Setting the Pace: Policy Entrepreneurship and CEO Leadership in 2002

January 15, 2002

We are here this morning to mark the New Year with the launch of a new organization. As we prepare ourselves for the many challenges that lie ahead, I think it is important first to reflect for a few minutes on the roots of our past success.

Back in the 1970s, Canada had no shortage of troubles. The decade’s oil shocks may have been a boon to the West, but they created economic divisions within the country that proved almost as damaging as the election of a separatist government in Quebec. Rising resource prices fuelled widespread inflation even as the economy stagnated. Governments desperate to stimulate growth and create jobs embarked on a two-decade love affair with borrowed money, one that was destined to rack up the better part of a trillion dollars in public debt and drive Canadian tax rates to unimagined heights.

It was these trying circumstances that led a handful of forward-looking chief executives to found an organization that would look beyond the day-to-day concerns of their businesses and instead pursue a broader vision of enterprise, community and country. They established the Business Council on National Issues, which grew quickly to encompass 150 chief executives committed to effecting economic, social and political change in Canada.

Two elements were critical in establishing the BCNI as a uniquely effective force for change. The first was the personal involvement of a select group of chief executives, a commitment that was to prove critical in enabling the organization to move quickly and decisively in addressing emerging needs and opportunities. The second was a focus on policy entrepreneurship, a willingness to think the unthinkable, to get out in front of the curve, to break new ground in addressing the key challenges not just of today but of tomorrow.

In some cases, the BCNI’s role was highly visible. Its best-known campaign was in developing and then winning broad public support for the idea of a comprehensive free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. In other cases, the Council’s work has been just as intense, but confined to detailed work behind the scenes, as in the rewriting of Canada’s competition policies in the 1980s.

Always, the Council’s overriding concern has been to help Canada become more competitive in an increasingly global economy. By hiring Harvard University’s Michael Porter to do his groundbreaking study of Canadian competitiveness in 1990/91, for instance, we issued a wake-up call that resonates to this day.

This desire to foster a better environment for building successful enterprises also has taken us well beyond economic policy-making. In particular, it has driven our long-standing support for stronger Canadian governance, including our Confederation 2000 initiative in the wake of the narrow 1995 referendum victory and our conception of an idea that evolved into the Calgary Declaration.

We have never been afraid to take unpopular stands. Our suggestion in 1993 that the federal government could and should eliminate its deficit within five years was greeted with ridicule — but in the end, the job took only four. More recently, our Canada Global Leadership Initiative led to a hard-hitting call for action that focused particular attention in the short term on the need for much more aggressive tax cuts. Our blunt language generated some hostile responses at first, but the factors we identified were also obviously of concern to the government, and the mini-budget of October 2000 was well received by the Council.

Canada has come a long way over the past quarter century, and I think that a great deal of credit is due to the contributions of Canada’s largest enterprises and to the fact that many of their CEOs have used the BCNI as an instrument to permit them to participate in broad public policy debates. But as we said at our CEO Summit in April 2000, past progress is no cause for complacency about the future.

Canada has changed, but the world has changed even faster. Without a continued commitment to building on our successes, Canada risks a slide into irrelevance and relative economic decline. As many of us made clear in our contributions to last year’s book by Tom d’Aquino and David Stewart-Patterson, Northern Edge: How Canadians Can Triumph in the Global Economy, Canada’s enterprises are successfully pursuing opportunities around the world. Our collective mission here is to ensure that our country and our fellow Canadians also realize their full potential in the global economy.

Success in this mission requires business leadership without borders. Canada’s vital national issues are now global issues. And with our transformation into the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, we are now committed to participation in policy issues not just within Canada but across North America and around the world. The challenges that face Canada today are daunting, and our potential agenda is therefore more ambitious than ever, and Tom d’Aquino will go into more detail on our priorities and proposed work programme for 2002 in a few minutes.

The key point I want to make is that the BCNI was extraordinarily successful because of its ability to focus the energy of chief executives on a handful of key issues. We considered many opportunities over the years, but were careful to make intensive commitments only when we felt that we could make a real difference. By picking our spots, by thinking entrepreneurially about where and how to engage in public policy, we were able to have a significant impact on most of the policy developments that really mattered.

In short, the BCNI became a uniquely successful business organization by staying small, staying focused and staying entrepreneurial. In the years ahead, the new Canadian Council of Chief Executives will take this model to the next stage. It will provide a vehicle for the chief executives of Canadian enterprises to engage more effectively in policy issues wherever they emerge. It will enable us to help each other both in our responsibilities to build global businesses and in ensuring that all Canadians understand and share the benefits of the world of possibilities that lies ahead.

I look forward to working with each and every one of you in writing the next chapter in the history of this superb organization. Thank you.