Nr. 15
EESTI ELU reedel, 17. aprillil 2020 — Friday, April 17, 2020
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Ülle Baum interview with Michael Eyestone, the first Canadian resident diplomat to Estonia Q: Nice to meet you here at Global Affairs Canada. A: Thank you for coming. You will be the first Canadian diplomat resident in Estonia and assume your position in September? That is correct. Is this your first visit? I have been there before. I have traveled to Tallinn in 2017 and I found it be an enchanting city, absolutely beautiful, a walled medieval city. The Canadian embassy where I will be working is inside the walled city. It is a really lovely and a charming city and I loved the sense of moving forward to be coming a European center and one can see the energy that has been put into making it a modern city and I was just en chanted. The Christmas market was in the town square and I went shopping there, I bought scarves and amber of course. Everyone was so supportive, and it was a lovely visit and it made it much easier for me to contemplate this assignment to go to Tallinn for four years. What will your position be in Estonia and what does this new position mean to CanadaEstonia bilateral relations? I will be the Head of the Office of the Embassy of Canada in Tallinn. Canada runs a network of missions in the Baltics. We have an embassy in Riga and Ambassador Rex is accredited as Ambassador to all three countries. I will be the first resident diplomat in Tallinn but very much part of that network of three missions. I will be reporting to the Ambas sador, therefore working on the bilateral relationship but also with the specific mandate for commercial and economic rela tions between Canada and all three Baltic states. I will be accredited as a diplomat to all three, and I will be heading the trade program or what we call the International Business De velopment Program. This is where we seek to increase eco nomic and commercial relations through exports, investments and cooperation in science, technology and innovation and other areas, to improve pros peri ty in both countries and Europe generally, through eco nomic exchanges. We also have the new trade agreement between Canada and the EU, the Canada-Europe Comprehensive Trade and Eco nomic Agreement, called CETA, and I should add that all three Baltic states have ratified CETA at the national level, which is very encouraging to Canada. All of the economically mean ingful parts of the agreement are already in force and have been since 2017, which means that tariffs have been reduced, market access has been im proved, access to government procurement, and there are many provisions that lead to in creased economic relations and this situation was really created
to ensure that Canadian and Estonian businesses can take advantage of this new trade agreement and other opportu nities to boost our mutual prosperity. In terms of what the position means and the implications, it is clear that in putting in new resources, a new position into Tallinn, and I should be clear that this is a permanent position in our network so that after my term I will be replaced by someone else, this is an addi tion to Canada’s diplomatic net work globally and in Europe in particular, I think it reflects the importance Canada puts on the relationship with all of our part ners in NATO and the European Union. NATO is of course the foundational alliance that has guaranteed peace and security in the post-war world with tre mendous success and Canada is a strong supporter of NATO and all NATO members and this is part of our engagement with NATO partners. The EU is also tremendously important to Canada, both as an economic partner but in the full range of international issues of concern. The European Union states are often on Canada’s side on key issues in terms of advancing a certain view of how the world should work and how countries should be run in terms of respect for human rights and the rule of law, the multilateral system, the various issues that my Ministers speak about regularly, so this is a demonstration of Canada’s com mitment to that and our desire to take advantage of those ties to build an even stronger relationship between Canada and Estonia and the other Baltic states and EU countries. So is your connection with Estonia stronger in some other ways? Do you have other connections to Estonia? I do, and I will mention two. I have spent the past couple of years at Global Affairs at the European Bureau which manag es our relationships with the countries of the EU, and the EU itself, and I have been responsi ble for relations with a number of countries including Estonia and the other Baltic states so I have been working on these files and following develop ments in the region but more than that, I have a personal con nection that goes way back. My maternal great grandparents im migrated from Narva to Medi cine Hat, Alberta some time be fore 1918. The first written re cord we have of them is a cen sus in 1918 showing them in Medicine Hat coming from Narva. They didn’t even bring all their children with them. They had an infant not old enough to travel who stayed be hind a couple of years. My grandmother was born in Canada in an Estonian speaking household so she spoke it in the home as a native language and my mother who was looked
after by her grandparents when her mother was working learned Estonian from her grandparents as a child. Unfortunately, we did not keep the language in the family. Only one word of Estonian made it down through the generations to me which is “Tere” which is ‘hello’. But it is a connection. My grand mother, the matriarch of our family has passed away now but she was a strong figure in our family, and we very much felt the Estonian connection as children and Estonia was always a fascinating country for us as children growing up because it seemed so exotic. What are you now looking forward to learn and to do in Estonia? Personal discover ies? Certainly I am looking for ward to the opportunity to go and live and work in Europe. I have done Asian postings, four years in Tokyo, more recently four years in Washington D.C., so the opportunity to have a posting in Europe is certainly something professionally and personally rewarding. I am very much looking to delivering on what the government expects of me. They obviously have expec tations that there will be out comes. The primary focus is on the commercial side, enhancing commercial relations so we will be looking for opportunities to connect Canadian businesses with counterparts in the Baltic states in order to enable them to take advantage of opportunities.
Michael Eyestone, the first Canadian resident diplomat to Estonia is a Head of the Office of the Embassy of Canada in Tallinn, Estonia and also a Senior Trade Commissioner for Estonia and Latvia. Prior to his posting to Estonia Michael Eyestone worked as a Deputy Director of Europe Relations Division at Global Affairs Canada. Photo © Ülle Baum
I’m looking forward to what we call successes, or ‘wins’ where companies make sales or form partnerships or the types of commercial activities that suggest there is profit to be made and benefits to be had. I am also looking to the other half of my job, the bilateral relationship with Estonia and reciprocating the warmth that we’ve had from our Estonian guests, the Estonian Ambas sador here and the previous Ambassador have both been good friends to Canada, and to the department, and I look for ward to making many more contacts in Estonia in order to connect Canadians with Esto nians in ways that benefit us both. Thank you so much for this and I have a feeling that when you return you will have more blue, black and white memo ries. I think the first thing I’ll have to do is put a sauna in my
house. Everyone there has a sauna in their home. Thank you and is there anything you would like to add? I would like to say that Canada very much values our relationship with Estonia, we value the Estonian diaspora here in Canada which we know is a very active and engaged group. I was just talking with the person coordinating the con struction of the new Estonian Centre in Toronto and so we value the contribution of Esto nian Canadians in our multi cultural society, composed largely of immigrants, all of the different nations that make up Canada contributed to our cultural tapestry and Estonia, although certainly a smaller country, has made a significant contribution so we can look forward to continuing to have positive and productive relations with our friends in Europe.
KID’S CORNER: ESTONIAN-THEMED ACTIVITIES FOR FAMILIES TO TRY AT HOME
(PART 2)
VINCENT TEETSOV As most of us are at home these days, one place you probably spend a lot of time is in the living room. Continuing from the last edition of “Kid’s Cor ner”, here is another family activity to energize your home the Estonian way! Learn the Kaerajaan Folk Dance The Kaerajaan dance is one of Estonia’s most cherished folk dances, attributed to the area around Ahja mõis (manor house) in Põlva county in southeast Estonia. The associated song was written in 1889, to tease Jaan Matson, son of an oat (“kaer”) farmer, who was an alleged “ladies’ man.” The Kaerajaan is an ideal way to introduce rahvatants (folk dance) to your children, or to yourself as a parent if you’ve not had the chance to do it before. It teaches fundamental rhythmic and movement prin ciples, but it’s also active and exciting, so your kids will want to learn more dances like it. This a simplified version of the steps; both you and your chil dren can take part at the same level of difficulty:
Start with four dancers in a cross-shape, with pairs facing each other. Everyone should keep their hands on their hips. 1) Bounce on the balls of your feet, for two consecutive beats on your left foot and then two beats on your right foot; then alternate between your left footright foot-left foot-and right foot for four beats. That’s eight beats total. 2) Everyone claps “1-2-3-and4”, and puts their right hand in the middle of the circle, before turning clockwise two spaces in the circle. You should be across from where you were before. Everyone claps “1-2-3-and-4” again, before turning counterclockwise. 3) Repeat step one, but instead of staying in place for the last four beats, one pair of dancers across from each other trades places with one other. After another round of step one, the next pair trades places. 4) You can continue to repeat steps one and two or steps one and three as many times as you want, until the song is over or you are sweaty and exhausted on the floor, whichever comes sooner.
Basically, every time you complete the turns of the circle, you are completing another section of the dance. You can dance the last four beats of step one in any number of ways, in cluding: • spinning clockwise/counter clockwise in your place • having all four dancers step into the middle and then back out again • you could even add a move where partners link arms and spin as they go back to their original places in the circle. One alternative to step two is to have all participants hold hands and turn in a clockwise/ counterclockwise circle. Who knows, maybe you can invent totally new dance se quences within the framework of the Kaerajaan dance. If you feel so inclined, you could film a short video of your family dancing the Kaerajaan (with the hashtag #kaerajaan) and share it with friends and family, to see who does it best. Look for a recording of the song online to help you get into the spirit of the dance.
