Background Notes: Three Decades of Private-Sector Leadership Building Stronger Ties Between Canada and the United States

February 17, 2009

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) is the senior voice of Canada’s business community, representing 150 chief executives and leading entrepreneurs from all major sectors and regions of the country.  For more than 30 years, it has been the private-sector champion of closer economic and security cooperation between Canada and the United States. 

In the early 1980s, the CCCE became convinced that Canada should pursue aggressively a broad trade liberalization agreement with the United States.  In March 1983, at a private meeting in Ottawa organized by CCCE Chief Executive Thomas d’Aquino, Council members presented their ideas to then-Vice President George H. W. Bush.  At the same time, the CCCE formed a Task Force on Industrial Development and International Trade that launched an 18-month program of research and consultation across Canada and the United States.

In September 1984, the Task Force published a major policy paper recommending that the two countries explore a comprehensive bilateral trade agreement.  In the spring of 1985, the newly elected government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney launched the process leading to the formal negotiations that produced the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement in late 1987.  The CCCE formed a Coalition for Trade and Job Opportunities that provided critical support for Canadian ratification of the agreement.

In addition to promoting more robust economic links between the two countries, the CCCE consistently has supported a stronger Canadian military to enhance national sovereignty and contribute effectively to continental security through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).  Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the themes of economic growth and physical security became inextricably intertwined.

As an initial response, the CCCE convened a group of 21 Canadian and American leaders to make an appeal to then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and then-President George W. Bush to create a “zone of confidence” encompassing the two countries.  The Council established a CEO Action Group on Canada-United States Cooperation to drive its work in this area.

Early in 2003, this led to the launch of the CCCE’s  North American Security and Prosperity Initiative, and publication in April 2004 of a strategic discussion paper titled New Frontiers: Building a 21st Century Canada-United States Partnership in North America. The paper offered recommendations in areas such as tariff harmonization, rules of origin, trade remedies, border management and continental energy security, and emphasized the need for greater coordination among governments and between the public and private sectors.

The Council subsequently played a key role in the work of a trilateral Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, in conjunction with the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales. 
 
The Task Force, co-chaired by former deputy prime minister John Manley, former Massachusetts governor William Weld and former Mexican finance minister Pedro Aspe, produced a report early in 2005 titled Building a North American Community.  It made a series of broad recommendations covering new institutions, a unified border action plan, common external tariff, stronger educational ties and measures to stimulate economic growth in Mexico.

The work of the CCCE and of the Task Force foreshadowed the March 2005 launch of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).  The CCCE strongly welcomed the partnership agenda, which led in mid-2006 to the creation of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), a private sector advisory panel set up at the request of the three North American leaders. In one of their first acts, the Canadian members of the NACC appointed the CCCE as their secretariat.

In August 2007, NACC members attended the North American Leaders’ Summit in Montebello, Quebec, and presented President Bush, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderòn with a 30-page report urging progress across a range of policy areas that are vital to continental security and competitiveness, notably border-crossing facilitation, regulatory cooperation and energy integration.  A follow-up report, given to the Leaders at their summit meeting in New Orleans in April 2008, offered advice and recommendations in several other key areas. 

The CCCE has held numerous meetings both in the United States and Canada to bring its members together with American political and business leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern.  These have included gatherings of the CCCE’s full membership in Washington (1997, 2003, 2004 and 2005) and New York (2007), as well as smaller missions to major centres in the United States.  The next meeting of the CCCE in Washington will be in March 2009.  The CCCE also regularly hosts private events involving prominent Americans visiting Canada.  Over the years, guests at CCCE events have included:

• President George H. W. Bush;
  
• Vice Presidents George H. W. Bush (later President) and Al Gore;
  
• Secretaries of State George Shultz and Madeleine Albright;
  
• Chiefs of Staff to the President Andrew Card, Jr., and Thomas McLarty III;
  
• Commerce Secretaries Malcolm “Mac” Baldrige, William Daley and Carlos Gutierrez;
  
• Treasury Secretary James Baker III;
  
• Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger;
  
• Homeland Security Secretary Thomas Ridge;
  
• Energy Secretaries Spencer Abraham and Samuel Bodman;
  
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp;
  
• United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky;
  
• Senators Joe Biden (now Vice President), Hillary Clinton (now Secretary of State), John McCain, Max Baucus, Lloyd Bentsen, John Chaffee and Spark Matsunaga;
  
• New York Governor Eliot Spitzer;
  
• Florida Governor Jeb Bush;
  
• Ben Bernanke, then Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and now Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board;
  
• General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe;
  
• New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg;
  
• Numerous ambassadors, senior government officials and elected representatives.