Expo 86: The Stage Is Set

Mr. Seymour

Your Honour, Mr. Consul General, other distinguished guests, members and friends of The Empire Club of Canada: It is my pleasure to welcome as our guest speaker today Patrick Reid, Ambassador and Commissioner General, Expo 86.

From May 2 through October 13, Vancouver will host the 1986 World Exposition, the largest world exposition of its kind ever held in North America. A fitting tribute for a city celebrating its centennial, as well as the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the first transcontinental train on the West Coast.

The enormity of this five-and-one-half-month celebration is best exemplified by citing some vital statistics. Estimates call for fifteen million people to visit the fair, which covers one hundred and seventy-three acres of waterfront on False Creek and Burrard Inlet in downtown Vancouver.

More than eighty pavilions will showcase the collective accomplishments of more than forty nations, seven provinces, two territories, three states and thirty corporations. One of these is Ontario, whose pavilion was designed by the Zeidler Roberts Partnership, known for such major projects as the world-famous Toronto Eaton Centre and the exceedingly popular Ontario Place.

The guidelines established by the pavilion committee a few years ago included space for a dark exhibition, a daylight exhibition, a cinema with an appropriate waiting area, a bar/restaurant, and a business-development centre with library.

The site selected is in the northeast corner of False Creek, between the east and the north entrances to the Expo grounds. It is visible from the light rapid transit (LRT) line and has views over False Creek.

The challenge for the architects, it was stated, was to "entice, within the building form, a sense of exploration and create through it enjoyment. . .respond to the spirit of the site and to all the many functional and technical necessities . . .Ultimately, the design must. . .create a memorable image."

The product, as it now stands, is a crescent-shaped structure incorporating all these guidelines. It rises above the water, overlooking all the action. The 750-seat cinema features one of the world's first 70mm, 3-D, multi-image movies, with a spine-tingling, heart-stopping tour of Ontario.

Who is responsible for co-ordinating this mammoth undertaking? Patrick Reid. He is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate measures are taken for the good order and efficient operation of the 1986 World Exposition, which has as its theme "World in Motion-World in Touch."

Ever since he became director of the Canadian Government Exhibition Commission in 1962, a position he held for eight years, Patrick Reid has been involved in world expositions abroad. In 1964 and 1967, he was Canada's Commissioner General at the Trienniale di Milano in Italy. He held the same position with Canada's pavilions at the 1968 San Antonio Hemisphere, at Expo 70 in Osaka, at Spokane in 1974, and at Okinawa in 1975.

He was chairman of the College of Commissioners General at Osaka and Spokane, representing all foreign participants. He relinquished his post as president of the Parisbased International Bureau of Expositions in 1981, shortly after his appointment to Expo 86.

It isn't every year that you have the opportunity to host fifteen million visitors to Canada's five-and-a-half-monthlong fair!

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Patrick Reid, Ambassador and Commissioner General of Expo 86, who will address us on the topic, "Expo 86: The Stage is Set."

Patrick Reid

I have the great honour to invite the members of The Empire Club, your families and friends, your employees and employers as well as those you encounter in the next ninety days or so, to visit Vancouver in its centennial year and to experience a quite extraordinary international and Canadian happening which will be opened in that city on May 2 by the Prince of Wales, and run until October 13.

It is appropriate to remind this audience that it was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who invited the world to the 1986 World Exposition. The Queen did so in March 1983 in the first event ever held under the dome of the B.C. Place stadium. By the time the exposition concludes, some seventy other heads of state or government, or ministers, will have come to Vancouver to celebrate their countries' national days at Expo 86. Some fifteen million visitors will have come through the turnstiles to witness these great occasions and, as well, some eighty pavilions, over one thousand special events and fourteen thousand artistic performancesfrom the Kirov Ballet on its return to North America after an absence of more than 20 years, to a drum festival involving drummers from 25 nations. They can take their first ride in a train without wheels-the Japanese Magnetic Levitation HSST-or communicate by satellite with Arthur C. Clarke, by visiting the pavilion of Sri Lanka, which will be in touch with the greatest futurist of our time at his home in Colombo.

When I first visited Toronto on Expo 86 business in 1982,

I was, of course, cordially received, even though there appeared to be some wonderment as to why the event was earmarked for Vancouver rather than Toronto. The answer to that was, and is, that the government of British Columbia asked for the exposition in 1978 and agreed to put up the money (now about $800 million) to develop and run it.

I hope Toronto's turn will come, if that is what Ontarians want, but right now I am sure you will agree that it is a good thing for Canada, and not untimely, that a really major national celebration should take place in the West. Indeed, the basic theme of the exposition, which is transportation, has its root in the fact that the first transcontinental Canadian train reached Pacific tidewater in 1886, thus fulfilling the promise that brought British Columbia into Confederation and bound our nation forever.

In that short century, Vancouver has become the largest seaport in all the Americas after New York. It is a burgeoning communications centre on the Pacific with, for example, direct flights from as far away as Hong Kong and Sydney, as well as Tokyo, London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Our foreign participants were sold on the prospect that Vancouver would deliver a North American audience and, as well, a Pacific Rim market. So was the government of Ontario, whose splendid pavilion dominates False Creek and overlooks the Skytrain-that product of Ontario transit expertise that is now delighting Lower Mainland commuters and politicians.

To deliver that North American audience, we have already sold well over eight million visits, well over 60 per cent of the expected gate, which is unprecedented for any world exposition, anywhere. And we are just now getting into high gear in the key California market. One of the things that impresses Californians is that we have more support from corporations, about $170 million to date, than was achieved at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which was funded totally by the private sector.

We have a site that is sold out, and we now have the embarrassment of having to tell latecoming exhibitors that there is no room, which allows me to announce today that our latest, and last, participants will round out the promised Pacific Rim market in a rather exotic manner. We will have a South Pacific Pavilion at Expo 86, comprising principally Commonwealth islands, such as Fiji, Western Samoa and the Cook Islands, and all of them appearing together for the first time in the Americas.

In the process, we have broken the record for governmental participation at a specialized exposition, and I would tend to think that the Vancouver record will stand up well into the next century. Statistically, therefore, Expo 86 is unique. But that is not the important issue.

A world exposition is a statement of human accomplish-, ment on a theme of international significance as well as a vision of our aspirations. It succeeds only to the extent that it conveys that statement and that vision to two complementary audiences: the general visitor, and the visitor who has a particular or professional interest in the theme. The heart and soul of the exposition is its content and the methods used to interpret the theme.

Thus the exhibits are more important than the buildings, the concessions and the festivals. All these one can get at any major celebration or carnival. They are important but they are not vital.

The delight, surprise and wonderment of visitors should come from well-chosen and well-presented exhibits that arise from the efforts of the organizers, the participating nations and corporations. That is the accomplishment and the joy of a world exposition. There is no other means of international and personal communication that can give this sort of immediacy and depth to an idea.

There is no such thing, either, as a Second Category or Class B world exposition. It is both inaccurate and pejorative to the nations and other participants that have mounted major efforts and substantial budgets to participate in a specialized world exposition such as Expo 86 to suggest otherwise. There are two types of world expositions-universal and specialized.

Expo 67 Montreal and Expo 70 Osaka were the last of the universal expositions that invariably demand large sites, a largely unfocussed theme and large markets and budgets; and encourage architectural innovation. In their time, they were extraordinary, but their time may have passed. Several attempts have been made to mount universal expositions since 1970. All have failed through lack of host-government leadership and through lack of sufficient financial support.

The specialized exposition like Expo 86 with a manageable site and a sharply focussed theme is more realistic and more attuned to the international circumstances of the Eighties. The proof that Expo 86 reflects this reality is in the roster of more than 80 foreign and domestic government and corporate pavilions taking shape on site in Vancouver.

In a way, it is that the ideals of Expo 86 and of 1986 itself are less pretentious and less monumental than in the past. There is more diversity and a greater multiplicity of values to reflect upon, and even the entertainment at Expo 86 will do this. Apart from the choice of Vancouver as the site, there are two reasons why the 1986 World Exposition is receiving such strong international support. One is Canada's reputation as a host, established by Expo 67 in Montreal.

A second reason is the theme. As a continuing preoccupation of mankind, transportation and communications are outranked only by food and shelter.

Expo 86 is the first world exposition on this theme to be held outside Europe and only the second to embrace the theme since the first world exposition in 1851 in London.

Every Expo 86 participant, whether from the industrialized or the developing world, is required to deal seriously with the theme in some fashion.

The theme is timely in a day and age when transportation is undergoing unprecedented change and when changes in related communications technology are revolutionary.

To give its theme close attention, Expo 86 has created several important programmes.

In January 1984 and in March 1985, the world's distinguished leaders in transportation and communications gathered for workshops and seminars at the Expo symposium series, "Tomorrow begins today." The final symposium will be held in May 1986, just after the opening of Expo 86. The keynote speaker will be Thor Heyerdahl, the noted Norwegian anthropologist and explorer.

Then there are the specialized periods, which will be presented during the five-and-a-half months of Expo. Fourteen in all, the specialized periods range from "Urban Transit" to "Alternative Fuel and Power Systems for Transportation" to "Underwater and Offshore Resources." The specialized periods are new to the world expositions, another Expo 86 "first". They will act as fora for international and Canadian business featuring displays and demonstrations on the Expo site as well as throughout the Vancouver area. Organizers are scheduling the specialized periods to coincide with professional seminars and major conferences closely connected to their themes.

Take the example of urban transit. Already there is, from June 10 to 12, a full-scale international highway transportation fair: the Canadian Trucking association conference June 10-14; a seminar on road design in developing countries on June 12; the Canadian Urban Transit Association and Bus Rodeo June 15-19; the American Public Transit Workshop and Trade Show June 18-20; a symposium on modern Swiss technology in urban and suburban transit (sponsored by the Swissrail Export Association) June 20-21; a technical seminar on the HSST demonstration system (sponsored by Japan Air Lines and Sumitomo Electric) on June 23; an ALRT symposium (by B.C. Transit) on June 19 and a technical seminar on the SK System (people-mover system by Soule of France) on June 26. Those with particular interests in urban transit will have much to see and discuss during this period.

As well as the specific theme periods, there are many other related activities that will enhance transportation and communications. Close to 80 conferences will be held in Vancouver in 1986, including the World Conference on Transportation Research and the International Telecommunications Conference.

All of these activities will enable business people to make contact with professionals and prospects who are being invited to attend more than 1,000 special events, conferences, symposia, exhibits and specialized periods. Of the 15 million expected visits to Expo 86, it is believed more than 1.2 million individuals seriously interested in the theme will come to Vancouver in 1986.

Canadian participants alone are inviting more than one hundred and thirty thousand business people by name from across Canada, the United States and abroad.

Canada Place, the home of the Canada Pavilion, will host the 1986 General Assembly of World Trade Centres.

The Government of Canada is creating a Business Opportunity Centre in Canada Place. This Centre will assist in promoting and expanding international commercial links.

The size, quality and inherent prestige of an international event such as Expo 86 brings many rewards to the participants. They will have international exposure to visitorsbusiness, professional and recreational-and coverage in mass and specialised media. For governments and corporations, Expo 86 presents the opportunity to stand on the world stage during 1986.

The fourteen specialized periods will be held as follows: Polar Transportation and Communications May 5-11 Search and Rescue May 12-18

Trucks and Intercity Buses June 9-15

UrbanTransit June 16-30 Automobiles July 6-19 Communications and Mobility for Elderly

and Diabled People July 20-25

Marine Commerce July 21-31

Aviation August 1-10 Alternative Fuel and Power Systems

For Transportation August 8-17

Transportation for Recreation August 18-24

Human-powered Transportation August 25-31

Communications September 7-13

Underwater and Offshore Resources September 12-21

Modern Rail September 29-October 5 Thus we are virtually running two parallel expositions, for two audiences that can, to a considerable extent, happily intermingle. A family outing can take in the events of the Aviation Week at three airfields around Vancouver while an aviation expert can enjoy the Ramses 11 exhibit on the main site of the exposition.

The stage is set, and well set, for the 1986 World Exposition. The cast is assembling, from Prague to Canberra, from Beijing to Nairobi, from Riyadh to Lima, from Charlottetown to Yellowknife. The occasion will be a Canadian triumph in which we can all take pride.

The host province of British Columbia and the metropolis of Vancouver will benefit enormously both in physical assets already built or under way and in international exchange and economics. All participants, particularly Ontario, will be able to report a worthwhile promotion and an exceptional experience in nation-building.

And we will have done something, we hope, for the peace of the world. Aurelio Peccei certainly felt we could, and should, when, as co-founder of the Club of Rome, he was guest of honour at the first Expo 86 symposium in January 1984. He issued a challenge that "world governments, private corporations and professionals should come to participate in the 1986 World Exposition: to come, to share and exchange knowledge that will ultimately lead to greater world harmony and understanding" His last public words in Vancouver in 1984, and regrettably his last major speech because he died shortly thereafter, were:

"My hope and wish is that you will be able to shape and build Expo 86 in such a way that it will be a turning point for our generations on their path towards a more mature and humane society"

That has been our goal and my personal endeavour. It is somehow the right sort of enterprise for Canadians and for Canada. I hope you can come and be part of it.

The appreciation of the audience was expressed by Robert Armstrong, a distinguished Past President of The Club.