How do you build business relationships between Canada and Australia when you are 17 hours apart?

Scott Cundill · 2026-09-21 · Vancouver

You stop trying to meet in the middle, because there is no middle, and you start handing things over. When a business owner in Vancouver finishes lunch, it is already the next morning on the Gold Coast. That gap sounds like the problem. Used properly, it is the whole advantage.

This is for Canadians who want customers, partners or suppliers in Australia, and for Australians looking the other way. Plenty of you already share a language, a legal tradition, a head of state and a fondness for complaining about the weather. What you usually do not share is a single person who knows you both.

What is the time difference, exactly?

Between Vancouver and the Gold Coast it is 17 hours for most of the year and 18 hours for the rest.

The reason it moves is worth knowing. British Columbia changes its clocks. Queensland does not. So when Vancouver goes on daylight time in March, the gap shrinks to 17 hours, and when it comes off in November, it grows to 18. Sydney and Melbourne do change their clocks, in the opposite season, which is why a meeting that worked in July can quietly land at the wrong hour in December if one of you is in New South Wales.

The practical version: at 3pm on a Monday in Vancouver during the Canadian summer, it is 8am on Tuesday on the Gold Coast.

Is there any time that suits both sides?

Yes, one window, and it is a good one.

Late afternoon in Vancouver is early morning on the Gold Coast. Roughly 2pm to 5pm Pacific lines up with 7am to 10am in Queensland for most of the year, shifting an hour later during the Canadian winter. The Canadian is winding down a productive day. The Australian is fresh, with a coffee, and nothing has gone wrong yet.

That window is short. Treat it as the place for real conversations, the first call, the meeting where two people decide whether they like each other, and do everything else asynchronously.

Why not just email people on the other side cold?

Because distance multiplies the cost of a stranger.

A cold message from across town is mildly annoying. A cold message from the other side of the Pacific, from someone the reader has no way of checking, with a proposal that would need calls at odd hours, is easy to ignore and even easier to forget. Nobody is going to get up at 6am to talk to someone they have never heard of.

An introduction changes that calculation completely. When someone the reader already trusts says, you two should talk, the early start stops being a cost and becomes a favour to a friend.

How does the time difference actually help?

It turns a day into a relay.

Suppose an Australian member makes an introduction for a Canadian at the end of the Gold Coast working day. The Canadian reads it with their morning coffee, replies, and the Australian finds the answer waiting when they wake up. Nobody waited. Nobody stayed up late. The conversation moved forward twice in one calendar day, and both people spent it asleep for part of the time.

That is the handover. It is the word this bridge is built around, borrowed from any workplace that runs through the night: one shift finishes, passes on what matters clearly, and the next shift picks it up without anything being dropped.

What makes a handover work?

The same things that make a good shift change work.

First, write it so it can be read without you. An introduction that needs a follow up call to explain it will sit for a day while two people sleep through each other's questions. Say who both people are, why they should meet, and what the first step is.

Second, include the time. Put the suggested call in both zones, in words. Wednesday 3pm Vancouver, Thursday 8am Gold Coast. It removes the most common mistake in the whole exercise.

Third, close the loop. The person who made the introduction should hear whether it happened. Otherwise they have no idea whether it was worth doing, and at this distance they will not find out by bumping into anyone.

How does My Most Trusted fit in?

It was built for exactly this kind of introduction.

Every trusted connection on the platform is added one at a time, by someone confirming they genuinely know that person. So when an introduction comes through the network, the person making it has put their own name behind it.

Before you ask for an introduction, the platform shows you who you already share, by name, in a panel called the Golden Handshake. If you share nobody, it says so plainly, rather than leaving you to guess.

Nothing is sent automatically. The platform can draft a message, and you decide whether it goes, from your own email or phone. That matters more across the Pacific than anywhere, because a badly timed automated message at 3am is a very quick way to be remembered for the wrong reason.

And the Trust-O-Meter shows how much each member has actually given, introductions and recommendations, not just how long they have been around. Across 17 hours, that is often the only thing you can check before you get up early for somebody.

What kinds of business travel well between these two countries?

More than people expect. Both are large, spread out countries where a lot of business happens a long way from the biggest city. Both have strong small business communities, similar professional standards in fields like accounting, law and property, and a shared habit of doing business with people they have been introduced to rather than people who found them online.

The honest answer, though, is that the sector matters less than the person. A good introduction to one well connected person on the other side is worth more than a market report.

Where do Susan and Darren come in?

The Canada-Australia Business Bridge has a host on each bank.

Susan Jarema hosts the Canadian side from Greater Vancouver. Darren Bartsch hosts the Australian side from the Gold Coast. Both hold a Trusted Advocate rank, the top of the Trust-O-Meter, which only comes from introductions and recommendations actually given and received, many times over. Both are listed by name, with their own profiles on platforms we do not own, so you can check them before you trust them.

If you are in Canada and need a door opened in Australia, or the other way round, start with one of them. Send it at the end of your day. It will be read at the start of theirs.