Produced by
Our founders
Records are so sketchy that we don’t even know which month, but the CCCJ’s forerunner got its start in 1975 under a name that—it must be admitted—did not stand the test of time. Six years later the Canadian Businessmen’s’ Association in Japan (CBAJ) morphed into today’s CCCJ, putting us third in the line-up of foreign chambers that start with ACCJ and BCCJ.
A photo of our founders, taken at the Hotel Okura in 1976, is about the only record we have—and it’s so faded that these gentlemen look like Canada’s Fathers of Confederation. Scrawled on the back we can just make out their names and affiliations.
Since online name searches have turned up few details beyond a couple of obituaries we must assume all have gone to meet their maker. After all, fifty years ago they were likely at least 35 or 40. So we have scant idea of their hopes or intentions.
That said, some of today’s ‘old hands’ did know one or two of the founders. In the late ’80s I knew David Winfield (an affable Canadian diplomat who did more than one Tokyo posting) and John Clayden of the Royal Bank of Canada. A consummate gentleman, Clayden also did multiple stints in Japan before becoming Canada’s de facto ambassador to Taiwan.
As I recollect, more than strictly business matters their concern was to create a Canadian community in Tokyo and Japan—because back then we did not have a community to speak of.
Canadian Businessmen’s’ Association in Japan (CBAJ) Hotel Okura, November 1976
L to R
Absent / Gone
Those of you with no memory of the 20th Century must be hard-pressed to grasp just how far Japan was from Canada in the 1970s and ’80s, and how few the links were between Canadians living here.
Calling Canada via the KDD overseas phone monopoly cost a fortune. Letters took at least a week. Services in English were scarce—even rarer en français. Getting news from home involved begging friends arriving on CP Air to snag the Globe & Mail off the plane. At least by then you could fly though. Twenty years earlier, getting here usually involved a two-week voyage from Vancouver to Yokohama.
With no social or professional groups of our own, Canadians were mere appendages of institutions like Tokyo American Club and the ACCJ. Since there was no such thing as “social media,” about the only way to convene a gathering of Canadians was to put a notice in the Tokyo Weekender: “Come listen to the Stanley Cup final over the phone at Bar X in Roppongi!”
Still, changes had been afoot since 1970, following Canada’s highly successful participation in Osaka’s Expo. A new generation of Canadians arrived to study and to teach. And Japan’s rapidly expanding industries were hungry for Canadian resources.
By 1975, a handful of Canadian companies had opened offices in Tokyo, typically headed by expats sent over with little knowledge of Japan or its language. As Robin Sears explains in the following article, their days were filled with frustration. Consequently, consensus emerged that a purely Canadian space was needed in which to commiserate over the obstacles they shared. And that is what led to the founding of the CBAJ.
Others were also making efforts to build a sense of community. Bruce Rankin, Canada’s ambassador in the mid-’70s, established the tradition of holding a barbeque in the official residence garden (much to the chagrin of some successors).
It was 1978 though that saw the first edition of the defining and enduring event of the Chamber and Tokyo’s Canadian community: the Maple Leaf Ball. On November 15, we will hold our gala event for the 47th time at a glamorous new venue: the Fairmont Tokyo on the Shibaura waterfront.
Throughout the Chamber’s first 25 years, a cadre of dedicated community builders spearheaded its growth. To mention a few notable names: Rosemary Bonderud, Tony Buckley, Norm Doole, Kaz Ebihara, Bob Fairweather, Roger Otley, Michelle Brazeau & John Powles, Paul Summerville and John Treleaven.
Perhaps the most avid community builder was Ivan Bumstead, Alberta’s wonderful and long-serving Agent-General in the ’80s and ’90s. He realized that Canada had a growing but untapped network of potentially useful agents in companies and communities across Japan: young Canadians who were learning Japanese and finding positions in all sorts of unlikely places. He often cited the example of world’s largest fire extinguisher maker where the lone foreign staffer was a Quebecois guy—but no one at the embassy knew him.
By the late ’80s, the CCCJ was well-established and thriving—but it was more ‘corporate’ than today, and not overly welcoming to younger folks looking to transition from English-teaching gigs to career jobs. So Ivan spearheaded the formation of the Tokyo Canadian Club (TCC) with its signature “first Thursday of every month” pub night. Sadly, after more than three decades the TCC faded out in recent years.
Filling the gap, the CCCJ has done excellent job of widening its scope with meet-and-greet events that open doors for younger people and new arrivals—both Canadians and Japanese interested in Canada. Long may that continue!
Rumor has it they’re still trapped in the archives: Neil Van Wouw (Governor), Marc Bolduc (CCCJ Chair), Kayo Ito (Governor), John R. Harris (editor) and Seiji Omote (Governor) researching this issue in the CCCJ morgue.
The Imperial couple in the photobooks of past Galas (see page 19). The CCCJ has books of photos of Maple Leaf Balls through the years, though our archives are not what they once were!
“Those of you with no memory of the 20th Century must be hard-pressed to grasp just how far Japan was from Canada in the 1970s and ’80s, and how few the links were between Canadians living here.”
