Wharton Undergraduates in Public Policy and the Canadian Club at Penn co-hosted a fireside chat with New York’s Canadian Consul General Tom Clark on Wednesday.
The Feb. 10 event, which took place in Huntsman Hall, focused on Clark’s previous career in journalism and the current political relationship between the United States and Canada. The event was moderated by creative writing lecturer Fayyaz Vellani and included an audience question and answer session.
During the event, Clark said that “international institutions” like NATO and the World Trade Organization allowed the United States and Canada to operate in a very “stable environment” that is now “over and gone.”
“I came in at a time when we were operating under our old relationship with the United States that had been around since the end of the Second World War,” Clark said. “We flipped into a new world created by the president and his administration, and it’s going to be a very different world than what we had up to this point.”
In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, Canadian Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Consul Director Nadia Scipio del Campo — who joined Clark at the event — similarly expressed that while “the magnitude of friendship and partnership” between the United States and Canada have not changed in the current state of bilateral diplomacy, the “rules” have.
Campo also spoke about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and how it is “under threat” because of imposed tariffs — which has “made doing business within Canada and the United States a much bigger challenge.”
“As diplomats, we have to address that and try to work to have a better trade agreement between Canada and the United States,” Campo said.
Prior to serving as the consul general, Clark was the chair of Global Public Affairs and had a 45-year career in journalism. When discussing his shift from a career in journalism to foreign policy, Clark explained that it was a way to “give back.”
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“I was not a partisan — I was a journalist,” Clark explained. “I scrupulously, for 45 years, at that point, had stayed away from any connection to any party.”
When then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered him the role of Consul General, Clark took the job.
“I really believe that if you did well because of your country, or if you did well because of the people in your country, you do have an obligation at some point in your career, in life, to give back,” he said.
“In the United States, people don’t wake up thinking about Canada,” Clark said. “My job is to reflect the mood of my country to the friendly and supportive politicians in the United States.”
Wharton senior and Canadian Club Prime Minister Andrew Lu told the DP that the fireside chat followed “months” of coordination with Clark and WUPP.
“There’s a lot going on in the world,” Lu said. “We wanted to get [Clark’s] perspective on that and how Canada plays a role in global politics.”
College junior and WUPP co-president Aidan DaSilva emphasized the interconnected nature of public policy.
“Policy doesn’t happen in a bubble,” DaSilva told the DP. “It interacts with all types of spheres — whether it’s business or education — and foreign policy proves that, again and again, we are one out of over 100 states in the world.”
DaSilva added that conversations like the one with Clark “really plants seeds” in students and allows them to have an “eye towards being a global citizen.”
Clark encouraged students to pursue their curiosity across the professional fields that pique their interest.
“In journalism and diplomacy and business and every other profession I can think of, the single most important thing is curiosity,” Clark said. “If you're curious, you’re going to go a long, long way because you’re always going to be asking questions.”
