Programs

The Canadian Studies Institute

The Canadian Studies Institute (CSI) was established in 1984 with the help of the Canadian government. The CSI seeks to foster and promote a greater understanding of Canada's economy, businesses, and economic relations with the U.S. To accomplish these goals, the CSI sponsors research on Canadian issues, hosts speakers with expertise on Canada, organizes occasional student trips to Canada, and ensures that conferences and annual Student Associate trips have a Canadian component. The CSI is one of very few Canadian Studies programs housed in a college of business and economics, concentrating primarily on economic and business issues.

The CSI receives annual funding, primarily from the Canadian Embassy, to support Lehigh faculty research with a Canadian component and to enable the campus visits of Canadian experts. Recent research has covered a range of topics including: trade wars - Canada's reaction to the Smoot-Hawley tariff; retreat from protectionism - Canada-U.S. trade relations during the 1930's (ongoing); pay equity in Ontario's universities; the private-sector experience with pay equity in Ontario; NAFTA and manufacturing trade diversion; the Canada-U.S. experience with cross-border mergers and acquisitions; and the relationship between governance rankings and firm performance for the Toronto Stock Exchange's 250 companies.

Undergraduate Opportunities

Canada was the destination for the Martindale Student Associates trip in 1987 and 1993. Both trips led to Perspectives volumes, the latest one entitled "Sharing More Than a Border? The U.S. and Canada in the 1990s." A unique component of this project was a trip to the Canadian Embassy in January 1994 during which the students presented their research findings to a panel of experts assembled by the embassy's Academic Affairs Officer.

In other years, Canada has continued to play a role in the Student Associates Program. While in Buenos Aires during August 1994, Martindale students and faculty met with embassy representatives as well as faculty involved in Canadian Studies programs at three Argentinean universities. During the June 1995 trip to Germany, the group met with experts at the Canadian Embassy in Bonn. In Paris during June 1996, they met with trade, political, and cultural affairs experts at the Canadian Embassy. In June 1998, officers of the Canadian Embassy in Santiago, Chile, met with the group to discuss economic growth in Chile. The May 2001 trip to Hong Kong included a visit to the Canadian Consulate and discussions with the Consul General, the Vice Consul, the Senior Political Officer, and the Senior Trade Commissioner.

Conferences And Speakers

Many Martindale Center conferences have a Canadian dimension. A 1991 conference on the economic consequences of American education included a session on the Canadian educational system. A conference in 1992 on health care issues had sessions devoted to the Canadian health care system.

Every year the CSI hosts the visits of several speakers with Canadian expertise. Past visitors include: Dr. Joseph Jockel, formerly head of the Canada Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. and currently a professor at St. Lawrence University; Robert G. Wright, Economics Minister at the Canadian Embassy; the Honorable Roy MacLaren, formerly Canada's Minister of International Trade; David Strangway, formerly president of the University of British Columbia and currently Canada's chief representative during the salmon negotiations with the U.S.; the Honorable John Crosbie, formerly Canada's Minister of Finance, Justice, International Trade, Transport, and Fisheries and Oceans; the Honorable Barbara McDougall, who held a number of positions including President and CEO, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Member of the Parliament of Canada, Minister of State for Finance and the Status of Women, Minister of Employment and Immigration, and Minister of External Affairs; and Dr. Sylvia Ostry, Distinguished Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto and formerly Deputy Minister of International Trade, Ambassador for Multilateral Trade Negotiations and the Prime Minister's Personal Representative for the Economic Summit

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