Canada will be able to "punch above its weight" at the G20 summit as a result of the country's reputation as a strong performer during the recession, say some observers.

A group of Canadian citizens is walking from Toronto to Ottawa this week to advocate for, and bring awareness to, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia. Ige Egal, media and communication coordinator for “Walk for Somalia,” said the group hopes to raise one-million dollars for Somalia famine relief.

A collection of rare vintage Bollywood showcards is taking top billing at one of Toronto’s biggest museums. “We think of Bollywood as such a localized phenomenon, but in fact it has been part of the global film industry from its inception..."

Improbably, I was in Calgary, another stage in the campaign of public diplomacy on which I had embarked shortly after my arrival in Canada five months before - explaining to Canadians how the United States regarded the changing world and how it regarded Canada's place in that new world.

"The government does not trust the Foreign Service, does not understand public diplomacy and is only belatedly awakening to the re-emergence of the Asia-Pacific as the centre of the global political economy," said Copeland, now a fellow at both the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy.

Professor Bernard Duhaime joins the USC Center on Public Diplomacy this Fall as the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Public Diplomacy.

...despite the usual military posturing, the Prime Minister has come to understand that Canada’s claim to the North will be pressed by means other than guns and warships....the search-and-rescue operation designed to make a statement about Canadian sovereignty is actually an essential capability critical for northern economic development.

In the slow-evolving world of diplomacy, it may be the biggest innovation since the wax seal: social media that lets Canadian diplomats go around the censors to speak directly to, and hear from, the citizens of the world’s rising superpower.