Canada Gives Up On Osaka

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]Kipppo: Canada to close Osaka consulate
The Canadian government has decided to close its Consulate in Osaka at the end of March as part of cost-cutting measures. For Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City, which are jointly bidding to host the 2008 summit of the G-8 major industrial countries, a G-8 member country's closure of its Osaka consulate is a big blow since it could impair the city's image. The prefectural and municipal governments are to send a letter to the Canadian government asking for reconsideration of the move. Officials of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan said the Canadian government held no prior consultation with the Canadian community in Osaka on the closure of the consulate and the decision was unilaterally announced by the government. More than 2,000 Canadians live in Osaka, the second biggest Canadian community in Japan next to Tokyo. The Canadian Embassy in Tokyo will take over the work of the Osaka consulate. The Canadian consulates in Nagoya, Hiroshima and Sapporo are to be maintained.

Tod Baudin, Kansai governor of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan, urged the Canadian government to reconsider the decision, which he said could adversely affect Canadian-Japanese relations. Given that Osaka is the second largest market in Japan, more than 2,000 Canadians live in Osaka and direct air flights are operated between Canada and Osaka, there is no justification for the Canadian government to close the Osaka consulate while maintaining the other consulates, Baudin said. The Tokyo embassy cannot do what the Osaka consulate is doing and members of the Canadian community in Osaka feel as if they were deceived by their government, he added. Twenty countries have consulates in the Osaka-Kobe area. Canada is the first member country of the G-8 (U.S., Britain. France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Canada and Japan) to close its Osaka consulate.

Ironically, the Yomiuri carried the following story earlier this month: Canadian changing minds about Osaka.

[james]

how many canadians are there in the other locations? i'm guessing nowhere near 2000. close a couple of the other ones if they need to downsize and keep the consulate in osaka.

[Jack]

another stupid decision by a G8 country that doesn't deserve to be G8. Like everything else in this fucking sad excuse we call Canada, the government is nickel and diming by closing the consulate in a huge market. They should close the consuylate in Kingston, Jamaica for fuck's all mighty God.

[Doctor Stop]

G7.

[Doctor Stop]

Historically, G7.

[dimwit]

[james]

[FG Lurker]

Well, I've been here 12 years now, and I've used the consulate 3 or 4 times. Not a whole lot, I suppose it won't kill me if they close it down.

However, it does seem very screwed up to close the consulate in Osaka yet keep those in Hiroshima, Sapporo, and Nagoya open. Nagoya I can maybe see as there is a lot of industry in that area (Toyota et al), but surely it must be more important to have a consulate in Osaka than to have one in Sapporo and/or Hiroshima!

I'm guessing the decision was made purely on numbers by someone who knows zilch about Japan...

[canman]

If you think about it Lurker, there are a lot of Canadians up in the North. It makes much more sense to have a consulate in Sapporo than to have two so close as Nagoya and Osaka. Dimwit, as for the passports, Tokyo two years ago couldn't produce machine readable passports. Mine will expire this year and I called to make sure, as I will go home this summer and thought I might as well get it done there. The embassy informed me all passports are now made in Canada and Fedexed to Japan. Sounds safe doesn't it.

[FG Lurker]

If you think about it Lurker, there are a lot of Canadians up in the North. It makes much more sense to have a consulate in Sapporo than to have two so close as Nagoya and Osaka.

Although I don't have any statistics, surely there would be more Kanuckistani gaijin in the Kansai area than around Sapporo.

Besides the raw number of Kanucks living in the area, I think it is important to consider the Japanese population and the economic situation. The 2005 population of the Kansai region was 24 million people. Economically, the 2003 Kansai GDP (the latest figures I could find) was slightly larger than all of Canada combined.

It doesn't make sense to close the consulate serving such a large area while keeping relatively speaking smaller ones open.

[gaijinzilla]

You know if I hadn't logged on to FG, I'd never have found out about the closing of the Consulate General in Osaka....nice that the government of Canada doesn't feel the need to tell its citizens living in this part of the world what is going on.
Also the area Osaka consulate is supposed to provide "consular services" to encompasses Kyushu and Okinawa, and like it ihas been pointed out Osaka is Japan's Second City, so it would make more sense to keep Osaka open. Then again the phrase "make more sense" and Canada's bureaucracy don't go hand in hand, eh?

[Greji]

Also the area Osaka consulate is supposed to provide "consular services" to encompasses Kyushu and Okinawa, and like it ihas been pointed out Osaka is Japan's Second City, so it would make more sense to keep Osaka open. Then again the phrase "make more sense" and Canada's bureaucracy don't go hand in hand, eh?

Actually, most of the countries that have consul generals in the Osaka-Kobe area have them primarily placed there for commercial reasons. The fact that they are a consulate means they have to provide a staff for "consular services" almost as an after thought.

The incumbent Aus, NZ, UK and US Consul Generals will all be from Trade/Commerce and will only have one or two other persons (if that), supplemented by an all J-staff to provide consular service for ex-pats.

It would not be unusual for some countries to shut down their locations for lack of business, if you will, and then reopen them later in the same locale when trade demands reoccur. I think NZ is currently on its third re-established consulate in the Osaka area that I know of.

[Mulboyne]

Canada.com: Japan "worried" about closure of Canadian consulates

Japan says it is disappointed by the Harper government's decision to close two consulates there, and is worried this will send the "wrong signal" to the Japanese people about Canada's view of their country. This follows testimony by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay that the closures of two consulates, in Osaka and Fukuoka, which take effect in eight days, have "in no way been interpreted as a slight" by the Japanese. MacKay made that statement during testimony before the Commons foreign affairs committee earlier this week, where he faced criticism by an opposition MP for downgrading the government's diplomatic presence in a country with heavy trade and business links to Canada...more...