There were many casualties both major and minor during the Covid years. One of them was the snowball momentum of Chinese tourism to the Northwest Territories.
For those of us not in the tourism industry, the arrival of tourists in the heart of winter, beginning about 30 years ago now, first from Japan and then South Korea, was a bemusing development in the minds of Yellowknifers more inclined to fly down to Puerto Vallarta to drink pina coladas under a beach hut than standing on lake ice at -30 C watching the Northern lights.
And then the Chinese came. Suddenly, aurora tourism became a $200 million business and the NWT was growing something a little more substantial than the typical withered pinky finger of secondary industry on the big hand of mining and government. Tourism will not replace the diamond mines when they eventually run out of diamonds, but no one can deny that it carries more economic heft than commercial fishing on Great Slave or making widgets in the Kam Lake industrial park.
But then Covid came and with it the end of international tourism for two full years. Tourism has come back, but we can all see it has not yet returned to its pre-pandemic glory.
Of course, in the midst of all this came the Two Michaels (detention of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in China) and election interference. Canadians are not happy with China right now, nor with the Canadian government’s response to the election interference accusations.
Last year, I was invited to meet Zhao Liying, the consul-general of the People’s Republic of China in Calgary, during her visit to Yellowknife. That trip was followed last month by a visit from the Chinese ambassador to Canada himself, Cong Peiwu.
Unlike my meeting with Liying, Ambassador Cong and I didn’t talk about politics. Our conversation mainly focused on tourism to the North. He suggested the Chinese government is keen to see it ramp up again, pointing out that the volume of flights from domestic carriers from Canada has not returned to pre-Covid levels.
That would be a boon for the NWT, of course, but the election interference issue remains a source of trouble and concern that threatens to undermine tourism regrowth from China. Had Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government been more forthcoming and less evasive when the story broke early last year that Chinese operatives had tried to sway federal election results in 2019 and 2021 in the Liberals’ favour, we as a country might have more confidence in our interactions with the Chinese government and its citizens visiting Canada.
Yes, there are many reasons to be wary of the People’s Republic of China and its government, but that shouldn’t be made the reason not to engage with it or its citizens. The world is becoming increasingly polarized and dangerous. I don’t see how less engagement will make it less so.
We ought to be confident to show visitors what a free and open society looks like.
The ambassador has asked NNSL Media to publish the letter accompanying this column reflecting on his recent trip to Yellowknife. He obviously sees value in engaging with Northerners and I commend him for it. That’s what you expect diplomats to do.
We’ve been watching Canadian politicians skating around in circles for years now anytime they’re asked about how our government is interacting with China. This is feeding the suspicion and cynicism Canadians are feeling right now toward our government’s interactions with this country.
We are a proud, free nation. It’s time we start acting like it. And showing it.
—Mike Bryant is publisher of NNSL Media.