Simon Coveney chose Canada – and he’s hoping Canada chooses Ireland. And, if things go his way, Fine Gael, Ireland’s ruling party, may choose him.
Waiting in the departure lounge of Ottawa’s airport for his return flight to Toronto, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 11, when the leadership question is posed, over the phone, he lets out a sigh, and does not show his hand to Desmond Devoy our Ottawa correspondent.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said that he will announce his future intentions upon his return from his St. Patrick’s Day visit to Washington, D.C. He has already stated that he will not lead his party into the next general election. Coveney, Ireland’s housing, planning, and community and local government minister, is certain there will be “a leadership change,” as well as a “generational change,” something he calls “exciting,” and that “I’m one of those,” of the new generation.
Another one of those of the new generation, undoubtedly, would be his biggest challenger to becoming Taoiseach, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar, a Dublin West TD. An Irish Times poll out recently already has Coveney ahead of Varadkar in the polls, 47 to 44 per cent.
“I expect it will be a very busy time,” he said of the coming months ahead for a leadership race, likely culminating in late April, after Kenny’s 66th birthday on April 24, which would make him his party’s longest-serving Taoiseach.
While The Irish Times has reported that his people are already gauging support amongst the party – as are Varadkar’s people – Coveney has been doing some sounding out for support of a different sort lately.
When it comes to Canada, his eagerness is evident.
Coveney’s visit to Canada is part of the annual flight of government ministers to visit the Irish Diaspora around the world in the lead-up to St. Patrick’s Day.
He was seeing quite a bit of the country, in a very short space of time.
On Friday morning March 10th delivering an impactful speech to attendees promoting Ireland at a seminar hosted by Gowling WLG and Mason Hayes & Curran he spoke on how companies across diverse industries can best benefit from Ireland’s business-friendly environment and unique position as a new and growing European gateway to North American trade. Home to a skilled and well-educated workforce — and one of Europe’s lowest corporate tax rates — Ireland has caught the attention of many Canadian businesses as a country favourable to growth and ideally positioned as a gateway to Europe.
With the future of Canada’s trade relationship with the U.S. facing increasing uncertainty under President Trump, and CETA promising an era of unprecedented commerce within the EU, the time has never been better to consider the business and legal opportunities that the Emerald Isle holds for Canadian companies.
He was in the nation’s capital to be part of the St. Patrick’s parade, Ottawa City Hall to Lansdowne Park, home of the CFL’s Ottawa RedBlacks.
A few short hours, and many kilometres, later, he would be flicking a light switch to turn Niagara Falls green.
“It’s been busy,” said Coveney, the Fine Gael TD for Cork South-Central of his four-day visit. ‘I was anxious to see as much as I could.”
Anxious and, according to him, eager too, saying he “requested,” that he be sent to Canada when flying assignments were doled a few weeks ago.
Part of the reason for this is that the world is being “tested somewhat” by the “new approach,” in the United States under President Donald Trump. With Britain’s “Brexit” decision to leave the European Union, and Trump openly hostile to free trade deals, Ireland, as an export-based economy, is looking “for Canada to use Ireland as a gateway to Europe,” as the soon-to-be only English-speaking EU country.
Tellingly, he appears keen to set himself and his party up as not being part of the anti-establishment wave crashing over Europe and the United States, and wants to be seen to be cozying up to like-minded politicians – like the Trudeau Liberals.
“(I was) anxious to meet some of the new government,” he said of his meeting with federal environment and climate change minister Catherine McKenna, calling her “a fantastic woman.”
He said it was “amazing how quickly,” some countries, like the United Kingdom and United States, and other nations, turned “inwards rather than outwards,” and predicted that “it will create huge tensions.” (Sounding not unlike McKenna, or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he said he has also seen “a step back,” in other countries, when it comes to climate change.)
In order to buttress Ireland from such turmoil, “we try to be an antidote,” by working together with countries like Canada. Thanks in part to the new European Union trade deal with Canada, “Ireland and Canada will want to make the new trade agreement work.”
Personal meets political.
Coveney had other, more personal, reasons for wanting to visit Canada. First off, he has visited the Great White North before, visiting Vancouver and Victoria. His wife, Ruth Furney, is one of 12 children – seven of whom live in Canada. Of that seven, five live in the Greater Toronto Area, and the remaining two live in British Columbia.
He was glad of those family ties when he was trundling down Ottawa’s Bank Street in a horse-drawn carriage, in frigid temperatures, that morning. The day before, in Toronto, he had borrowed his brother-in-law’s Canada Goose jacket, which came in very handy for dealing with the northern winds.
Back home in Ireland, his three daughters, all under the age of seven, are missing daddy. But Beth, Jessica, and Annalise, “were all born in politics,” he said, so “they are used to it.”
When he is not at home in Cork on the weekends, “they notice it,” he said. “It’s a big sacrifice.”
In fact, in all of his personal and political life, juggling family obligations “is the most stressful part of it.” But, “we have learned to live with it.”
It was the death of his father, himself a TD, that brought about the by-election that saw Coveney run for public office in 1998 (the death of Kenny’s TD father in 1975 also brought him into the Dail.)
NIAGARA FALLS ILLUMINATED IN GREEN
MARCH 17, 2017 @ TABLE ROCK WELCOME CENTRE
Photo Source: Niagara Falls Tourism
