Her Excellency Ms. Wendy Gilmour, High Commissioner of Canada to Pakistan, addressed a Webinar organized by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR) under the chairmanship of Mr. Ikram Sehgal.
She said Pakistan and Canada have over a billion dollars in two-way trade, primarily in commodities, agriculture, soft lumber and logs and leather goods going in the Canadian direction, scrap metal coming from Canada to Pakistan, and that’s where the future of the trading relationship lies.
She added that entrepreneurs and business people working together in information communications and technology would be an area of tremendous growth. She said that we’ve seen some very successful Canadian companies enter the Pakistani market to take advantage of English-speaking, educated software engineers and other specialists that can contribute directly to the global growth of these companies.
The high commissioner of Canada sees tremendous potential in renewable energy and clean technologies, which certainly gives Canada a competitive advantage. She also said,
“We are quite excited by the prospect of developments in the extractive sector and declared willingness of Pakistan to look at addressing some of the historical challenges in the extractive sector.”
Replying to one observation regarding discrimination in visa issuance to Pakistani students, she said that every application is considered on its own merit based on the information that is received in the applicant’s file. The Canadian government wants more students from Pakistan to go to Canada.
There is no question about it. It is one performance indicator for the delivery of the mandate of my high commission. Also, we are constantly working to engage with students who are qualified to go to Canada and believe in encouraging them.
She added that Canada established a program available to a number of countries around the world, including Pakistan, called the Student Direct Stream. And in the student direct stream, there is expedited processing for those students who are accepted to a qualified university. So we are strongly encouraging students going to Canada to apply through the SDS stream, the Student Direct Stream.
Also, replying to one question regarding the current hot topic of Ukraine confrontation, she concluded that there are many different views in this respect, but she believed that it was very important that we all underline the importance of international law and the behaviors of states to be good global citizens, to respect territorial, integrity, and sovereignty of other peoples.
The Webinar was concluded by KCFR’s Chairman Ikram Sehgal. He thanked Her Excellency, Ms. Wendy Gilmour, for giving a good discourse and good presentation on things, particularly between Pakistan and Canada. The webinar was moderated by Treasurer KCFR Kalim Farooqui.
