Last updated in September 2009
Political relations
Bilateral relations are cordial. Canada is an important North American friend and ally and is receptive to European and German interests owing to its history and national vision. Canada and Germany share common values and principles, as is evident in the Balkans and Afghanistan, in policies on the Third World, in disarmament and arms control issues as well as in the United Nations.
Germany and Canada are linked by their active involvement in international bodies and organizations, above all on issues of security and disarmament, human rights, humanitarian activities and peacekeeping operations. It is in Germany’s interest for Canada to maintain its strong commitment to Europe as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The good relations between the two countries are evident in the close cooperation between their foreign ministries, which often pursue parallel initiatives, for example the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, efforts to stem the spread of small weapons and combat child abuse, the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague and cooperation on the drafting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions signed by more than 100 countries on 3 December 2008 in Oslo.
The state visit to Germany by the Canadian Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson in October 2001 and the official visit to Canada by Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in June 2002 were high points in bilateral relations. Bundestag President Lammert has visited Canada three times over the past years, most recently in January 2008 at the invitation of Canada’s Parliamentary Speaker Milliken.
Regular interparliamentary exchange takes place through the German-Canadian Friendship Group in the German parliament and its Canadian counterpart. The Canadian side visited Germany most recently in October 2006 and the German side’s most recent visit to Canada was in May 2008.
Some Canadian provinces cooperate closely with German federal states: British Columbia with Bremen and Rhineland-Palatinate, Ontario with Baden-Württemberg, Québec with Bavaria and Alberta with Saxony. There are also plans for closer cooperation between Saarland and New Brunswick.
German immigration to Canada started some 300 years ago. Approximately 2.8 million Canadians out of a population of 32 million have German roots. The partition of Germany, the Berlin blockade and the division of Europe by the Iron Curtain during the Cold War forged strong ties between Europe and North America (the US and Canada). In the defence of shared Western values, Canada has demonstrated its solidarity with the Federal Republic of Germany. Up to 1993, a total of more than 300,000 members of the Canadian armed forces served in bases in Germany.
Economic relations
After a period of stagnation around the turn of the millennium, bilateral trade relations between Germany and Canada saw an upturn from 2005 to 2008, before re-entering a phase of severe stagnation as a result of the global economic and financial crisis in the first half of 2009. Overall, they remain at a level below the two countries’ economic potential. So far, Canada’s large natural resource reserves have played only a minor role in supplying Germany’s raw material and energy needs.
In 2008, exports of German goods to Canada rose slightly, to over EUR 8.1 billion, though they fell again by 0.07 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. The main exports are motor vehicles and spare parts, followed by machinery and plant, aircraft, electrical appliances and pharmaceuticals. This makes Germany Canada’s fifth most important supplier of goods, after overtaking Canada’s former colonial ruler, the United Kingdom, for the first time in 2006.
In 2008, German imports from Canada were worth nearly EUR 2.9 billion, growing by 0.02 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Besides raw materials, the main imports were aircraft and pharmaceuticals. Germany is the sixth most important market for Canadian products.
This means that 0.9 per cent of Canada’s exports go to Germany and 2.9 per cent of its imports come from Germany.
An agreement on scientific and technical cooperation has been in place between Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany since 1971 and a double taxation agreement since 2002. An economic agreement has existed between the EU and Canada since 1976, an accord on scientific and technical cooperation since 1995 and an air transport agreement since 2008.
The current topics addressed in discussions between the EU and Canada include negotiations on an extensive economic agreement and regular high-level talks on energy and environmental policy.
Cultural relations
The Joint Commission on Cultural Cooperation meets at irregular intervals under the German-Canadian Cultural Agreement of 1975, most recently in 2001 in Berlin.
German as a foreign language is promoted in a number of different ways – by seconding (at present two) specialist advisers from the Central Agency for Schools Abroad (ZfA) as well as academic language teachers from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and assistants from the Pedagogical Exchange Service (PAD) to Canadian universities and by funding a wide variety of projects through the Permanent Working Group for German as a Foreign Language (StADaF), which provides financial support for conferences for teachers of German, exchange activities, promotion material, etc. The German language schools, the National Heritage Schools – at one time also known as Saturday Schools – receive official support as well. Canada’s Goethe Institutes – in Toronto and Montreal with a field office in Ottawa – have the largest language departments in North America. It is also possible to learn German at selected schools and universities. The 2001 census revealed that there are approximately 2.74 million Canadians with at least one German ancestor, nearly half a million of them speaking German as their mother tongue.
Academic exchanges are supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Alexander von Humbold Foundation, German Research Foundation (DFG) as well as numerous university partnerships. In 2006, the German University Rectors’ Conference (HRK) registered 223 formal university partnerships between German and Canadian institutions.
Canada has two German full-time schools: the well-established Alexander von Humboldt School in Montreal and the German School Toronto in Toronto.
Founded in 1981, the Alexander von Humboldt School receives substantial financial and personnel support from Germany. This school, which currently offers instruction from kindergarten to 11th grade, is attended by some 300 pupils. The school will offer the German International Abitur (university-entrance examination) for the first time in 2010.
The German School Toronto was founded in 2000 and is still in the establishment and consolidation phase. It currently covers kindergarten and grades 1-8; a federal programme teacher seconded by Germany has been working there since 2006.
For some 20 years now, the DAAD has been providing targeted funding for interdisciplinary German Studies in North America. Such studies were initially part of a programme to reform the teaching of German in North America but soon became an institution in their own right. The DAAD supported this process from Federal Foreign Office funds through a number of funding instruments (awarding scholarships, supplying lecturers in German Studies and funding individual professorships, financing academic conferences and symposia). This range of instruments was extended to include the funding of complex Centres for German Studies, ultimately only feasible within a European context. In 1997, a consortium comprising the York University Toronto and the Université de Montréal won the competition to set up a Canadian Centre for German and European Studies/Centre Canadien. This centre received institutional funding from the DAAD for a period of ten years; the funding expired at the end of 2006. The University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia are also being supported on a more modest scale and with other funding instruments. In all cases, it is intended that the universities continue the studies even after the institutional German funding has ended, by attracting endowment capital and/or relying on external funding. In addition, autumn 2006 saw the launch of a new funding programme for German and European Studies in Canada, with an initial annual sum of around EUR 150,000 being earmarked for this purpose.
The University of Toronto has its own office in Berlin (UTB). The UTB’s job is to represent the University of Toronto in Germany, promote academic cooperation, enable and support German-Canadian conferences and encourage networking.
On 20 June 2006, Federal Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier and his Canadian counterpart Peter MacKay signed the so-called Youth Mobility Agreement (YMA) in Berlin. This is an umbrella agreement encompassing all earlier youth exchange programmes. The YMA enables young Germans and Canadians aged between 18 and 35 years to spend up to a year in the partner country. For the duration of their stay, the young people are allowed to work to support themselves or to complete an internship.
