finland and Germany, agreed to offer Ireland support. Noonan was on good terms with the Finnish Finance Minister and asked her to speak to the Head of the Finnish Central Bank.

The Finnish Minister agreed, and the Finnish objections were subsequently overcome. The Germans proved more resistant but Mark Carney, with his prominent role in the G20 reform of banks programme, approached the Head of the Bundesbank and asked as a personal favour could the Germans abstain on the Irish proposal. He reluctantly agreed and the new scheme went through.

Ireland greatly benefitted from the respite. Again, it was our Diaspora, through Carney and Flaherty, who had come to our rescue. I was not present in Davos but listened to accounts of the Carney intervention from both Jim Flaherty in P J O’Brien’s pub in Toronto and subsequently from Michael Noonan in the Canadian Embassy in Dublin.

Therefore, on a personal level, I was delighted to see Mark Carney win the leadership of the Liberal Party. However, to be non-partisan, I should point out that the Conservative leader in Canada, Pierre Poilievre, and Carney’s opponent in the forthcoming general election, also has strong Irish roots. He was originally named Farrell before his adoption by a French-Canadian couple called Poilievre.

* Ray Bassett is Ireland's former Ambassador to Canada. This column was originally published on IrishBorderPoll.com .

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