CBC Commentary by Thomas d’Aquino

March 17, 2005

CBC Commentary
Thomas d’Aquino
President and Chief Executive, Canadian Council of Chief Executives
Vice Chair, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America

I never cease to be amazed at how any proposal to have Canada strengthen its relationship with the United States provokes a doomsday chorus.  We heard it in the eighties.  We heard it in the nineties.  We are hearing it again today.

It is always the same tired rant.  It is always the same old group of extreme nationalists.  Any deal with the Americans, they insist, will kill our economy, destroy our social programs, wipe out our culture, surrender our resources and erase our very identity.

The fact is that open trade on our continent has paid off for Canadians.  Our economy has grown by leaps and bounds.  Companies are creating more jobs.  Exports are booming.  Families are earning higher incomes.  And governments are taking in record tax revenue.  Last year, the federal government collected $70 billion more than a decade earlier.  Open trade is helping to pay for all the massive new spending on health care, child care, the environment, transit, infrastructure and equalization. 

Most Canadians are ready to build on this success.  Canada needs to strengthen North America not because the Americans demand it, but because it is so clearly in our own national interest.  We need an economically stronger North America to take on the new competitive challenges coming from Europe and Asia.  We need a more secure North America to ensure the smooth flow of goods and people within the continent that lies at the heart of our economic advantage.  Canada’s security interests and economic interests are inextricably linked.

Next Wednesday, Prime Minister Paul Martin will meet in Texas with Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox.  This week, an independent tri-national task force challenged the leaders to consider a bold vision for the creation by 2010 of a North American community.  This community would be defined by both a common economic space and a shared zone of security.  To forge this community, we need a North American border action plan, a common external tariff, new ways to prevent trade disputes, an energy strategy and aggressive efforts to improve the lives of people in the poorest regions of the continent.

This vision comes from a very diverse group: former politicians, public servants and diplomats together with leading academics, business people and social advocates from across North America.  Its work reflects the mainstream understanding in Canada, Mexico and the United States that people in all three countries will be better off if we work together than if we try to move forward in isolation.

Getting closer to the United States and Mexico has given Canadians more control over our destiny, not less.  Our shared economic success has made us more confident than ever in our ability to pursue our own path of social and cultural development.  We know that our future lies with borders that are open to the movement of people and goods — and minds that are open to the idea that a stronger partnership with our neighbours is the best way to serve our national interest. 

For Commentary, this is Thomas d’Aquino in Toronto.