That's fair enough.
The influence comes in different ways. We are but 40 million people. Again, the heavy battalions are in Asia, where provinces of China have, in some cases, triple that. India obviously as well, and Indonesia.... We have what we call the physics of power, that scale issue. It doesn't apply quite as much to western Europe, necessarily, but it applies in spades to Asia.
Also, you have the tyranny of distance. You have that great distance with a fainter footprint, and then you have the size. That means expense to overcome that distance, and spending sufficiently on exerting influence at a distance is great. We're going to be more affected by Asia than we will affect them, but that is not an excuse for inaction and not making the effort. There is support—a bit of a bias here—for our academic institutions operating abroad, and it isn't and shouldn't be all about government. Business as well can have an important role internationally. We are more or less invisible in the United States, but we're present, our firms, in a particular, in large numbers. That's not quite so true in Asia.
Distance is only an excuse sometimes. People look at a globe, and Australia is right next door. I spoke to some Australians today at their high commission. Sydney is further from Shanghai than Vancouver is, but the difference is that, for Australians, the psychological distance is much shorter. In other words, they have made a decision that Asia is important to them, so they engage and they expect that to be the case. They are present on the ground in large numbers throughout southeast Asia in particular but also in east Asia.
For us sitting in Toronto or even in my home province of Alberta, China doesn't loom large. For the diaspora community it does, of course, but that shouldn't be the only place where expertise on Asia, interest in Asia or a role in Asia should apply. It takes money and sustained effort. The key thing there, I'd say, would be sustained effort.
Some of the issues in the past decades have been that we have had these episodic enthusiasms for Asia, and then some other crisis or some other situation comes along, and we move. That is noticed in those countries. If you visit a couple of times, and then it's six years since you were there, that will diminish any impact you have, whether it's soft power or just in terms of commercial promotion.