Testimonials & Achievements

Canada House, located at 254 Bauddhaloka Mawatha in Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo 7 is one of two imposing properties in Colombo owned by the Canadian Government. The other is the High Commission itself at 6 Gregory’s Road. The decline of the cinnamon export trade in the 19th century led to the selling of land for “villa development” by the British Government and the development of what came to be called Cinnamon Gardens. A total of 18 Canadian High Commissioners and their families have lived in the house. James Hurley 1952-1957, Reginald Cavell 1957-1960, James George 1960-1964, George Grande 1964-1966, John Timmerman 1967-1970, Ronald Macdonnell 1970-1973, Marion Macpherson 1973-1976, Percy Cooper 1976-1979, Robert Clark 1979-1982, David Collacott 1982-1986, Carolyn McAskie 1986-1989, Nancy Stiles 1989-1992, Benno Pflanz 1992-1995, Konrad Sigurdson 1995-1998, Ruth Archibald 1998-2002, Valerie Raymond 2002-2006, Angela Bogdan 2006-2009 & Bruce Levy 2009-2012

The Canadian Government leased Oliver Castle from the Sri Lankan Government in 1952 and then purchased it in 1971. It served as the Canadian Chancery until 2009 when it was closed for extensive rebuilding. It was named after Oliver, the eldest son of Henry Oliver Watson Pieris. It was built in 1898 and occupied in 1903. There is speculation that the German Consul may have lived there in the intervening period of five years as it was the Sinhalese tradition not to have the owner occupy the house on completion but to rent it to another party for a time. It is cited in the 1907 Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon publication. It was owned originally by Henry Joseph Pieris who was a leading plumbago (graphite) exporter and plantation owner. The Pieris family is reported to have passed the property to the government to compensate for death duties.

In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami in late 2004 there were many people who reached out to help, including researchers led by Colombo University. Six months later, after 800 focus group discussions in 1100 villages, their disturbing findings were captured in a UNDP report.Fears were expressed about a second tsunami, children complained of sleeplessness, tremendous anxiety was detected, there was social stigma attached to being “tsunami-fellows” and people perceived a loss of kinship networks and neighborliness. There was a marked increase in alcohol consumption. Those who had lost spouses often felt lonely and depressed. Mental health is key to rebuilding communities after a disaster. Sri Lanka’s government understood this and estimated that as many as 30,000 people could require treatment. Where were the resources to address the enormity of the counselling needs? One expert estimated that there were more trained Sri Lankan psychiatrists in Toronto than in all of Sri Lanka. In this stressful context, the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) which is one of the world’s major mental health institutions, decided to act. CAMH received $1.75 million over three years from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and matched it with a $340,000 contribution of its own. It worked nationally and with groups of Sri Lankan partners in Batticaloa and Jaffna, in the east and north of Sri Lanka. Later, Mannar, in the conflict zone in the north, was added because of high mental health need even though it was barely affected by the tsunami.

When Anne Ranasinghe asked Dr. Rutnam, 89, what was the most exciting event of her life, Mary is reported to have said, “my coming to Ceylon of course”. She did a great deal for the women of Sri Lanka nearly a century ago and her life’s journey was a remarkable one. Readers of The Parlour Rebellion, a book by Canadian Isabel Bassett,will know about a period in Canadian history when young women wanted to make a difference in society and change the old ways of doing things. Dr. Rutnam was of that ilk. Who was Dr. Rutnam? The expert is Sri Lanka’s Secretary to the Social Scientists Association, Dr. Kumari Jayawardena, who wrote a book on the subject, “A Canadian Pioneer for Women’s Rights in Sri Lanka”. E.C.B. Wijeyesinghe has also highlighted her importance to the country in The Good at their Best.

Five years before the 2004 tsunami, the Foundation of Goodness (FoG) was hard at work providing essential services to the villagers of Seenigama, a few hours drive south of Colombo. FoG founder, Kushil Gunasekera, could not know that his skills would be called upon later to rescue his ancestral village from tragedy.The FoG website (www.unconditionalcompassion.org) describes empowering the disadvantaged seeking a sustainable community model.In practical terms, that means assisting with every facet of life, including shelter, mental health, livelihood, skills development, and youth leadership.

Internationally famous, the Ondaatje family is also a big name in the promotion and encouragement of Sri Lankan English language literature. Credit must go to the Gratiaen Trust, named after Doris Gratiaen, mother to the Ondaatje siblings.The Trust has operated since 1993, dedicated to the support of English language creative writing in Sri Lanka. It is funded by Canadian Michael Ondaatje’s 1992 Booker Prize winnings for The English Patient.From over 50 manuscripts submitted annually for the Prize, there is a short list event with readings in April, followed by announcement of the winner in May. Over 200 people attend the party to talk about reading and literature in a celebratory atmosphere.As long time Canadian resident of Colombo, School Principal (The Study), Jill Macdonald, says, “it’s a far cry from the initial musing aloud in 1993 when Michael Ondaatje in the company of a few people talked about getting the prize going”.

The Katunayake airport was the largest single aid project in the Canadian aid program to Sri Lanka in the 1960s. The media called it the “showpiece of the East”, partly because in 1965 when the 11,000 foot runway was completed, it allowed state of the art BOAC VC10 to land. Canada’s contribution was Rs 43 million, initially 80% grant and 20% loan (subsequently forgiven). The project was completed three months ahead of schedule and TWA, Aeroflot, UTA, Quantas and British Eagle Airways soon established operations.D.W. Boyd of the Canadian Department of Transport worked with the Sri Lankan Department of Civil Aviation on the project. The Sri Lankan Cabinet named the road to the airport off the Negombo-Colombo Road the “Canada Friendship Road” in appreciation. The naming ceremony coincided with the visit of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1971.The most extraordinary thing about the airport in terms of the Canadian connection is the longevity of the relationship, with activities underway from 1963 to the present day.

Sri Lanka has one of the fastest aging populations in the world, a product in many ways of earlier successful health and education investments.Sri Lanka has benefited from the services of a Canadian, Tami Tamitegama, who returned to Sri Lanka after 33 years in Canada. He is the President of the Lanka Alzheimer’s Foundation which he and his wife Lorraine established to help elders in general and persons with dementia in particular. It is clearly a labour of love which they have equally and passionately pursued, ever since being urged by friends in the Singapore’s Alzheimer’s Association to follow suit in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is proud of its ancient “hydraulic” civilization. King Prakramabahu in Polonnaruwa famously said that “not a single drop of water that falls as rain should reach the ocean without benefitting man”. Modern engineers follow in the footsteps of those building thousandsof years ago, as Canadians supporting the construction of Maduru Oya dam discovered when they dug up an ancient sluice structure. Centuries ago, earthen bunds or dams were built to perfection, a herculean task using elephants and manual labour. The Mahaweli is the longest river in Sri Lanka with a watershed covering one fifth of the island. Its tributaries are dammed and provide 1000 square kilometres of irrigation in the dry zone and 40% of the country’s electricity. Decades ago it was one of the biggest multi-purpose river basin development projects in the world. Mahaweli is a Sri Lankan story but Canada’s $100 million contribution and cooperation with Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau of Mahaweli played a part.

The “Butterfly Peace Garden” and “Monkey Tale Centre” in Batticaloa as well as the Negombo “Crippled Crow Centre of Contemplative Art and Narration” and the Colombo based “Step-by-Step” Studio: who came up with such creative names? Canadian artist Paul Hogan and the Sri Lankan artists and social animators who have worked with him over the past 15 years did so as part of a commitment to bring healing to children and youth affected by war and natural disaster. They do it through cultivation of the arts in a practice they call “Walking the Garden Path”.Paul Hogan first used his art to work with children in Toronto in the 1980s. As founding creative director of The Spiral Garden (for stories that never end) at the MacMillan Rehabilitation Center, he collaborated with other artists and educators to design and implement programs for children suffering from chronic asthma, neuromuscular disorders and other serious conditions.The Butterfly Peace Garden opened its gates in Batticaloa on September 11, 1996. It all began when the two “Pauls” met. Paul Hogan,the artist and Reverend Father Paul Satkunanayagam the Sri Lankan Jesuit psychologist, were attending the same conference in Hamilton,Canada. Father Paul invited his counterpart to try out his Toronto experience in Batticaloa.Art in various forms has been produced by over 22,000 young people at the Butterfly Peace Garden, everything from painting, mask making and handicrafts, to story telling, theatre, and music. Different communal groups (ethnic and religious) were brought together to participate in programs based in local ecological, cultural and social realities as well as the creative approach of indigenous people from as far away as Manitoulin Island in Canada.

One of the most prized items in a rich collection of photographic books in the library of the Sansoni family is Island Ceylon featuring a Canadian photographer, Roloff Beny. The Sansoni family owns “Barefoot”, a well-known Colombo store that features regular art exhibitions in a lovely outdoor patio setting. Dominic Sansoni is a recognized photographer and judges that Beny’s book was “extremely important…as it was one of the first of its kind and was beautifully produced”. His lens captured the socalled “cultural triangle” from Anuradhapura to Polonnaruwa, Sigirya and the Kandy Perahera.

Sarvodaya, Sewalanka and Sanasa each have their own personality but they are all rich in development history and national scale development efforts in Sri Lanka. They also have early and ongoing connections to Canada.

A remarkable initiative that put Sri Lanka on the global solar energy map grew out of a Canadian link. The story combines an idea ahead of its time, entrepreneurship, adventure, friendship, multinational and multiorganizational cooperation.Solar energy in rural areas is the dream In the mid 1980s Sri Lanka had over two million homes without electricity. Thus there was no energy to power water pumps, irrigate farm land or provide lighting to deter elephants or to allow students to study or play cricket in the evenings. In 1985, three self described drifters, two of them young Canadians of Sri Lankan origin were travelling the world when they decided to pursue their solar energy dream for Sri Lanka.The 2 Ray(e)s Lalith Gunaratne (the engineer), Viren Perera (the economist) and Pradip Jayawardene (the marketer) got advice from Sri Lanka’s well known inventor, Ray Wijewardene, then they returned to Canada to raise money and get technical help. A small company, TPK Solar, founded by Carleton University electronics Professor Dr. Raye Thomas, provided the turnkey solar module production line. TPK was one of the first to set up solar factories in India, China, Sri Lanka and in Zimbabwe. Training in Sri Lanka was done by, then TPK Solar R&D Manager, now Supan Technologies President, Dr. Sudh Varma, an Indian born Canadian. They established a Negombo factory with 30 workers and 130 trained youth village sales agents who sold 50 solar modules per month. The factory was inaugurated by their friend, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who had initially brought together and encouraged the Sri Lankans.
An idea ahead of its time?
When Dr. Thomas started work in solar energy in 1973 with National Research Council of Canada funding, Canada had so little knowledge of the field that Dr. Thomas needed Dr. Varma (whom he met through a Canadian International Development Agency project) to come to Canada to help produce the solar panels. Dr. Varma then went to Sri Lanka to train staff to implement the system in Sri Lanka’s villages. Dr. Thomas’s company, TPK Solar, was undercapitalized and there was a very small offgrid market in Canada. When Dr. Thomas reflects today on solar energy growth, he is elated. “What is happening now is what I tried to make happen in the 1980s”.

The University of Saskatchewan immediately became an important agricultural education institution on the Canadian prairies when it was founded in 1907. Professor Evan Alan Hardy led the Departments of Agriculture and Engineering for over 30 years. Agriculture passed from horsepower to tractor power, a radical revolution in farming methods.Former Canadian students such as W.W. Brown, who became a Saskatchewan Cooperative Creamery General Manager, remembered their studies fondly while noting that in return much was expected of them.Today in Saskatchewan there are laboratories named after Hardy, a Hardy Cup for football and the Saskatoon Evan Hardy Collegiate Institute (which appropriately has a strong international student program).
Professor Hardy goes to Sri Lanka... When Professor Hardy retired from the University he set out for Sri Lanka to work on dry land agriculture, first for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, then in 1956 as the Founding Director of the Regional Technical Training Institute for South Asia. It was funded by the Colombo Plan and linked to the Gal Oya development project.The Gal Oya project was the first major multi-purpose reservoir project initiated in modern day Sri Lanka. Hardy students trained in a live engineering environment with frequent field trips. That is why they believe they excelled in their later careers.Students from Burma, Malaysia, North Borneo, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore studied with Professor Hardy and other professors until 1966.The assets of the Institute included an auditorium, lecture halls, machinery and equipment, laboratories, an agricultural farm demonstration area, hostels for students and a library. The motto was “honesty, training and industry”. In the beginning there were only 70 students in two years of Engineering as well as Agricultural officers on refresher courses. They studied for 11 months per year in residence and courses included irrigation, soil science, agriculture, mechanical and electrical engineering and surveying. They studied from 7am to 8pm and their leisure was supervised (if indeed such strenuous sports play can be called “leisure”). Hardian graduates went on to further study and professional success in UK, US, Canada and Australia. In Sri Lanka, the Gal Oya development project was able to replace foreign engineers very quickly with the Hardians who performed splendidly. After teaching less than a decade in Ampara, Professor Hardy died in 1963 at age 73 and was cremated at the Institute where his memorial remains.

Birchall had arrived in Sri Lanka only two days earlier and was based at Royal Air Force Station Koggala at Koggala Lake near Galle. Squadron 413 (“the Tuskers”) were the first such Canadian unit to serve overseas, other than in Britain. Eight hours into their reconnaissance flight and about to return to base they had seen “a black speck on the horizon”. They investigated and managed to make a radio report detailing the extent of the major Japanese offensive heading to Sri Lanka. Winston Churchill dubbed Birchall “the Saviour of Ceylon” as the defence of the British fleet had much strategic value, even beyond the preservation of Sri Lanka.

One of the most visible, long lasting and, arguably, important contributions Canada has made to Sri Lanka is that of 14 train locomotives.The origin of this gift can be traced to a cabinet document signed by Canadian Prime Minister L.B. Pearson in 1956. A few years before, as Minister of External Affairs, Pearson established Canada’s first international development programme when he travelled to Sri Lanka to help found the Colombo Plan. A monument to the Colombo Plan is erected near Town Hall and Union Place in central Colombo.In the 1956 cabinet document, the Colombo Plan of Action is developed and projects are outlined for Sri Lanka, including “diesel locomotives”. The document notes that eight locomotives had already been supplied but the further provision of diesel locomotives would be a suitable Canadian project in view of the “pressing need for improvement and expansion of transportation facilities in Ceylon”. That is how a total of 14 locomotives came to be gifted.

There are 13 Moratuwa faculty members who studied in Canada, including former Vice Chancellor Malik Ranasinghe. They come from the Library, Architecture, Civil Engineering, Transport, Electronics and Electrical Engineering Departments. The first Sri Lankan Commonwealth scholar to go to Canada was emeritus Professor K.K.Y.W. Perera, founding Dean of Engineering who held senior government positions and remains academically engaged. The Moratuwa university faculty studied across Canada, attending universities in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.It is hard to imagine that in 1950, the country’s first Faculty of Engineering was established with only 12 academics given the long list of highly qualified faculty members today at Moratuwa. The start of the relationship between Canadian universities and Moratuwa began with the Colombo Plan. Before there was a University of Moratuwa, Canada funded the Institute of Practical Technology at Katubedda (IPTK). At an April 2012 Junior Technical Officer (JTO) Alumni Jubilee anniversary, over a hundred alumni members, many from abroad, came to the James George Hall named for the Canadian High Commissioner who worked with Dr. D.L. Sumanadasa to establish the IPTK. Professor Dayantha Wijesekera was among the first batch of students of the JTO course and remembers being present as a schoolboy in 1958 when the IPTK plaque was unveiled by Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. He then became a senior official (including Vice Chancellor of Moratuwa and Open University) leading the promotion of technical and vocational training in Sri Lanka.

Canada assisted the University of Moratuwa and its precursors with funding through the Colombo Plan, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the International Development Research Centre and the Canadian International Development Agency as well as through individual university linkages, such as the University of Calgary. Exchanges go both ways. One hundred and seventy Commonwealth scholars from Sri Lanka have studied in Canada over the decades. In 2011 a University of Manitoba Professor and head of “Architects without borders” arranged for a sabbatical at the University of Moratuwa with more than a dozen young Canadian architecture students participating for a shorter period. Part of their study program was to bring funds raised in Canada to build a community project in Monaragala.

Sri Lanka’s largest and oldest university is near the old capital of Kandy. Peradeniya exudes stateliness as befits the stark beauty of its campus and reputation for serious scholarship.

Faculty at Peradeniya study in Canada...

A meeting of faculty members who studied in Canada over the decades (at least 27 of them) elicited stories related to the Canadian universities where they studied. Many of the faculty had children born in Canada and the family affair often continues with the second generation also studying in Canada. Some of the stories are striking as with the Professor who arrived in Newfoundland for the first winter in which they broke snow season records, making it sometimes difficult to shovel a way out of the house.Surprisingly, he stayed for three more years. There are academics on both sides of the globe who remain attached decades after first visiting. Canadian Professor Bruce Matthews of Acadia University has written and taught extensively on Eastern religion and civilization. He first came to Peradeniya to study in January 1971 and met visiting Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, who, at a formal reception, is said to have deserted his high level guests to discuss Buddhism. Four decades later, Professor Matthews still visits colleagues and friends in Sri Lanka.

Research collaboration alive in many fields...

Funding sources have been diverse over the years and included the Colombo Plan, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Canada-based International Development Research Center. Peradeniya’s Veterinary Faculty and the University of Calgary with the Government of Sri Lanka are involved in “building capacity for animal health”, explains the Dean of Veterinary Public Health and Pharmacology, Professor Preeni Abeynayake. Three quarters of emerging human diseases such as swine and bird flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have arisen from animals. Global expectations are such that animal threats to public health must be quickly detected. There is now a “veterinarians without borders”, a global organization modelled after the original “doctors without borders”. Canada’s Public Health Agency and others have invested over Rs 100 million to work with Sri Lanka on animal health issues.It may seem a rather esoteric area of study until related to the devastation wrought by a disease such as SARS. Canada was on the front lines of this global disease but one of the world’s experts, Professor Malik Peiris, a graduate of Peradeniya, is credited with discovering the cause of the disease at his laboratory in Hong Kong. Peiris was the first Sri Lankan to be elected to the Royal Society, one of the highest scientific honours in the Commonwealth.

Extreme sports – Borderlands...

Wade Campbell and Viren Perera are two Canadians who have developed activities that span the cerebral and meditative to the most intensely physical. They are both Torontonians who left to pursue adventure in Sri Lanka.
Campbell is a trained leader from Outdoor Bound, a well known company in Canada that specializes in wilderness programming. The company that he and his wife built in Nepal before transferring to Sri Lanka in 2003, is Borderlands, an adventure-based training program. The 15-acre property developed in Nepal near the Tibetan border offered adventure travel for a decade until the Maoists moved in. That break in operations pushed Borderlands to Sri Lanka when peace seemed at hand and the Sri Lanka Tourism Board was keen to facilitate new investment. To operate a successful adventure-based learning program that features rock climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, canoeing, river rafting and camping in “remarkable natural environments” requires equipment. Importing specialized camping equipment – lifejackets, tents, helmets etc – was expensive so in 2005, Edge was developed to produce the gear locally. The first Outdoor outfitters shop in Sri Lanka was born and the canoes and kayaks are visible at the store on Stratford Avenue, Colombo 6. There is a one- day “Canadian canoeing skills” course amongst the assortment of team building and wilderness first aid courses offered by 20 Sri Lankan staff based largely in Kitigala.

WUSC is one of Canada’s oldest development organizations and is one of the largest in terms of volunteers sent abroad. It came out of the International Student Service movement in Europe after the First World War and the World University Service movement after the Second World War. WUSC started its history in Sri Lanka in 1953 when it sent Canadian students to take part in a one month international seminar in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India. Some of those Canadian students went on to become big names in international relations, politics and government including Senator Eugene Forsey and Warren Allmand.

One of Sri Lanka’s longest running youth exchange programs was a partnership with Canada. It involved 1400 youth, half of them Sri Lankan and half, Canadian. The impact on many young people was life altering.Canada World Youth (CWY) is an organization created by the late Senator Jacques Hebert. It has operated since 1971 and remains active in 17 countries. Its objective is to help young people “experience the world for themselves, learn about other cultures …while developing leadership skills”.

There is considerable emphasis on non-formal education in this model,“learning by doing”, with young people getting involved in communities in Canada and abroad.