‘The Polish voice is on the rise’: How this ‘new guy in town’ is pushing for change
DISHING WITH DKG
More than a million people of Polish descent live in Canada. In the rural community where I grew up in southwestern Ontario, there was a Polish hall where I was sometimes recruited to serve up cabbage rolls and pierogis.
Back then, that Polish cohort didn’t stand out from the rest of their European peers — the Belgians, the Germans, the Hungarians. Today, Poland’s role in assisting Ukraine has been a game-changer; the country shares a 200-plus kilometre border with Russia and is the logistical hub for the transportation of military equipment and refugees from Ukraine.
Polish President Andrzej Duda recently wound up an official visit to Alberta and B.C., home to 300,000 Polish-canadians, not only to advance Poland’s commercial interests in hydrogen technology, but to wave the flags of NATO and the EU in Ukraine’s defence.
It was the first visit to Western Canada by a Polish head of state.
In a face-to-face with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, Duda had the temerity to publicly ask Canada, a NATO member, to pony up three per cent of GDP for defence spending — knowing full well that the Trudeau government’s April budget laid the groundwork to move Canada’s defence spending from roughly 1.33 to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2030, still shy of NATO’S recommended two per cent commitment.
Duda’s in his second term as Poland’s president, and Trudeau’s in his third term as prime minister; these two leaders are familiar with one another. Trudeau would know that Poland spends over four per cent of its GDP on defence. And no one really expects Duda’s appeal to move the dial on the Trudeau government’s defence spending.
But the ask must have landed well back home in Poland, I put to Witold Dzielski, Poland’s ambassador to Canada, in a conversation a few days after the presidential delegation departed from Edmonton and Witold returned to his diplomatic suite in Ottawa. The ambassador doesn’t deny my conclusion.
The 47-year-old diplomat — who landed in this post mere months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, having spent the seven previous years working for Duda — is formally dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and blue tie, seated poker-straight in the middle of a white camelback couch trimmed in ornate gold. Towering behind him are four enormous flags, representing Poland, Canada, the European Union and NATO.
“So the Polish voice is on the rise,” Witold says, “but there were moments that people didn’t listen to us, especially in the security context.” The outbreak of war in Ukraine changed things up for Poland; nearly overnight, the ambassador says, the country became a visible actor on the global stage.
Dreadful circumstances in Ukraine brought this all about, but isn’t the opportunity for such relevance what many countries, and diplomats, dream of? Witold’s response is measured: “In the world of rich countries, Poland is a new guy in town, so to speak,” he answers, explaining how the country rose to the level of a developed country only recently and is now the 21st ranked economy in the world.
And while geo-political influence is puzzling to figure out, Witold continues, he doesn’t outright deny the relevance of Duda’s recent visit to the U.S. (en route to Canada), to wave the EU and NATO flags in meetings with President Joe Biden, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and former president Donald Trump — just days before Congress approved $61 billion in critically needed funding for Ukraine.
“If you don’t push, things don’t change,” the diplomat concludes. “And so, I have to say ... President Duda’s meeting with former president Trump was, in that sense, an understandable and good idea.” We all know how Trump openly complained America was bearing too much of the burden in supporting Ukraine, even accusing Europe of failing to pay its share. While Witold doesn’t credit Duda with changing Trump’s mind, he acknowledges “President Duda had the ability to have a conversation and a chance to influence former president Trump because the gentlemen worked together for four years when President Trump was in power and it was a very close co-operation ... I don’t know which leader of a country met with President Trump more than President Duda within those four years.”
It’s easy to get drawn into U.S. politics, and I redirect our conversation back to Canadian turf, asking if the Polish delegation’s visit to Western Canada achieved what the ambassador wanted. Witold’s diplomatic reserve finally dissipates, and he responds affirmatively and without equivocation.
“The visit was originally based on two invitations,” Witold explains, “one was the invitation from the hydrogen convention (in Edmonton) and the other was from the Polish community ... There has never been a Polish head of state in Western Canada.”
In an earlier telephone chat, Witold caught my attention with his evocative quip: “Poland is the Alberta of the European Union.” Is he comparing the tense relationship between an independently minded Alberta and Ottawa to the sometimes terse exchanges between Poland’s previous right-wing government and Brussels? “This is something I would not speak about, because this is very political,” Witold counters, stiffly, when I ask. Perhaps, he suggests, over a beer, we can one day have that conversation.
Witold prefers to discuss energy transition. Poland, like Alberta, is committed to carbon reduction, albeit we’re at different stages; Alberta has phased out coal-fired electricity generation while Poles still rely on coal for 62 per cent of their power. Both jurisdictions invest in wind and solar but recognize natural gas as a key transition fuel. “Knowing the Russian bear will not sleep for too long,” Witold explains, Poland is building energy security, constructing a pipeline from Norway (where Poland has shares in natural gas fields), and investing in liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals to import gas (presently, from the U.S. and Qatar).
And we both understand how Canadian natural gas flows to American refiners, to then be shipped to Poland as LNG. Witold reports paying great attention to signals from Canada’s energy minister on LNG exports, but he doesn’t see any progress. That’s another conversation to be had over a beer or two.
Our shared commitment to hydrogen invigorates Witold. “Polish hydrogen is a big topic,” Witold reports enthusiastically. Poland is the number three producer of hydrogen in the EU and number five in the world, and the country has figured out how to use hydrogen to fuel trains and buses. While Germany and others are talking to Quebec, the province promoting itself as the future exporter of green hydrogen, Poland, like Alberta, is focusing on ways to capture greenhouse gases emitted in hydrogen production — moving from grey hydrogen to blue. Duda officially opened the Canadian hydrogen convention in Edmonton where significant research collaborations were announced between Poland and Alberta.
Now the presidential visit is concluded, Witold is gearing up for the next big Polish event in Canada. Parliament just declared May as Polish Heritage Month, which means the ambassador will be travelling from place to place across Canada, raising flags, not just Poland’s but the EU flag and NATO’S too.
“It’s good to be Polish in Canada,” Witold concludes.
THERE WERE MOMENTS THAT PEOPLE DIDN’T LISTEN TO US.