The Hindu Business Line : A Canadian affair

She is the first Canadian to be honoured with a Padmashree for her social development work in India. Meet Flora MacDonald, Canada's former Foreign Minister.

She personally opens the door at the Delhi residence of the Canadian High Commissioner to India. She looks at her watch and says, "Good, you are very punctual. Now let's get down to business without wasting any time."

You can't help admiring Flora MacDonald who, even in her 78th year, will give women half her age a run for their fitness. "Yes, I am very elated," says the former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, on being the first Canadian ever to be honoured with a Padmashree. "It's a great feeling that my association with India and the work that I have been doing is finally being recognised." Flora's association with India dates back to 1969 when she came as a delegate to the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI), a bilateral education and research institute set up in Delhi.

Over the years, she has contributed immensely to the growth of SICI. "Today it is one of the biggest joint programmes of its kind between any two countries. Over 1,000 Indian and Canadian scholars have benefited from it."

Flora has been associated with Helpage India and has started several welfare programmes for the elderly. She also played a part in establishing the Commonwealth Humanitarian School. Currently, her passion is Future Generations (FG), an international school for communities, providing training and higher education through on-site and distance learning.

The school works in rural areas of Arunachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. "At FG we support field-based research, promote successes that provide for rapid expansion and build partnerships with communities working to improve the lives of rural people," says Flora.

The results of her efforts are evident when one looks at Biri Meema, a tribal woman from Arunachal, who accompanied her to the Padmashree Awards. She is today a community leader who takes care of the development work in her area.

Child mortality

"In these remote areas the biggest challenge is child mortality. When the project was started, the rate was as high as 100 infants per month. Nine years later, it has dropped to 30. Our prime objective is to make women aware and teach them skills that help keep their children alive."

Looking at the positive response, a number of women have come forward with support. There are volunteers for literacy training, anti-alcoholism, protecting water supplies, conserving forests and income generation schemes. The momentum built in one village launches the charge in other villages.

Indeed, for Flora Macdonald it's a long time away from being Canada's first woman Minister for Foreign Affairs in Prime Minister Joe Clark's government in 1979. "In a Parliament of 300 members we were only three women and, being a minister, whenever I had to address a meeting people looked at me as some kind of an oddity. But it never affected my performance. I was later Minister of Labour and Immigration and Minister of Culture and Communication."

Has the scenario changed for women politicians in Canada? "Today there are 60 women representatives and I feel that they are still 90 short!"

Ask her what changes she has observed in India in the past 35 years and pat comes the reply, "people here now seem to be hooked to mobile phones and shopping malls." But then she adds seriously, "The country is making rapid progress and is a force to reckon with. In the rural sector, development is very visible which wasn't the case earlier. A most remarkable and heartening change is that it is mandatory to have 30 per cent reservation for women in governance at lower levels. This is something that we don't have in Canada."

But Flora has no intention of going back and changing things in Canada. She is content doing her bit in India and other developing countries. Now she's looking forward to going to Mongolia later this year to complete what she calls her century. "I have worked in 99 countries and Mongolia will be the hundredth."

She says when she was in the fourth grade she prepared a scrap book in school and titled it Places I Want To See And People I Want To Meet.

"I am still trying to fulfil that childhood dream. Travel is a passion and a great teacher," says Flora, the newly minted Padmashree dangling proudly from her neck.

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A Canadian affair