Canada confirms its readiness to fully fulfill the clauses of the 1995 Ottawa Memorandum on the closure of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) and is allocating an additional $18 million for the Shelter project. In addition, Canada promises to remind the G7 countries during the Okinawa summit that it is observing its financial commitments undertaken in the framework of the Ottawa Memorandum. These assurances by Canadian Prime Minister Jean ChrОtien were the first result of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk’s visit to Canada. This is quite an achievement, taking into account that until now the West has been far more generous with words than deeds concerning Chornobyl shutdown.
The matter was not confined to the promises to help close the complex: Canada also spoke in favor of Ukraine joining the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund resuming loan installments to Ukraine. As always, Canada is once again demonstrating to Ukraine its political friendship and promising all kinds of help.
Much can be said about how Canadian Ukrainians are helping their historical homeland and about the warm and friendly relationship between the two states. But all this will mean very little unless trade, the main motor of relations, is set in motion: a $30-million turnover for four months is nothing to write home about. The same applies to Canadian investment activities in Ukraine. One can endlessly order our foreign ministry a task to make its policy more economic-oriented, but it simply cannot do what the government and parliament were ought to have done in past years.
Perhaps the statement by Peter Magnus, cochairman of the Canadian- Ukrainian Business Initiative, that Ukraine has seen more changes for the better in the past six months than in the past few years, is more than just a common courtesy. Maybe there will indeed be more opportunities for Canadian and other business, although Mr. Tarasiuk honestly cautioned the Canadians: “I do not want to create an illusion that you can earn a fast buck in Ukraine.” Perhaps the Ukrainian investment climate is now indeed slightly better than a year ago, when Prime Minister ChrОtien visited Kyiv. At that time, a huge coterie of Canadian business people heard about Ukraine’s allure but still decided not to heed the calls to put money in Ukraine.
