The honorable Sen. Céline Hervieux-Payette, leader of the opposition party in the Canadian Senate, gave a pair of lectures at the University Thursday.
Hervieux-Payette delivered the first lecture in English and the later one in French. The lectures were about developing trends and issues in Canada and the province of Quebec and how they relate to the United States.
As a senator, she is a member the Liberal Party and represents the province of Quebec and the senatorial division of Bedford.
A lawyer by trade, Hervieux-Payette has enjoyed a long political career. She was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1995, and rose to the position of opposition leader in 2007. She was also elected a member of Parliament from 1979 to 1985. In Canada, she received the award for Woman of the Year in Politics in 1984.
Michael Picone, professor of French and linguistics, opened up the English speech by introducing Hervieux-Payette.
"I am a friend of Alabama," Hervieuz-Payette said. "I really feel at home here, especially now that it is cold."
She said she has made a few trips to Alabama in the past.
"We [Canada and the United States] enjoy a lot of values," she said. "We [Canada] have a lot of business with this country."
Hervieux-Payette said there is $455 billion in trade between the U.S. and Canada each year and $1.6 billion daily.
She voiced concerns over the possible recession and the United States' powerful economic influence over Canada.
"When you have a cold, we have pneumonia," she said.
However, she said, the Canadian economy was doing relatively well with the Canadian dollar increasing alongside the Euro and a $13 billion surplus in budget.
It is not merely shared business interests. Hervieux-Payette said the two countries share each other's wealth, knowledge and resources.
Much of that trade has been in oil. Hervieux-Payette discussed this relationship in depth citing their 179 billion barrels of oil production. Hervieux-Payette said they were second as a natural producer of oil to only Saudi Arabia and the oil production was growing every year.
Hervieux-Payette spoke more on Canada's energy trade with the United States. She said that Canada was a great producer of natural gas and the largest supplier of electricity to the United States.
Hervieux-Payette discussed the shared border. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require passports for entry into the U.S. from the western hemisphere, she said "would form a needless barrier between our countries. Our friendship and partnership does not justify this."
This initiative stems from immigration issues in the United States, however, Hervieux-Payette said immigration is a different issue in Canada. She said Québec regularly takes in 250,000 immigrants a year as a necessary labor force, which has shaken up the politics in the province.
"We allow thousands and thousands of Mexicans to work in Québec and they are protected," Hervieux-Payette said. "They enjoy the same rights as the Québec worker."
When asked about the North American Free Trade Agreement, she said she thinks the program is a two-step agreement because it is a different relationship between the U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. and Canada.
She said North America was facing competition from new markets and economies, and barriers would not be in the economic interests, referencing the success of the increasingly barrier-free European Union and their successes.
The speeches were sponsored by the department of modern languages and classics, the department of women's studies, the department of political science, the College of Arts and Sciences, University Libraries and the Capstone International Program Center.
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