UTM Center for Global Studies and International Education will sponsor a series of lectures focusing on Canada to highlight UTM’s new Canadian Studies minor.

To begin this series, Michael Flaherty, consul and trade commissioner, Consulate General of Canada in Atlanta, will speak from 4:30-5:30 p.m. Jan. 25, in Humanities Auditorium, to give his “Perspectives on the Canada-U.S. Relationship.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

“Canada is the United States’ and Tennessee’s most important trading partner and the volume of trade between Canada and the U.S. promises to keep expanding in the years ahead, under the NAFTA umbrella,” said Dr. Paul Crapo, director, Center for Global Studies and International Education.

“As trade commissioner, Mr. Flaherty is in an excellent position to reflect on our economic relationship with Canada and to discuss areas of vital interest to both countries, such as energy, agriculture and natural resources.

Flaherty accepted his current post in Atlanta in August 2002. As the manager of the investment and corporate relations program, he works directly with U.S. companies to locate and expand their operations in Canada, as well as to promote Canada as a destination for investment.

He joined the Canadian Department of Industry in 1990 and held several senior positions with Canada’s Investment Promotion Agency, Industry Canada’s Small Business Secretariat and the office of the Chief Information Officer. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1984.

Prior to joining Industry Canada, he spent six years on Parliament Hill in Ottawa as a political assistant to a member of parliament, the Minister of State for Small Business, the Minister of Agriculture, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Canada.