Excerpts from Globe and Mail series Time to Lead Why Canada should deepen its ties with Mexico by Marina Jimenez May, 24, 2011
Already Canada’s third-largest trading partner, with $20-billion a year in two-way trade, Mexico is home to foreign operations of 2,500 Canadian companies, including Manulife Financial Corp., Rio Tinto Alcan, and Power Corp. of Canada. Mexicans assemble everything from BlackBerrys for Research In Motion Ltd. to aircraft parts for Bombardier Inc.
With an economy that is the world’s 11th largest by World Bank estimates, the country of 113 million is already a vibrant mecca of world-class film, art and food. In the past five years, the number of Canadian tourists visiting Mexico doubled to 1.5 million – in spite of travel advisories and ubiquitous headlines about the violence of drug cartels.
It is this violence which poses Mexico’s biggest challenge, to both its security and its governance. Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in 2006, more than 40,000 people have been killed. There have been countless stories of headless corpses and mass graves, of corrupt local police and politicians – even though the violent death rate is still lower than it is in Brazil and Central America.
Many experts believe that by forging closer political, economic and development ties with Mexico, Canada could enhance its credibility in the Americas, help to fortify hemispheric security, and assist Canadian companies and investors to take advantage of this huge and growing marketplace.
In the past, Ottawa has been reticent to deepen its links with Mexico owing to concerns that a closer relationship with one partner in the North American free-trade agreement (NAFTA) could dilute its special relationship with the other, far larger, partner. However, with Washington increasingly focused on Mexico’s challenges and opportunities, it is in Canada’s interest to deepen its ties south of the Rio Grande, experts say. The prosperity and security of all three countries are inextricably linked.
“Embracing the Americas should start with Mexico,” says Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. “While for many years we ignored our Latin neighbours south of the Rio Grande, the Americans have never thought this way. … We also play back into our principal relationship with the U.S.”