Event Date: October 14, 2026 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Location: DMS 12102, 55 Laurier Ave E, Ottawa

Registration: Google Forms

by CIPS and the Asian Studies Network (ASN)

Canada is a resource-rich country with abundant energy resources, including LNG, as well as critical minerals used as raw materials for batteries and other products, and therefore has significant potential as a resource supplier. Japan, on the other hand, relies heavily on imports from abroad to secure energy resources, critical minerals, and other resources from the perspective of economic security. Diversifying sources of supply and strengthening supply chains have therefore become urgent priorities for Japan.

Against this backdrop, Professor Kazuto Suzuki, an expert in geoeconomics and economic security, will discuss the importance of cooperation between Japan and Canada in strengthening supply chains, particularly in areas such as energy resources, including LNG, and critical minerals used as raw materials for batteries. If possible, he will also address more broadly the challenging security environment facing Japan and Canada, including economic security, as well as the outlook for the two countries going forward.

Speaker:

Kazuto Suzuki is Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and Director of the Institute of Geoeconomics at International House of Japan.  He graduated from the Department of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, and received Ph.D. from Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex, England.  He has worked in the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique in Paris, France as assistant researcher and the Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba from 2000 to 2008 and served as Professor of International Politics at Hokkaido University until 2020.  He served as an expert in the Panel of Experts for Iranian Sanction Committee under the United Nations Security Council from 2013 to July 2015.  He currently serves many advisory committees of the government of Japan, inter alia, the National Space Policy Committee of the Cabinet Office, the Government of Japan, and the President of Japan Association of International Security and Trade. He is also a full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and a Visiting Fellow at The Japan Institute of International Affairs. His research focuses on the conjunction of science/technology and international relations; subjects including the conjunction of science/technology and international relations; subjects including economic Security, space policy, sanctions, non-proliferation, and export control.  His recent work includes Space and International Politics (2011), in Japanese, awarded Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities), Policy Logics and Institutions of European Space Collaboration (2003), A Global Map of Resources and the Economy, in Japanese, (2024); as editing work includes The Regulatory Power of the EU in Japanese (2012), Economic security and technological advantage (2023) in Japanese, and many others.

Chair:

Scott E. Simon, Full Professor in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa, specializes in legal anthropology. He is principal investigator on the SSHRC-funded research project “Rumblings on the Horizon: Living with China’s Three Warfares in the Indo-pacific.” Trained in both Japanese and Chinese, he did his Ph.D. in Anthropology at McGill University, and his postdoctoral work in Sociology at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taipei. Co-holder of the Chair of Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa, he has lived in Taiwan for well over ten years and returns frequently for field research. He has also done field research in Japan and Guam; and has plans for work in the Philippines. He also does research on Taiwan’s international status, and Canada-Taiwan relations. He has written four books and numerous articles about Taiwan. He is research member of the Centre for International Policy Studies and the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa. He does policy-oriented research as Senior Fellow at Ottawa’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Centre for Strategic Statecraft.

Moderator:

Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is also non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in New York, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver. She is the author of China’s Vulnerability Paradox: How the World’s Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets (Oxford University Press, 2024) – Winner of the 2025 Best Book Award in International Political Economy from the International Studies Association and the 2025 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize.