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Monday, February 24, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Ottawa Conference on Defence and Security
You would want to read:
TThe CDA Institute's Strategic Outlook for Canada - A Search for Leadership is the latest in its Vimy Papers series of studies on vital defence and security issues.
http://www.cdainstitute.ca/images/so2014en.pdf
20–21 February 2014
Fairmont Château Laurier Hotel, Ottawa, Canada
ONLINE REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED.
YOU CAN STILL REGISTER AT THE DESK ON ARRIVAL AT THE CONFERENCE.
AGENDA
Download the complete agenda with timings and other administrative details
Day 1 – Thursday, 20 February 2014
“The shifting theatres of Canada’s engagement: Asia-Pacific-Indian Ocean”
“The shifting theatres of Canada’s engagement: Asia-Pacific-Indian Ocean”
The day’s events are held in collaboration with the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).
Opening remarks
General (ret’d) Ray Henault, President, CDA Institute
Ferry de Kerckhove, Executive Vice-President, CDA Institute – Review of The 2014 Strategic Outlook for Canada
Ferry de Kerckhove, Executive Vice-President, CDA Institute – Review of The 2014 Strategic Outlook for Canada
Keynote speakers
The Honourable Jean Charest, former Premier of Quebec and former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada
The Honourable Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia
The Honourable Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia
Luncheon Speaker
Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy
Panels
Canada-Australia Security in the Asia-Pacific
Dr. Fen Osler Hampson, Distinguished Fellow & Director of the Global Security & Politics Program, CIGI (moderator)
Leonard Edwards, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs & Distinguished Fellow, CIGI
Colonel (Ret’d) Dr. John Blaxland, Senior Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
Commodore (ret’d) Dr. Eric Lerhe, former commander, Canadian Pacific Fleet
The West’s pivot towards Asia: what it means
Dr. Jim Boutilier, Special Advisor, Maritime Forces Pacific Headquarters (moderator)
David Gordon, Head of Research, Eurasia Group
Nigel Inkster, former Assistant Chief and Director for Operations and Intelligence, British Secret Intelligence Service
Major General (ret’d) Zhao Ning, Vice Chairman, China Institute for International Strategic Studies
Cyber security in the post-Snowden era
Major-General (ret’d) John Adams, former director Communications Security Establishment Canada (moderator)
Melissa Hathaway, former Director of the US Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Rafal Rohozinski, Principal, The SecDev Group
Dr. David Mussington, former Senior Advisor for Cyber Policy, US Department of Defense
Lest we forget: other strategic concerns: Arc of Instability from Maghreb to Pakistan David Collins, former Canadian high commissioner to Kenya and Pakistan (moderator)
Marius Grinius, former Canadian ambassador to UN Conference on Disarmament and to North Korea
Robert Fowler, former Deputy Minister of National Defence
Rear-Admiral Matthew Kohler, Director for Operations – Intelligence (J2), US Africa Command
Dr. Fen Osler Hampson, Distinguished Fellow & Director of the Global Security & Politics Program, CIGI (moderator)
Leonard Edwards, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs & Distinguished Fellow, CIGI
Colonel (Ret’d) Dr. John Blaxland, Senior Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
Commodore (ret’d) Dr. Eric Lerhe, former commander, Canadian Pacific Fleet
The West’s pivot towards Asia: what it means
Dr. Jim Boutilier, Special Advisor, Maritime Forces Pacific Headquarters (moderator)
David Gordon, Head of Research, Eurasia Group
Nigel Inkster, former Assistant Chief and Director for Operations and Intelligence, British Secret Intelligence Service
Major General (ret’d) Zhao Ning, Vice Chairman, China Institute for International Strategic Studies
Cyber security in the post-Snowden era
Major-General (ret’d) John Adams, former director Communications Security Establishment Canada (moderator)
Melissa Hathaway, former Director of the US Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Rafal Rohozinski, Principal, The SecDev Group
Dr. David Mussington, former Senior Advisor for Cyber Policy, US Department of Defense
Lest we forget: other strategic concerns: Arc of Instability from Maghreb to Pakistan David Collins, former Canadian high commissioner to Kenya and Pakistan (moderator)
Marius Grinius, former Canadian ambassador to UN Conference on Disarmament and to North Korea
Robert Fowler, former Deputy Minister of National Defence
Rear-Admiral Matthew Kohler, Director for Operations – Intelligence (J2), US Africa Command
Reception
Day 2 – Friday, 21 February 2014
“Armed Forces in a period of financial restraint: a new fiscal reality”
Opening remarks
Lieutenant-General (ret’d) Richard Evraire, Chairman, CDA
Keynote speakers
The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of National Defence
The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Public Works and Government Services – “Improving Military Procurement in Canada“
General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff
General Sir Nick Houghton, British Chief of the Defence Staff
The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Public Works and Government Services – “Improving Military Procurement in Canada“
General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff
General Sir Nick Houghton, British Chief of the Defence Staff
Special address
Vice-Admiral Bob Davidson, Canadian Military Representative to NATO
Luncheon Speaker
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, former German federal minister of defence and former minister of economics and technology – “From Government to Googlement: How Technology Disrupts Statecraft and International Security”
Panels
Defence and security at a time of fiscal, operational and strategic transition – Allied Views and Approaches
David Perry, Senior Defence Analyst, CDA Institute (moderator)
Michael O’Hanlon, Director of Research – Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution
Bruno Tertrais, Senior Research Fellow, Fondation pour la Recherché Stratégique – Paris
Rear-Admiral Allan du Toit, Australian Military Representative to NATO and the EU
The updated Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) – new vision or less of the same?
Vice-Admiral (ret’d) Ron Buck, former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff (moderator)
Vice-Admiral (ret’d) Paul Maddison, former Commander, Royal Canadian Navy
Lieutenant-General (ret’d) Mike Jeffery, former Commander, Canadian Army
Lieutenant-General (ret’d) André Deschamps, former Commander, Royal Canadian Air Force
Defence and security at a time of fiscal, operational and strategic transition – Allied Views and Approaches
David Perry, Senior Defence Analyst, CDA Institute (moderator)
Michael O’Hanlon, Director of Research – Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution
Bruno Tertrais, Senior Research Fellow, Fondation pour la Recherché Stratégique – Paris
Rear-Admiral Allan du Toit, Australian Military Representative to NATO and the EU
The updated Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) – new vision or less of the same?
Vice-Admiral (ret’d) Ron Buck, former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff (moderator)
Vice-Admiral (ret’d) Paul Maddison, former Commander, Royal Canadian Navy
Lieutenant-General (ret’d) Mike Jeffery, former Commander, Canadian Army
Lieutenant-General (ret’d) André Deschamps, former Commander, Royal Canadian Air Force
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
After 25 years, free-trade deal with U.S. has helped Canada grow up
By JOHN IBBITSON
A quarter century ago, Brian Mulroney signed an agreement with the U.S. that divided a nation – and forever changed how it did business
A quarter century of free trade has transformed this country, but not in the way its champions hoped, or its critics feared.
Canada has not, as opponents predicted, become an economic appendage to the American giant, a 51st state in all but name, since the Canadian and American governments reached a comprehensive free-trade agreement. We are, if anything, a freer actor in the world than we were before the deal was signed, 25 years ago Thursday.
But the benefits are also debatable. After a decade of rapid increase following the ratification of the Canada-United States free-trade agreement (commonly referred to as FTA), trade with America has levelled off and even, by some measures, fallen back to where it was before the deal.
Despite rosy predictions, Canadian productivity continues to lag; too little gets researched here and not enough is developed.
"There are a lot of good things going on in this country," says David Peterson, who was premier of Ontario at the time of the free-trade debate, and who campaigned against the deal. "But we are still hewers of wood and drawers of water."
The real legacy, however, may be intangible. "It's not just a question of numbers," maintains Kevin Lynch, who was clerk of the Privy Council – Canada's most senior public servant – from 2006 to 2009.
Free trade helped Canada to grow up, to turn its face out to the world, to embrace its future as a trading nation, to get over its chronic sense of inferiority.
Free trade got Canadians to "believe in ourselves – to take down the tariff barriers and think we could compete with the world's largest and most competitive economy, and do well at it," Mr. Lynch argues.
"All these things were made possible by thinking about the world through a totally different prism," he believes. "And free trade allowed us to do that."
As the federal government prepares to unveil a new free-trade agreement with Europe this year and with India next year, as it strives to become part of a new Pacific accord, and contemplates entering into talks with China, let's look back at the father of all trade agreements: how it came about; what was at stake; and what it meant for our future.
Because 25 years later, it shapes us still.
The generation born after 1980 may not appreciate how grim things were at the beginning of that decade. Canada and the United States were in the grip of a recession far worse, in many respects, than the one of 2009. Inflation reached just over 12 per cent in 1981; mortgage rates were over 21 per cent; the next year unemployment peaked at 13 per cent.
Pierre Trudeau, having contributed to the mess with his ill-considered national energy program, ordered up a royal commission on how to fix the Canadian economy.
Donald Macdonald, its principal author, surprised everyone by calling for a free-trade agreement with the United States, which he described as "a leap of faith."
Brian Mulroney, by then the Progressive Conservative prime minister, decided to take that leap, holding hands with American president Ronald Reagan. The negotiations were long and intense.
At almost literally the last hour, with congressional authority to fast-track a deal about the expire, the whole thing almost foundered, over Canadian insistence on a dispute resolution mechanism.
As Mr. Mulroney remembers it, Treasury secretary James Baker told him Congress would never approve a clause limiting its power to oversee international trade.
"And I said 'OK Jim, fine. I'm now going to call President Reagan at Camp David, and I'm going to ask him ... how the United States of America can sign a nuclear reduction treaty with its worst enemy, the Soviet Union, but cannot sign a free-trade agreement with its best friend, Canada," Mr. Mulroney recalled in an interview in the journal Inside Policy, to be published Thursday.
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Baker walked into the room where the Canadian negotiators were waiting and dropped a piece of paper on the table, declaring: "There's your goddamn dispute settlement resolution."
"I was feeling worried," Mr. Mulroney acknowledged in an interview with The Globe and Mail. Failure would not only have set back relations with the United States; it would have been a body blow to his government.
But the deal was far from sealed. Opposition to free trade with the United States was broad and deep. The Americans would take over any parts of the economy they didn't own already, critics warned; they would use the agreement to force an end to public health care; they would siphon our water and force us to sell our oil at fire sale prices.
"Canada was in many ways somewhat fearful," Mr. Mulroney observed in the interview, "concerned about the size of our neighbour, and deeply concerned as well by the matter that had always been out there, namely the absorption by the United States."
Both the Liberals and the NDP were dead set against the deal. Liberal Leader John Turner declared that stopping it was "the cause of my life."
"I'm a free trader, but I want mutual free trade," Mr. Turner explains, 25 years later. "The way it was negotiated with the United States, only Canadian jobs were at stake."
When the Canadian Senate blocked ratification, Mr. Mulroney called an election in the autumn of 1988. There has never been an election quite like it. Canadians bitterly disagreed among themselves over whether to embrace free trade with America. They all agreed, however, that the future of the country was at stake.
"If you went into a bookstore or you went into a laundry, people were arguing about free trade," remembers Allan Gotlieb, who was Canadian ambassador to the United States at the time, and one of the key negotiators of the agreement. "People were pinning up editorials or articles on their refrigerators. It was an issue that grabbed hold of the country in a way no other foreign policy issue has since conscription. To me, it was a phenomenon."
Polls surged for the Liberals after Mr. Turner kicked butt during the leaders' debate. And the party put out what may be the most effective attack ad in Canadian history:
A Canadian and an American negotiator sit over a table discussing the accord.
"There's just one line I'd like to change," the American proposes.
"What line is that?" asks the Canadian.
"This one here. It's just getting in the way." On a map placed between them, the American takes an eraser to the Canada-U.S. border.
But with opposition split between the Liberals and NDP, the Progressive Conservatives won a second majority government, and the FTA became law.
Two years later, Canada fell into a deep recession – with free trade part of the reason. With tariffs removed, American firms closed their Canadian branch plants and shut down their Canadian head offices.
"We lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the first two years," Mr. Peterson recalls. "We were the province with the most to lose, and we predicted we'd lose it, and we did."
But then things started to take off. Bilateral exports, which totalled about $100-billion a year in the late 1980s (all figures are in Canadian dollars), shot up to $350-billion a year by 2000, according to a new study by Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist of BMO Nesbitt Burns. The study is part of the Inside Policy issue on free trade.
Little of the gloom turned to doom. Public health care remained intact. Water stayed in Canadian rivers and lakes.
Yes, total American investment in Canada increased, to $326-billion in 2011 from $76-billion in 1988. But Canadian investment into the United States also grew, to $276 billion today from $55 billion before free trade.
Free trade with the United States, and the subsequent North American free trade agreement that brought Mexico into the tent, were "critical ingredients in helping modernize the Canadian economy ... transforming Canada from a relative underachiever among industrial world economies to a relative overachiever," Mr. Porter concludes.
Except there's a catch. Actually, there are several catches.
Since 2000, growth in Canada-U.S. trade has not only flattened, but declined. After almost a decade of little or no growth, from 2000 to 2008, bilateral export values plunged with the arrival of the 2009 recession, and are still struggling to return to 2000 levels.
Taking an even longer view, Mr. Porter notes that just before free trade, exports to the United States represented 17 per cent of Canada's nominal gross domestic product, in current Canadian dollar terms. By 2000, they had reached 33 per cent of Canada's GDP. Today the number is all the way down to 19 per cent. By that measure, we're practically back to where we started.
Different yardsticks produce a better result. But by any measure, the wild trade gains of the 1990s were at least partly clawed back in the past decade. Trade between Canada and the U.S. is stronger today than it was before free trade, but not that much stronger.
There are many reasons for the swoon. Mr. Porter points to the rising Canadian dollar -- which appreciated by 75 per cent between 2002 and 2007 – as the principal culprit. As well, there was also the thickening of the border that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000-02, the last recession, which hit the United States harder than it hit Canada, and growing competition from other exporters, especially China.
There is a bigger catch. If the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement was a critical opening act in the story of globalization – signalling to the world that two G7 countries were ready to open their markets to each other – the most recent chapters of that story make for grim reading.
Ed Broadbent, who was leader of the NDP during the free-trade debate, thought it was a rotten deal then, "and I do to this day."
Free trade brought deregulation, privatization of state-owned companies, weakened protection for labour and the great sloshing of capital from one national market to another – all of it part of the race to the bottom, he believes.
"This approach became ideologically dominant in the Anglo-American world," Mr. Broadbent maintains. "The trade deal was part of the kickoff of this kind of thinking, and I think it was a mistake."
Then there were the intended consequences that were never realized. Open competition with the Americans should have forced Canadian firms to become more productive. And spending on research and development should have taken off, as Canadian entrepreneurs plowed profits into product development.
But Mr. Lynch observes that Canadian productivity is only 72 per cent of its American counterparts, and Canada ranks 20th among OECD nations in spending on research.
Nonetheless, he is convinced that the free-trade agreement had a more important, and more lasting, legacy than any number can record.
"It caused a sea change in attitudes," he believes. The courage needed to take that free-trade leap of faith equipped governments to tackle other seemingly insurmountable challenges: Establishing the goods and services tax, eliminating the deficit, reducing corporate taxes.
Most important, FTA convinced Canadian governments, Canadian businesses and Canadians generally that this country had the knowledge and confidence to compete in any market.
Since the original free-trade deal, Canada has not only joined the North American free trade agreement, it has signed bilateral deals with Israel, Chile, Costa Rica, Columbia, Jordan and the non-European Union states of the European Free Trade Association. An agreement with Panama is before Parliament.
But the real news should come before the end of the year, with the signing of a Canada-European Union free-trade agreement, which will be the largest since the Canada-U.S. deal. Next year, Canada and India hope to conclude a free-trade agreement.
And Canada recently joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a set of negotiations that, if successfully concluded, will create the largest trading bloc in the world.
As globalization continues to break down barriers and promote the free flow of capital across borders, for better or worse, Canada stands well positioned to tap the potential of the rising Asian and Pacific economies.
So was it worth it in the end? Twenty-five years later, David Peterson – who lost an election as free trade and a recession reshaped Canada in 1990 – still isn't sure.
"What you've asked me is a totally reasonable question. And I don't think there's a clear and easy answer to it," he confesses. "It helped the resource side of our economy. It has not helped the innovation side, particularly. There was good and bad in it."
John Turner has advice for Stephen Harper as he works through these negotiations.
"Be very careful in drafting these agreements with Europe or India or wherever that we don't lock ourselves into a situation where we don't win," he warns. "And read the agreement first."
But Mr. Gotlieb has a far more positive view. He believes competing freely and successfully in the American market helped cure Canada of its insular, fearful anti-Americanism. "We were a frightened nation," he maintains. "We were frightened by this U.S. embrace." The free-trade debate marked the high tide of that anti-American fear.
But after the agreement passed, "the waters slowly began to pull back from the shore. And they have never returned."
Competing successfully in the U.S. market has given a new generation of entrepreneurs the confidence to compete in other big markets.
Mr. Lynch recently met with the leaders of several new startup firms based in the high-tech hub of Waterloo, Ont. "Their view is they're going to sell their goods and services globally; they can compete with anybody," he reports.
"They're flying from Waterloo to Silicon Valley to Israel to Singapore." They are using their experiences in Canada and North America to sell Canadian business to the world. "And that," Mr. Lynch believes, "is how we should think about the future."
Let Mr. Mulroney, who more than anyone was responsible for the deal, have the last word:
"There is a new generation of Canadians with a new attitude," he believes. "They are confident, they are outward looking. These are the happy warriors of Canada who are out there fighting the good fight and winning most of the time. And they've established that they can win because if they can win in the United States they can win anywhere.
"I look back at it now, and I'm pleased with what I see."
Canada has not, as opponents predicted, become an economic appendage to the American giant, a 51st state in all but name, since the Canadian and American governments reached a comprehensive free-trade agreement. We are, if anything, a freer actor in the world than we were before the deal was signed, 25 years ago Thursday.
But the benefits are also debatable. After a decade of rapid increase following the ratification of the Canada-United States free-trade agreement (commonly referred to as FTA), trade with America has levelled off and even, by some measures, fallen back to where it was before the deal.
Despite rosy predictions, Canadian productivity continues to lag; too little gets researched here and not enough is developed.
"There are a lot of good things going on in this country," says David Peterson, who was premier of Ontario at the time of the free-trade debate, and who campaigned against the deal. "But we are still hewers of wood and drawers of water."
The real legacy, however, may be intangible. "It's not just a question of numbers," maintains Kevin Lynch, who was clerk of the Privy Council – Canada's most senior public servant – from 2006 to 2009.
Free trade helped Canada to grow up, to turn its face out to the world, to embrace its future as a trading nation, to get over its chronic sense of inferiority.
Free trade got Canadians to "believe in ourselves – to take down the tariff barriers and think we could compete with the world's largest and most competitive economy, and do well at it," Mr. Lynch argues.
"All these things were made possible by thinking about the world through a totally different prism," he believes. "And free trade allowed us to do that."
As the federal government prepares to unveil a new free-trade agreement with Europe this year and with India next year, as it strives to become part of a new Pacific accord, and contemplates entering into talks with China, let's look back at the father of all trade agreements: how it came about; what was at stake; and what it meant for our future.
Because 25 years later, it shapes us still.
The generation born after 1980 may not appreciate how grim things were at the beginning of that decade. Canada and the United States were in the grip of a recession far worse, in many respects, than the one of 2009. Inflation reached just over 12 per cent in 1981; mortgage rates were over 21 per cent; the next year unemployment peaked at 13 per cent.
Pierre Trudeau, having contributed to the mess with his ill-considered national energy program, ordered up a royal commission on how to fix the Canadian economy.
Donald Macdonald, its principal author, surprised everyone by calling for a free-trade agreement with the United States, which he described as "a leap of faith."
Brian Mulroney, by then the Progressive Conservative prime minister, decided to take that leap, holding hands with American president Ronald Reagan. The negotiations were long and intense.
At almost literally the last hour, with congressional authority to fast-track a deal about the expire, the whole thing almost foundered, over Canadian insistence on a dispute resolution mechanism.
As Mr. Mulroney remembers it, Treasury secretary James Baker told him Congress would never approve a clause limiting its power to oversee international trade.
"And I said 'OK Jim, fine. I'm now going to call President Reagan at Camp David, and I'm going to ask him ... how the United States of America can sign a nuclear reduction treaty with its worst enemy, the Soviet Union, but cannot sign a free-trade agreement with its best friend, Canada," Mr. Mulroney recalled in an interview in the journal Inside Policy, to be published Thursday.
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Baker walked into the room where the Canadian negotiators were waiting and dropped a piece of paper on the table, declaring: "There's your goddamn dispute settlement resolution."
"I was feeling worried," Mr. Mulroney acknowledged in an interview with The Globe and Mail. Failure would not only have set back relations with the United States; it would have been a body blow to his government.
But the deal was far from sealed. Opposition to free trade with the United States was broad and deep. The Americans would take over any parts of the economy they didn't own already, critics warned; they would use the agreement to force an end to public health care; they would siphon our water and force us to sell our oil at fire sale prices.
"Canada was in many ways somewhat fearful," Mr. Mulroney observed in the interview, "concerned about the size of our neighbour, and deeply concerned as well by the matter that had always been out there, namely the absorption by the United States."
Both the Liberals and the NDP were dead set against the deal. Liberal Leader John Turner declared that stopping it was "the cause of my life."
"I'm a free trader, but I want mutual free trade," Mr. Turner explains, 25 years later. "The way it was negotiated with the United States, only Canadian jobs were at stake."
When the Canadian Senate blocked ratification, Mr. Mulroney called an election in the autumn of 1988. There has never been an election quite like it. Canadians bitterly disagreed among themselves over whether to embrace free trade with America. They all agreed, however, that the future of the country was at stake.
"If you went into a bookstore or you went into a laundry, people were arguing about free trade," remembers Allan Gotlieb, who was Canadian ambassador to the United States at the time, and one of the key negotiators of the agreement. "People were pinning up editorials or articles on their refrigerators. It was an issue that grabbed hold of the country in a way no other foreign policy issue has since conscription. To me, it was a phenomenon."
Polls surged for the Liberals after Mr. Turner kicked butt during the leaders' debate. And the party put out what may be the most effective attack ad in Canadian history:
A Canadian and an American negotiator sit over a table discussing the accord.
"There's just one line I'd like to change," the American proposes.
"What line is that?" asks the Canadian.
"This one here. It's just getting in the way." On a map placed between them, the American takes an eraser to the Canada-U.S. border.
But with opposition split between the Liberals and NDP, the Progressive Conservatives won a second majority government, and the FTA became law.
Two years later, Canada fell into a deep recession – with free trade part of the reason. With tariffs removed, American firms closed their Canadian branch plants and shut down their Canadian head offices.
"We lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the first two years," Mr. Peterson recalls. "We were the province with the most to lose, and we predicted we'd lose it, and we did."
But then things started to take off. Bilateral exports, which totalled about $100-billion a year in the late 1980s (all figures are in Canadian dollars), shot up to $350-billion a year by 2000, according to a new study by Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist of BMO Nesbitt Burns. The study is part of the Inside Policy issue on free trade.
Little of the gloom turned to doom. Public health care remained intact. Water stayed in Canadian rivers and lakes.
Yes, total American investment in Canada increased, to $326-billion in 2011 from $76-billion in 1988. But Canadian investment into the United States also grew, to $276 billion today from $55 billion before free trade.
Free trade with the United States, and the subsequent North American free trade agreement that brought Mexico into the tent, were "critical ingredients in helping modernize the Canadian economy ... transforming Canada from a relative underachiever among industrial world economies to a relative overachiever," Mr. Porter concludes.
Except there's a catch. Actually, there are several catches.
Since 2000, growth in Canada-U.S. trade has not only flattened, but declined. After almost a decade of little or no growth, from 2000 to 2008, bilateral export values plunged with the arrival of the 2009 recession, and are still struggling to return to 2000 levels.
Taking an even longer view, Mr. Porter notes that just before free trade, exports to the United States represented 17 per cent of Canada's nominal gross domestic product, in current Canadian dollar terms. By 2000, they had reached 33 per cent of Canada's GDP. Today the number is all the way down to 19 per cent. By that measure, we're practically back to where we started.
Different yardsticks produce a better result. But by any measure, the wild trade gains of the 1990s were at least partly clawed back in the past decade. Trade between Canada and the U.S. is stronger today than it was before free trade, but not that much stronger.
There are many reasons for the swoon. Mr. Porter points to the rising Canadian dollar -- which appreciated by 75 per cent between 2002 and 2007 – as the principal culprit. As well, there was also the thickening of the border that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000-02, the last recession, which hit the United States harder than it hit Canada, and growing competition from other exporters, especially China.
There is a bigger catch. If the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement was a critical opening act in the story of globalization – signalling to the world that two G7 countries were ready to open their markets to each other – the most recent chapters of that story make for grim reading.
Ed Broadbent, who was leader of the NDP during the free-trade debate, thought it was a rotten deal then, "and I do to this day."
Free trade brought deregulation, privatization of state-owned companies, weakened protection for labour and the great sloshing of capital from one national market to another – all of it part of the race to the bottom, he believes.
"This approach became ideologically dominant in the Anglo-American world," Mr. Broadbent maintains. "The trade deal was part of the kickoff of this kind of thinking, and I think it was a mistake."
Then there were the intended consequences that were never realized. Open competition with the Americans should have forced Canadian firms to become more productive. And spending on research and development should have taken off, as Canadian entrepreneurs plowed profits into product development.
But Mr. Lynch observes that Canadian productivity is only 72 per cent of its American counterparts, and Canada ranks 20th among OECD nations in spending on research.
Nonetheless, he is convinced that the free-trade agreement had a more important, and more lasting, legacy than any number can record.
"It caused a sea change in attitudes," he believes. The courage needed to take that free-trade leap of faith equipped governments to tackle other seemingly insurmountable challenges: Establishing the goods and services tax, eliminating the deficit, reducing corporate taxes.
Most important, FTA convinced Canadian governments, Canadian businesses and Canadians generally that this country had the knowledge and confidence to compete in any market.
Since the original free-trade deal, Canada has not only joined the North American free trade agreement, it has signed bilateral deals with Israel, Chile, Costa Rica, Columbia, Jordan and the non-European Union states of the European Free Trade Association. An agreement with Panama is before Parliament.
But the real news should come before the end of the year, with the signing of a Canada-European Union free-trade agreement, which will be the largest since the Canada-U.S. deal. Next year, Canada and India hope to conclude a free-trade agreement.
And Canada recently joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a set of negotiations that, if successfully concluded, will create the largest trading bloc in the world.
As globalization continues to break down barriers and promote the free flow of capital across borders, for better or worse, Canada stands well positioned to tap the potential of the rising Asian and Pacific economies.
So was it worth it in the end? Twenty-five years later, David Peterson – who lost an election as free trade and a recession reshaped Canada in 1990 – still isn't sure.
"What you've asked me is a totally reasonable question. And I don't think there's a clear and easy answer to it," he confesses. "It helped the resource side of our economy. It has not helped the innovation side, particularly. There was good and bad in it."
John Turner has advice for Stephen Harper as he works through these negotiations.
"Be very careful in drafting these agreements with Europe or India or wherever that we don't lock ourselves into a situation where we don't win," he warns. "And read the agreement first."
But Mr. Gotlieb has a far more positive view. He believes competing freely and successfully in the American market helped cure Canada of its insular, fearful anti-Americanism. "We were a frightened nation," he maintains. "We were frightened by this U.S. embrace." The free-trade debate marked the high tide of that anti-American fear.
But after the agreement passed, "the waters slowly began to pull back from the shore. And they have never returned."
Competing successfully in the U.S. market has given a new generation of entrepreneurs the confidence to compete in other big markets.
Mr. Lynch recently met with the leaders of several new startup firms based in the high-tech hub of Waterloo, Ont. "Their view is they're going to sell their goods and services globally; they can compete with anybody," he reports.
"They're flying from Waterloo to Silicon Valley to Israel to Singapore." They are using their experiences in Canada and North America to sell Canadian business to the world. "And that," Mr. Lynch believes, "is how we should think about the future."
Let Mr. Mulroney, who more than anyone was responsible for the deal, have the last word:
"There is a new generation of Canadians with a new attitude," he believes. "They are confident, they are outward looking. These are the happy warriors of Canada who are out there fighting the good fight and winning most of the time. And they've established that they can win because if they can win in the United States they can win anywhere.
"I look back at it now, and I'm pleased with what I see."
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Heenan Blaikie’s stunning collapse started with a rogue African arms deal
How Heenan Blaikie’s stunning collapse started with a rogue African arms deal 3960
Theresa Tedesco, Brian Hutchinson | February 14, 2014 11:00 PM ET
John Mahoney/Postmedia NewsRoy Heenan (L) and Donald Johnston, founding partners of Heenan Blaikie, in the Montreal office after the announcement the firm was closing, Feb. 6, 2014
The stunning collapse of Heenan Blaikie LLP, once one of Canada’s largest and most prestigious law firms, stemmed from a “loss of trust” in management over international business activities including dubious forays into Africa, where former partner Jacques Bouchard and former prime minister Jean Chrétien lobbied governments on behalf of clients, former Heenan partners and associates say.
Founded in Montreal in 1973, Heenan grew from 18 lawyers to more than 500, in offices across Canada and in Paris, where it established a beachhead in 2009. It was considered a rock-solid full-service firm — and a favourite of the Canadian establishment — until a crisis of confidence caused its foundations to crack. Lawyers began leaving, first in a trickle, then in droves, and the whole enterprise came crashing down this month.
Increasing financial pressures and friction between partners in Montreal and Toronto were key factors behind Heenan’s failure, the biggest ever for a law firm in Canada. “Montreal didn’t understand Toronto; Toronto felt the Montreal office was way overpaid and overpraised,” said one former partner.
But many also agree that Heenan’s excursions into Africa caused so much tension and tumult that partners began shaking their heads and taking their leave. “People like me said to themselves, ‘I want to work at a firm that values the practice of law in Canada, not international dictators,’” another former Heenan partner told the National Post. “It’s not what I signed up for.” He quit the firm last year.
There came “a point where confidence and faith started to disappear,” said Jean-Francois Mercadier, managing partner of the firm’s former group in Paris, Heenan Blaikie AARPI. “Partners started to lose any kind of faith in the management of the firm. There was a loss of trust in the partnership, and I think the origin is in the Jacques Bouchard story.”
A Montreal lawyer and registered lobbyist who acted for defence contractors and the tobacco industry before joining Heenan in 2005, Mr. Bouchard was the firm’s controversial director of international business. He worked closely with Mr. Chrétien, who joined the firm as special counsel after serving as Canada’s 20th prime minister. The pair had a history: Mr. Bouchard had worked on Mr. Chrétien’s Liberal party campaigns.
At Heenan, the two busied themselves on the firm’s new African mandate, drumming up business for clients involved in mining and energy sectors, and visiting with heads of state, including Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe.
In November 2011, the National Post revealed Mr. Bouchard’s curious freelance work with notorious international lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence worker who has had many controversial dealings with African leaders since settling in Montreal two decades ago.
The National Post investigation revealed that on one occasion in 2010, Mr. Bouchard met with the president of Central African Republic, and signed on Mr. Ben-Menashe’s behalf a contract to obtain “at least a dozen” Russian attack helicopters for the small former French colony, then led by the corrupt and authoritarian regime of General Francois Bozizé.
Mr. Bouchard acknowledged that he and Mr. Ben-Menashe had a “business relationship,” while insisting it had nothing to do with his duties at Heenan Blaikie.
He acknowledged having introduced Mr. Ben-Menashe to various Heenan Blaikie clients who were interested in Africa, but always with “very stern” warnings.
Other lawyers at Heenan were dismayed by the revelations. Mr. Mercadier remembers sitting in a restaurant in Ivory Coast when he received a frantic call from Guy Tremblay in Montreal. At the time, Mr. Tremblay was one of Heenan’s two co-managing partners; the other was Norman Bacal in Toronto. “He said, ‘Jean-Francois, I need to tell you, an article appeared in the press, there is a big problem with Jacques Bouchard,’” recalls Mr. Mercadier. “You can imagine how happy we were,” he adds sarcastically.
Two Heenan partners conducted a swift internal review in Montreal, at the insistence of the Toronto office, which insiders say was especially incensed. Within weeks, Mr. Bouchard had resigned from the firm. Heenan lawyers gained access to the review’s findings only after signing confidentiality agreements. According to several former partners and associates based in Canada, the embarrassing events were the start of a severe crisis of confidence inside the firm — a crisis that deepened after Heenan later found itself linked to a former client that became involved in a corruption scandal in Chad after parting ways with the law firm.
“It started to unravel everything,” said one former partner. “It caused many of the partners to question what they were doing at Heenan. There was such a mistrust of management.” (Several sources interviewed for this story did so on the condition that their names not be published; many partners of the now-defunct firm still have capital tied up in company accounts and fear they may find themselves financially punished for speaking out publicly).
The stain to Heenan’s reputation likely cost the firm business, as well. In one case, said Mr. Mercadier, “the top, top guy of a very well-known mining company working in French Africa decided they would not work with us, because of the Bouchard story. We were blacklisted.”
Like Mr. Chrétien, Mr. Johnston is a prominent Liberal who once served in federal cabinet under former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. And like Mr. Chrétien, he acted for Heenan as counsel, and as a “rainmaker,” introducing clients to various governments around the world.
Mr. Johnston had great hopes for the Paris operation, he said in an interview this week. The business case seemed solid: Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Bouchard would lobby governments in francophone Africa and bring opportunities and deals to Heenan clients in the mining and energy sectors. Lawyers in Paris would prepare and execute any contracts.
“I don’t think that ever worked out,” Mr. Johnston said, noting how the firm’s new focus overseas and its Paris-based operations stirred up bad blood back in Canada, especially among Heenan’s more conservative employment and labour specialists in Toronto and Montreal, who had little interest in chasing international markets. “It’s understandable, I guess, that labour lawyers would be less inclined to look at international situations,” Mr. Johnston said.
None of the other Heenan principals mentioned in this story, nor Mr. Bouchard, responded to the National Post’s interview requests.
Norman Bacal, a senior Heenan partner based in Toronto, was the firm’s co-managing partner until 2012. He would not answer specific questions put to him this week, saying only: “These are always difficult situations and different people will have different views, I can appreciate that.”
According to a former Heenan partner, the firm’s management thought “it was sexy to have Chrétien bringing in these big [international] files even though it was not hourly billable work, [more] than it was to have small manufacturing companies who would stick around for 20 years. This became a huge issue among the partners.”
Only a few were aware of the ongoing strife inside the Paris operation itself. It seemed Mr. Bouchard followed his own agenda; this became a problem for certain people who worked with him. A former Heenan partner who collaborated with Mr. Bouchard on African files claims she was once instructed to prepare an agreement regarding the sale of a warship to South Africa. “Legally speaking, it wasn’t working,” she said. “But he wanted me to find a solution. Then the day after, it was something about weapons. It was like being in a movie.”
The whole experience working with Mr. Bouchard was “insane,” she said in an interview this week. Eventually she decided to quit the firm. “I said ‘I’m not going to [do] what he wants, because I’m not like that, I’m straight and I’m honest and that’s it.’ It was a devastating experience for me.”
Heenan’s first resident lawyer in Paris was Lucie Bourthoumieux, a native of Ivory Coast. She did not get along well with Heenan’s director of international business, either.
“I don’t have the same style of business as Jacques Bouchard,” Ms. Bourthoumieux said in an interview with the National Post last year. “And I told that to the directors, even to Roy Heenan and Guy Tremblay. I met all the stars. And I told them that I’m very pleased to work with them, but I’m not an open-door woman. I’m a business lawyer woman. I have a certain moral, a certain ethic. And they took the position of Jacques Bouchard, knowing it was the wrong position. I really don’t know how Heenan Blaikie could think this kind of behaviour is normal.”
Ms. Bourthoumieux severed her relationship with Heenan Blaikie in 2010. A few months later, in early 2011, the firm hired 15 lawyers from the Paris office of Norton Rose LLP, a major international law firm, and housed them inside a modern office building near the Seine. The Paris office was set up as a separate legal entity in a contractual relationship with the Canadian organization. Mr. Mercadier, who helped negotiate the arrangement, says he didn’t hear about Ms. Bourthoumieux’s problems with Heenan until after the arrangement was complete. “Had we known earlier, we would have been worried,” he said.
It wasn’t long before he noticed something was wrong. “In February 2011, we organized ourselves to go to African Mining Indaba, a big mining conference in Cape Town. It’s important, it’s strategic. And Mr. Bouchard doesn’t come. He has better things to do in the U.S., to invite clients to the Super Bowl game.”
The Paris group was then asked to organize “a big trip to Africa to visit various governments, with a team from Paris, [and] Jacques Bouchard and Jean Chrétien. This never happened,” said Mr. Mercadier. “Mr. Chrétien was not available.” Paris was then told to attend the UN’s General Assembly in New York the following September, where they would have a chance to network with African leaders, with Mr. Chrétien providing the introductions. There would be “a lot of business out of that,” Mr. Mercadier recalls being told. “This did not happen either.”
Mr. Bouchard seemed to avoid the Paris office entirely. “Bouchard was held out to the Paris office as someone who could be a real asset in terms of developing business in Africa,” said Donald Johnston. “But I don’t think he ever did, for the firm. I don’t know what he was doing, or where he was doing it, but he certainly was not present in the Paris office. I was there all the time and I never saw Mr. Bouchard in that office. Whatever he was doing, he certainly wasn’t doing it through them … It’s sort of a mystery.”
According to an agreed statement of facts filed last year in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, GEI —a Calgary-based company that acquired oil and gas properties in Chad — directed US$2-million to the wife of Chad’s ambassador to the United States and Canada.
In 2009, GEI enlisted Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Bouchard to help advance its interests in the notoriously corrupt central African country. Neither Mr. Chrétien, nor Mr. Bouchard, nor anyone else at Heenan Blaikie was ever accused of participating in the crime, which culminated Feb. 8, 2011 with the illicit payment. By then, GEI was working with a different law firm. Prior to the end of their relationship, Heenan had advised GEI that such a payment would be illegal.
Eleven months later, in December 2011, Mr. Bouchard was out at Heenan. “The Bouchard problem was gone, okay, but I think there was a loss of trust in the partnership, simply because a story like Bouchard happened,” said Mr. Mercadier.
He says the Paris office was effectively cast adrift and had to work on its own, with little help or guidance from head office back in Canada. And contrary to suggestions made last week by Canadian partners, the Paris operation was profitable, he adds. The global expansion project could have been salvaged after Mr. Bouchard was gone, Mr. Mercadier says, with a new strategy for Paris. But by then, he says, the Canadian side seemed unenthusiastic. “There was no systematic common business development between offices … it was essentially run by the employment [and labour practice] guys, who wanted a firm which was basically national and not international.”
At the end, they had neither.
Late last month, the Paris group received word of an impending meeting in Montreal, where Heenan’s fate would be decided. “We were told not to come, because it was cancelled,” said Mr. Mercadier. “We decided to go anyway, because we wanted to know what was happening.”
The Montreal conference was not cancelled, of course. It took place two weeks ago, and the Paris office was placed high on the agenda. It was decided that Heenan Blaikie AARPI would sever its relationship with Heenan in Canada but would stay intact, pending a possible merger with another firm. “Or we may continue as a permanent platform,” Mr. Mercadier said. “We are self-sufficient right now. But we will change the name of our practice, absolutely.”
National Post
• Email: bhutchinson@nationalpost.com | Twitter:
Founded in Montreal in 1973, Heenan grew from 18 lawyers to more than 500, in offices across Canada and in Paris, where it established a beachhead in 2009. It was considered a rock-solid full-service firm — and a favourite of the Canadian establishment — until a crisis of confidence caused its foundations to crack. Lawyers began leaving, first in a trickle, then in droves, and the whole enterprise came crashing down this month.
Graham Hughes for NPFormer Heenan Blaikie lawyer Jacques Bouchard
But many also agree that Heenan’s excursions into Africa caused so much tension and tumult that partners began shaking their heads and taking their leave. “People like me said to themselves, ‘I want to work at a firm that values the practice of law in Canada, not international dictators,’” another former Heenan partner told the National Post. “It’s not what I signed up for.” He quit the firm last year.
There came “a point where confidence and faith started to disappear,” said Jean-Francois Mercadier, managing partner of the firm’s former group in Paris, Heenan Blaikie AARPI. “Partners started to lose any kind of faith in the management of the firm. There was a loss of trust in the partnership, and I think the origin is in the Jacques Bouchard story.”
A Montreal lawyer and registered lobbyist who acted for defence contractors and the tobacco industry before joining Heenan in 2005, Mr. Bouchard was the firm’s controversial director of international business. He worked closely with Mr. Chrétien, who joined the firm as special counsel after serving as Canada’s 20th prime minister. The pair had a history: Mr. Bouchard had worked on Mr. Chrétien’s Liberal party campaigns.
At Heenan, the two busied themselves on the firm’s new African mandate, drumming up business for clients involved in mining and energy sectors, and visiting with heads of state, including Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe.
In November 2011, the National Post revealed Mr. Bouchard’s curious freelance work with notorious international lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence worker who has had many controversial dealings with African leaders since settling in Montreal two decades ago.
The National Post investigation revealed that on one occasion in 2010, Mr. Bouchard met with the president of Central African Republic, and signed on Mr. Ben-Menashe’s behalf a contract to obtain “at least a dozen” Russian attack helicopters for the small former French colony, then led by the corrupt and authoritarian regime of General Francois Bozizé.
Desirey Minkoh/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Central African Republic’s Francois Bozizé and his wife Monique in 2004.
Mr. Bouchard acknowledged that he and Mr. Ben-Menashe had a “business relationship,” while insisting it had nothing to do with his duties at Heenan Blaikie.
He acknowledged having introduced Mr. Ben-Menashe to various Heenan Blaikie clients who were interested in Africa, but always with “very stern” warnings.
Other lawyers at Heenan were dismayed by the revelations. Mr. Mercadier remembers sitting in a restaurant in Ivory Coast when he received a frantic call from Guy Tremblay in Montreal. At the time, Mr. Tremblay was one of Heenan’s two co-managing partners; the other was Norman Bacal in Toronto. “He said, ‘Jean-Francois, I need to tell you, an article appeared in the press, there is a big problem with Jacques Bouchard,’” recalls Mr. Mercadier. “You can imagine how happy we were,” he adds sarcastically.
‘It started to unravel everything. It caused many of the partners to question what they were doing at Heenan’
Two Heenan partners conducted a swift internal review in Montreal, at the insistence of the Toronto office, which insiders say was especially incensed. Within weeks, Mr. Bouchard had resigned from the firm. Heenan lawyers gained access to the review’s findings only after signing confidentiality agreements. According to several former partners and associates based in Canada, the embarrassing events were the start of a severe crisis of confidence inside the firm — a crisis that deepened after Heenan later found itself linked to a former client that became involved in a corruption scandal in Chad after parting ways with the law firm.
“It started to unravel everything,” said one former partner. “It caused many of the partners to question what they were doing at Heenan. There was such a mistrust of management.” (Several sources interviewed for this story did so on the condition that their names not be published; many partners of the now-defunct firm still have capital tied up in company accounts and fear they may find themselves financially punished for speaking out publicly).
The stain to Heenan’s reputation likely cost the firm business, as well. In one case, said Mr. Mercadier, “the top, top guy of a very well-known mining company working in French Africa decided they would not work with us, because of the Bouchard story. We were blacklisted.”
— — — — —
Heenan Blaikie’s African misadventures began in Paris, at a lavish party co-hosted by Mr. Chrétien and Canada’s then-ambassador to France, Marc Lortie. The September 2009 celebration marked the launch of Heenan’s first big move toward becoming an international player. Jacques Bouchard mingled with guests and posed for pictures with Mr. Chrétien and the firm’s three co-founders, Roy Heenan, Peter Blaikie and Donald Johnston.Like Mr. Chrétien, Mr. Johnston is a prominent Liberal who once served in federal cabinet under former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. And like Mr. Chrétien, he acted for Heenan as counsel, and as a “rainmaker,” introducing clients to various governments around the world.
Mr. Johnston had great hopes for the Paris operation, he said in an interview this week. The business case seemed solid: Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Bouchard would lobby governments in francophone Africa and bring opportunities and deals to Heenan clients in the mining and energy sectors. Lawyers in Paris would prepare and execute any contracts.
Le Monde JuridiqueThe launch of Heenan Blaikie’s Paris office. From left to right, co-founder Roy Heenan, former partner Jacques Bouchard, S. E. Marc Lortie and former prime minister Jean Chrétien.
“I don’t think that ever worked out,” Mr. Johnston said, noting how the firm’s new focus overseas and its Paris-based operations stirred up bad blood back in Canada, especially among Heenan’s more conservative employment and labour specialists in Toronto and Montreal, who had little interest in chasing international markets. “It’s understandable, I guess, that labour lawyers would be less inclined to look at international situations,” Mr. Johnston said.
None of the other Heenan principals mentioned in this story, nor Mr. Bouchard, responded to the National Post’s interview requests.
Norman Bacal, a senior Heenan partner based in Toronto, was the firm’s co-managing partner until 2012. He would not answer specific questions put to him this week, saying only: “These are always difficult situations and different people will have different views, I can appreciate that.”
‘He wanted me to find a solution. Then the day after, it was something about weapons. It was like being in a movie’Like Mr. Johnston, Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Heenan, Mr. Bacal was known to support the firm’s new international ambitions, at least as they were drawn up on paper.
According to a former Heenan partner, the firm’s management thought “it was sexy to have Chrétien bringing in these big [international] files even though it was not hourly billable work, [more] than it was to have small manufacturing companies who would stick around for 20 years. This became a huge issue among the partners.”
Only a few were aware of the ongoing strife inside the Paris operation itself. It seemed Mr. Bouchard followed his own agenda; this became a problem for certain people who worked with him. A former Heenan partner who collaborated with Mr. Bouchard on African files claims she was once instructed to prepare an agreement regarding the sale of a warship to South Africa. “Legally speaking, it wasn’t working,” she said. “But he wanted me to find a solution. Then the day after, it was something about weapons. It was like being in a movie.”
The whole experience working with Mr. Bouchard was “insane,” she said in an interview this week. Eventually she decided to quit the firm. “I said ‘I’m not going to [do] what he wants, because I’m not like that, I’m straight and I’m honest and that’s it.’ It was a devastating experience for me.”
Google Street ViewHeenan Blaikie's Paris office
“I don’t have the same style of business as Jacques Bouchard,” Ms. Bourthoumieux said in an interview with the National Post last year. “And I told that to the directors, even to Roy Heenan and Guy Tremblay. I met all the stars. And I told them that I’m very pleased to work with them, but I’m not an open-door woman. I’m a business lawyer woman. I have a certain moral, a certain ethic. And they took the position of Jacques Bouchard, knowing it was the wrong position. I really don’t know how Heenan Blaikie could think this kind of behaviour is normal.”
Ms. Bourthoumieux severed her relationship with Heenan Blaikie in 2010. A few months later, in early 2011, the firm hired 15 lawyers from the Paris office of Norton Rose LLP, a major international law firm, and housed them inside a modern office building near the Seine. The Paris office was set up as a separate legal entity in a contractual relationship with the Canadian organization. Mr. Mercadier, who helped negotiate the arrangement, says he didn’t hear about Ms. Bourthoumieux’s problems with Heenan until after the arrangement was complete. “Had we known earlier, we would have been worried,” he said.
heenanblakie.comJean-Francois Mercadier, managing partner of Heenan-Blaikie's former group in Paris
It wasn’t long before he noticed something was wrong. “In February 2011, we organized ourselves to go to African Mining Indaba, a big mining conference in Cape Town. It’s important, it’s strategic. And Mr. Bouchard doesn’t come. He has better things to do in the U.S., to invite clients to the Super Bowl game.”
The Paris group was then asked to organize “a big trip to Africa to visit various governments, with a team from Paris, [and] Jacques Bouchard and Jean Chrétien. This never happened,” said Mr. Mercadier. “Mr. Chrétien was not available.” Paris was then told to attend the UN’s General Assembly in New York the following September, where they would have a chance to network with African leaders, with Mr. Chrétien providing the introductions. There would be “a lot of business out of that,” Mr. Mercadier recalls being told. “This did not happen either.”
Mr. Bouchard seemed to avoid the Paris office entirely. “Bouchard was held out to the Paris office as someone who could be a real asset in terms of developing business in Africa,” said Donald Johnston. “But I don’t think he ever did, for the firm. I don’t know what he was doing, or where he was doing it, but he certainly was not present in the Paris office. I was there all the time and I never saw Mr. Bouchard in that office. Whatever he was doing, he certainly wasn’t doing it through them … It’s sort of a mystery.”
— — — — —
Mr. Bouchard’s activities were a mystery, said Mr. Mercadier, until the National Post revealed what he’d been doing. Those details, followed by the results of a completely separate, lawyer-led investigation into the affairs of a former Heenan client, Griffiths Energy International Inc. (GEI), raised serious concerns.According to an agreed statement of facts filed last year in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, GEI —a Calgary-based company that acquired oil and gas properties in Chad — directed US$2-million to the wife of Chad’s ambassador to the United States and Canada.
In 2009, GEI enlisted Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Bouchard to help advance its interests in the notoriously corrupt central African country. Neither Mr. Chrétien, nor Mr. Bouchard, nor anyone else at Heenan Blaikie was ever accused of participating in the crime, which culminated Feb. 8, 2011 with the illicit payment. By then, GEI was working with a different law firm. Prior to the end of their relationship, Heenan had advised GEI that such a payment would be illegal.
Eleven months later, in December 2011, Mr. Bouchard was out at Heenan. “The Bouchard problem was gone, okay, but I think there was a loss of trust in the partnership, simply because a story like Bouchard happened,” said Mr. Mercadier.
John Mahoney/Postmedia NewsRoy Heenan walks through the lobby of the Montreal office after the announcement the firm was closing,Feb. 6, 2014.
He says the Paris office was effectively cast adrift and had to work on its own, with little help or guidance from head office back in Canada. And contrary to suggestions made last week by Canadian partners, the Paris operation was profitable, he adds. The global expansion project could have been salvaged after Mr. Bouchard was gone, Mr. Mercadier says, with a new strategy for Paris. But by then, he says, the Canadian side seemed unenthusiastic. “There was no systematic common business development between offices … it was essentially run by the employment [and labour practice] guys, who wanted a firm which was basically national and not international.”
At the end, they had neither.
Late last month, the Paris group received word of an impending meeting in Montreal, where Heenan’s fate would be decided. “We were told not to come, because it was cancelled,” said Mr. Mercadier. “We decided to go anyway, because we wanted to know what was happening.”
The Montreal conference was not cancelled, of course. It took place two weeks ago, and the Paris office was placed high on the agenda. It was decided that Heenan Blaikie AARPI would sever its relationship with Heenan in Canada but would stay intact, pending a possible merger with another firm. “Or we may continue as a permanent platform,” Mr. Mercadier said. “We are self-sufficient right now. But we will change the name of our practice, absolutely.”
National Post
• Email: bhutchinson@nationalpost.com | Twitter:
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The diplomatic corps to the Holy See ...
An irreplaceable witness
2014-02-10 L’Osservatore Romano 3935
“It should be noted here that one of the results of the exhaustion of temporal power due to the Lateran Pacts is to significantly increase the importance of the diplomatic corps in the eyes of the Papacy, which sees an irreplaceable witness of the recognition its sovereignty in the crown of Ambassadors and Ministers, of which it is surrounded”.
Thus the French philosopher Jacques Maritain wrote in 1948 in the concluding report of his three years as ambassador of his country to the Holy See. With these words, Maritain summed up the extraordinary importance of the diplomatic activity of the Holy See and the sensitivity of this extremely complex and unique mission.
This is a depiction, synthetic as it is, of the complexity one can find while consulting the list of the diplomatic corps to the Holy See, an invaluable tool in the understanding of Holy See's relations which are in their 80th year. Published on www.vatican.va, the list of the diplomatic corps was presented to Pope Francis on 7 February, as announced in a tweet by the Secretariat of State (@terzaloggia) on Monday morning, 10 February.
Last year, 46 ambassadors presented their credentials to the Holy Father: 20 reside in Rome and the other 26 outside of Rome. In total 16 ambassadors are women and there are 23 embassies which temporarily do not have an ambassador (or have been granted approval but have not yet presented their credentials), and thus the charges d'affaires manages the embassy.
There are 83 chanceries with offices in Rome and 78 outside of the city. Yemen is the only country without a head of mission but it has a chancery. There are 21 countries which have neither a head of mission nor chancery.
There are currently 180 states which maintain diplomatic relations with the Holy See. South Sudan was added to this list on 22 February 2013, at the level of an apostolic nunciature and an embassy. Also included on this list is the European Union, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and the State of Palestine which has a mission of special character. With regards to international organizations, the Holy See became an extra-regional observer of the Central American Integration System (SICA) on 21 January 2013; and on 12 December 2013 it was accredited as the first observer to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Over the course of 2013 two agreements were signed regarding the legal status of the Church: in Cape Verde on 10 June and with Chad on 6 November. Furthermore on 21 October an agreement was signed with Hungary which altered a previous agreement signed on 20 June 1997 on the financing of Church activities and on various issue of patrimony
Saturday, February 8, 2014
The New Rights at the U.N. Are Dead Wrong (3895)
COMMENTARY: The current stance of the Committee on the Rights of the Child reflects a worrisome shift in all the developed nations of the world — including the United States.
by ROBERT ROYAL 02/07/2014 Comments (14)
About 10 years ago, I participated in a debate in Venice, Italy, on the respective roles of national governments and international institutions — and the limits on government as such. A former Italian ambassador sniffed at my American reservations: “Your country has not even signed the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.” I replied: “You’re darn right. We don’t even trust our own government to define such ‘rights.’ Why would we trust some U.N. committee not subject to democratic oversight?”
That convention is the very one that a U.N. committee used as a pretext to criticize the Holy See this week. I say “pretext” because, bad as the institutional dimension is, the convention is like many international treaties in containing diplomatic language intended to appeal to many constituencies and gain widespread support.
Here’s the pretext: One would never guess from the committee’s tongue-lashing of the Vatican about abortion (and contraception and homosexuality) that the convention actually says in its preamble: “The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” (Emphasis added.)
And throughout the actual text are concessions to the rightful authority of parents, differing cultures, religious entities — in short, the usual civil-society institutions that nourish children and all of us — which may very well have a view different from the U.N. committee about homosexuality, abortion and contraception.
The disconnect between the original text and what the committee assumes is now the position of all right-thinking people reflects a very worrisome shift in all the developed nations of the world — including the United States.
When the original U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, it referred mostly to older notions of “rights”: freedom of religion, speech, political opinion, and property rights. Jacques Maritain, the great modern Catholic philosopher who was one of the central figures in the emergence of Christian democracy and also largely responsible for developing the Universal Declaration, said at the time that the nations of the world agreed on it, just so long as you didn’t ask why.
The “why” questions were important — and member states like the Warsaw Pact nations abstained from acceptance of things like property rights and political freedoms, which they had no intention of allowing. But for the most part, these ideological differences were constrained within the need to appear as members in good standing of the international community.
That is no longer the case. And that’s the deeper problem of which the committee report is a more superficial example.
In all developed nations today, it’s a common assumption that the old “political rights” have been superseded by newly found “rights.” Even in the United States — which I tried to defend a decade ago in Venice for its different and important perspective on the dangers of state power — we’ve stumbled into a set of values quite distant from our own traditions.
When President Obama imposed the HHS mandate requiring insurance coverage of contraception, sterilization, and Plan B on Catholic and other religious institutions, he began with asserting that these measures were required by “women’s health,” which he said is a “fundamental” right.
Some people think this, of course, but in a system where the rule of law is paramount, the actual written law matters more than what anyone may think about it at some point in time. Our own president was saying, in effect, that a current view among some people is somehow “more first” even than the First Amendment, which guarantees the classic rights of freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, etc.
In the older understanding — and in the perspective of the long American tradition of tolerating difference among people — there’s no reason to impose on people of faith when other means exist to pursue secular goals.
But the developed nations seem to have lost their commitment to that kind of tolerance in pursuit of an ideological vision. Prior to being elected pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger famously spoke of a growing “dictatorship of relativism” in modern societies. At first sight, the phrase seems incoherent. How can relativism — a belief that no truths exist that are applicable to all of us — also be a dictatorship? What would a pervasive relativism believe it could impose on us all?
We now know the answer to that question. Relativism was only the first phase in a larger process. It initially does dispute and seek to discredit or demolish all the older religious and moral traditions in the great faiths of the world — and even in the saner side of a rational secular order. But its skepticism about truth makes a U-turn once this primary task is complete.
As the U.N. committee’s “report” made clear this week, a very different set of basic “rights” has now emerged that has no qualms whatever about dictating moral positions, even to independent religious bodies like the Catholic Church.
The Vatican — and all of us — need to recognize quite clearly that this is not some neutral secular position. It is secular-ism, which is to say, a substantive ideology that, even if it doesn’t realize it, is pursuing one of many possible moral and political views, while presenting itself as a universal ideal for all the peoples of the world.
The lack of self-knowledge in this view would be laughable, if it were not so pernicious. Even in its immediate effects, it detracts from the real good the committee might have done if it had limited its comments to pointing out the continuing failures in certain parts of the Church in dealing with the sexual abuse of children.
Instead, it took advantage of the situation to express its larger goals. Catholics and other people of goodwill now know what they face. And the Vatican in particular needs to rethink what this means for its position at the United Nations.
That convention is the very one that a U.N. committee used as a pretext to criticize the Holy See this week. I say “pretext” because, bad as the institutional dimension is, the convention is like many international treaties in containing diplomatic language intended to appeal to many constituencies and gain widespread support.
Here’s the pretext: One would never guess from the committee’s tongue-lashing of the Vatican about abortion (and contraception and homosexuality) that the convention actually says in its preamble: “The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” (Emphasis added.)
And throughout the actual text are concessions to the rightful authority of parents, differing cultures, religious entities — in short, the usual civil-society institutions that nourish children and all of us — which may very well have a view different from the U.N. committee about homosexuality, abortion and contraception.
The disconnect between the original text and what the committee assumes is now the position of all right-thinking people reflects a very worrisome shift in all the developed nations of the world — including the United States.
When the original U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, it referred mostly to older notions of “rights”: freedom of religion, speech, political opinion, and property rights. Jacques Maritain, the great modern Catholic philosopher who was one of the central figures in the emergence of Christian democracy and also largely responsible for developing the Universal Declaration, said at the time that the nations of the world agreed on it, just so long as you didn’t ask why.
The “why” questions were important — and member states like the Warsaw Pact nations abstained from acceptance of things like property rights and political freedoms, which they had no intention of allowing. But for the most part, these ideological differences were constrained within the need to appear as members in good standing of the international community.
That is no longer the case. And that’s the deeper problem of which the committee report is a more superficial example.
In all developed nations today, it’s a common assumption that the old “political rights” have been superseded by newly found “rights.” Even in the United States — which I tried to defend a decade ago in Venice for its different and important perspective on the dangers of state power — we’ve stumbled into a set of values quite distant from our own traditions.
When President Obama imposed the HHS mandate requiring insurance coverage of contraception, sterilization, and Plan B on Catholic and other religious institutions, he began with asserting that these measures were required by “women’s health,” which he said is a “fundamental” right.
Some people think this, of course, but in a system where the rule of law is paramount, the actual written law matters more than what anyone may think about it at some point in time. Our own president was saying, in effect, that a current view among some people is somehow “more first” even than the First Amendment, which guarantees the classic rights of freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, etc.
In the older understanding — and in the perspective of the long American tradition of tolerating difference among people — there’s no reason to impose on people of faith when other means exist to pursue secular goals.
But the developed nations seem to have lost their commitment to that kind of tolerance in pursuit of an ideological vision. Prior to being elected pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger famously spoke of a growing “dictatorship of relativism” in modern societies. At first sight, the phrase seems incoherent. How can relativism — a belief that no truths exist that are applicable to all of us — also be a dictatorship? What would a pervasive relativism believe it could impose on us all?
We now know the answer to that question. Relativism was only the first phase in a larger process. It initially does dispute and seek to discredit or demolish all the older religious and moral traditions in the great faiths of the world — and even in the saner side of a rational secular order. But its skepticism about truth makes a U-turn once this primary task is complete.
As the U.N. committee’s “report” made clear this week, a very different set of basic “rights” has now emerged that has no qualms whatever about dictating moral positions, even to independent religious bodies like the Catholic Church.
The Vatican — and all of us — need to recognize quite clearly that this is not some neutral secular position. It is secular-ism, which is to say, a substantive ideology that, even if it doesn’t realize it, is pursuing one of many possible moral and political views, while presenting itself as a universal ideal for all the peoples of the world.
The lack of self-knowledge in this view would be laughable, if it were not so pernicious. Even in its immediate effects, it detracts from the real good the committee might have done if it had limited its comments to pointing out the continuing failures in certain parts of the Church in dealing with the sexual abuse of children.
Instead, it took advantage of the situation to express its larger goals. Catholics and other people of goodwill now know what they face. And the Vatican in particular needs to rethink what this means for its position at the United Nations.
Robert Royal is the founder and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington
and editor in chief of The Catholic Thing.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-new-rights-at-the-u.n.-are-dead-wrong?fb_action_ids=10151928196656581&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B1378463819088567%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D#ixzz2snJ5nmgq
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
CANADA WAS BULLIED by the U.S.of A.
3870
This could have Damaged our economy big time just like an economic bomb. The Obama administration used BULLY tactics and this is totally unacceptable ... Jim Flaherty said "significant exemptions and other relief were obtained."
The Threat was not friendly ... see Global new Article here: http://globalnews.ca/news/1130967/canada-u-s-sign-controversial-fatca-tax-deal/
AGREEMENT here:
http://www.fin.gc.ca/treaties-conventions/pdf/FATCA-eng.pdf
Press release here:
Canada and U.S. Reach Agreement on Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
February 5, 2014 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of FinanceFinance Minister Jim Flaherty and National Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne D. Findlay today announced that, after lengthy negotiations, Canada and the United States have signed an intergovernmental agreement under the longstanding Canada-U.S. Tax Convention.
In March 2010, the U.S. enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA would require non-U.S. financial institutions to report to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accounts held by U.S. taxpayers. Failure to comply with FATCA could subject a financial institution or its account holders to certain sanctions including special U.S. withholding taxes on payments to them from the U.S.
FATCA has raised a number of concerns in Canada—among both dual Canada-U.S. citizens and Canadian financial institutions. One key concern was that the reporting obligations in respect of accounts in Canada would compel Canadian financial institutions to report information on account holders who are U.S. residents and U.S. citizens (including U.S. citizens who are residents or citizens of Canada) directly to the IRS, thus potentially violating Canadian privacy laws.
Without an agreement in place, obligations to comply with FATCA would have been unilaterally and automatically imposed on Canadian financial institutions and their clients as of July 1, 2014.
Today’s agreement addresses these concerns, as well as others.
Quick Facts
- Under the agreement, financial institutions in Canada will not report any information directly to the IRS. Rather, relevant information on accounts held by U.S. residents and U.S. citizens (including U.S. citizens who are residents or citizens of Canada) will be reported to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The CRA will then exchange the information with the IRS through the existing provisions and safeguards of the Canada-U.S. Tax Convention. This is consistent with Canada's privacy laws.
- The IRS will provide the CRA with enhanced and increased information on certain accounts of Canadian residents held at U.S. financial institutions.
- Significant exemptions and relief have been obtained. For instance, certain accounts are exempt from FATCA and will not be reportable. These include Registered Retirement Savings Plans, Registered Retirement Income Funds, Registered Disability Savings Plans, Tax-Free Savings Accounts, and others. In addition, smaller deposit-taking institutions, such as credit unions, with assets of less than $175 million will be exempt.
- The 30 percent FATCA withholding tax will not apply to clients of Canadian financial institutions, and can apply to a Canadian financial institution only if the financial institution is in significant and long-term non-compliance with its obligations under the agreement.
- The agreement is consistent with Canada’s support for recent G-8 and G-20 commitments intended to fight tax evasion globally and to improve tax fairness. In September 2013, G-20 Leaders committed to automatic exchange of tax information as the new global standard and endorsed a proposal by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to develop a global model for the automatic exchange of tax information. They also signaled an intention to begin exchanging information automatically on tax matters among G-20 members by the end of 2015.
- Draft legislation to implement the agreement will be released for comment shortly on the Department of Finance website.
Quotes
"Canada engaged in lengthy negotiations with the U.S. government to address our concerns and, as a result, significant exemptions and other relief were obtained."
- Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance
"This is strictly a tax information-sharing agreement. This agreement will not impose any U.S. taxes or penalties on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents holding accounts in Canada. The CRA does not collect the U.S. tax liability of a Canadian citizen if the individual was a Canadian citizen at the time the liability arose. This includes dual Canada-U.S. citizens. That will not change under this agreement."
- Kerry-Lynne D. Findlay, Minister of National Revenue
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