PM talks with Dalai Lama signal unprecedented push

By Ashleigh Patterson | CTV.ca
28 October 2007

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will host the first-ever formal meeting between a Canadian prime minister and the Dalai Lama -- a controversial move that could signal an unprecedented push for Tibetan autonomy.

The 72-year-old exiled spiritual leader will visit Ottawa today and publicly meet with Harper in the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.

That meeting is expected to go further than former prime minister Paul Martin's informal private talk with the Tibetan leader in 2004 -- the first time the Dalai Lama had ever met with a Canadian prime minister.

"For us, no matter what they talk about in the meeting, the significance is that they are meeting," Norbu Tsering, president of the Canadian Tibetan Association of Ontario, told CTV.ca from Toronto.

October's visit will be the Dalai Lama's sixth trip to Canada and his third to Ottawa since he began travelling to the West in the 1970s:

• The Dalai Lama first visited Canada in 1980 and was met by then-governor general Ed Schreyer.
• In 1990, he visited Ottawa for the first time and met former secretary of state for multiculturalism Gerry Weiner on the government's behalf.
• The Dalai Lama's 1990 visit prompted an amendment to Sino-Canadian diplomatic policy, which was officially established in 1970. Canada continued to recognize the People's Republic of China as the official government but would take no position on territorial claims.
• In 2004, former prime minister Paul Martin courted controversy by becoming the first Canadian leader to meet the Dalai Lama. The one-hour talk on human rights took place at the home of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Ottawa. Martin's predecessor, Jean Chrétien, refused such a meeting.
• The Dalai Lama was personally recognized when he last visited Canada in 2006 and received an honorary Canadian citizenship -- a measure protested by Chinese officials. He joins Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg, Nelson Mandela and, most recently, Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi in receiving the honour.

Currently, Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade recognizes China as the legitimate government of both China and Tibet -- but has "great respect" for the Dalai Lama.

Dermod Travis, executive director of Canada Tibet Committee, says western nations have made a distinct shift in recent years toward a negotiated solution for an autonomous Tibet within China.

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