Canadian Business Leaders Join Canada-Mexico Partnership and Strengthen Ties with Mexican Counterparts

October 25, 2004

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) has strongly endorsed the Canada-Mexico Partnership (CMP) signed today by Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox.

At a lunch for the President and Prime Minister concluding a four-day retreat of Canadian and Mexican business leaders, the CCCE pledged to participate fully in the new public-private sector forum to be established by the partnership accord.

“To succeed in global markets, Canada must reinforce both its own competitive advantages and those of North America as a whole,” said Thomas d’Aquino, CCCE President and Chief Executive. “The Canada-Mexico Partnership strengthens the strategic relationship between our two countries and will help to forge a more robust and dynamic North American economy.”

The CCCE, composed of the chief executives of 150 leading Canadian enterprises, has agreed to work with its Mexican counterpart, the Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios, to ensure effective business support in realizing the ambitious goals of the CMP.  The two organizations will build on their 15-year history of collaboration by formalizing their bilateral relationship, holding regular joint meetings in Canada and Mexico and encouraging broader and deeper links between the business communities of the two countries.

These steps are the latest in a series of initiatives by the CCCE aimed at developing a North American agenda that will enhance Canada’s economic and physical security. In January 2003, the CCCE launched its North American Security and Prosperity Initiative (NASPI), which calls for action on five fronts: reinventing borders; achieving new regulatory efficiencies; enhancing resource security; reinvigorating the defence alliance; and developing new institutions to manage the economic integration of North America.

In April 2004, the CCCE published a groundbreaking, 43-page paper titled New Frontiers: Building a 21st Century Canada-United States Partnership in North America. The paper puts forward a comprehensive strategy and 15 specific recommendations aimed at enhancing Canada’s security and prosperity.

More recently, the CCCE also has worked with the United States Council on Foreign Relations and theConsejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (Mexican Council on Foreign Relations) to launch an independent Task Force on the Future of North America.  The Task Force, which held its first working sessions on October 17 and 18 in Toronto, is chaired by former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance John Manley, former Finance Minister of Mexico Pedro Aspe, and former Governor of Massachusetts and Assistant Attorney General William Weld.

Widely recognized as Canada’s most influential business organization, the CCCE was the private sector leader in the development and promotion of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement in the 1980s and the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s.

Founded in 1976, the CCCE is devoted to strengthening the country’s economy and society through the development of sound public policy in Canada, North America and the world. Member chief executives head companies that collectively administer more than $2.3 trillion in assets, have annual revenues of close to $600 billion and account for a significant majority of Canada’s private sector investment, exports, training and research and development.

In addition to Mr. d’Aquino, the members of the CCCE’s Executive Committee are: Chairman Richard L. George, President and Chief Executive Officer of Suncor Energy Inc.; Honorary Chairman A. Charles Baillie; and Vice-Chairmen Dominic D’Alessandro, Paul Desmarais, Jr., Jacques Lamarre, Gwyn Morgan and Gordon Nixon, the chief executives respectively of Manulife Financial, Power Corporation of Canada, SNC-LAVALIN Group Inc., EnCana Corporation and Royal Bank of Canada.