Monterrey, Mexico — Canada and Mexico vowed Sunday night to work together to ensure that the fight against terrorism doesn't shut down their borders with the United States as they try to develop a stronger continental economy.
"We are a North American market and the North American market must be open to goods from the three countries," Prime Minister Paul Martin said after a meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox. "The border cannot become a non-tariff barrier. It must be open."
Both Mr. Martin and Mr. Fox are expected to press the need for open borders at separate meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush in the midst of the Summit of the Americas. The meeting of 34 Western Hemisphere countries begins today in this northern Mexican city.
"Security requires greater co-operation among all countries . . . especially those in NAFTA," Mr. Fox said, advocating with Mr. Martin exploration of new high-tech efforts to combat terrorism at their borders.
Prime Minister Martin and his wife Sheila arrive in Mexico Sunday for the Summit of the Americas. (Jorge Uzon/AFP)
Mr. Fox, has been eager to develop much closer economic ties with Canada and the United States and spoke at the meeting about new joint efforts that might be taken in areas such as energy and investments, and even matters such as health standards.
But Mr. Martin was non-committal, and Canadian officials emphasized that any discussions on deeper integration alongside the United States would only be at the exploratory stage. In particular Mr. Fox emphasized in interviews yesterday, as he has since taking office three years ago, that the North American free-trade agreement should evolve into a free market for labour as well as goods and services. But Canadian officials said last night that the discussion on this point with Mr. Martin was limited to possibly expanding a 30-year-old program for Canada to bring in seasonal agriculture workers from Mexico.
Mr. Martin heads into his first meeting with Mr. Bush Tuesday hoping to make progress on a long list of bilateral disputes and expecting that he's got a lengthy window of time to resolve issues before U.S. presidential politics becomes all-consuming south of the border.
Speaking to reporters while flying to his first international meeting as Prime Minister, Mr. Martin also held out little hope yesterday that a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas will be negotiated by the 2005 deadline.
But he said the recent lack of progress in the talks should not stop the 34 countries involved from continuing to seek a deal. If no agreement is possible, Mr. Martin continued, Canada would want to pursue talks to sign bilateral pacts with numerous Latin American countries, just as the United States is planning to do. But this option, he suggested, is clearly a second choice.
"It would be unfortunate . . . if we were to miss that [January, 2005] deadline," he said. "But I don't think we should give up.
Canada has free trade with Mexico through NAFTA, which includes the United States, and has free-trade pacts with Chile and Costa Rica. But efforts to conclude an agreement throughout the hemisphere ground to a halt last fall over a range of sensitive issues, including U.S. farm protectionism and the unwillingness of Brazil to open various sectors to international investment.
Canadian officials said last night that there remain four areas of disagreement among the 34 countries but that each of these likely will be resolved by Wednesday; particularly involving joint efforts to deny "safe havens" to corrupt officials and those who corrupt them and concerted efforts to reduce the cost to migrant workers of sending money home to their families.
Mr. Martin said that he expects the real progress at the summit will not be made at the official functions but in sideline events where the leaders can throw away their carefully scripted speeches.
That's when, he said, they "can really have at each other."
Mr. Martin, a veteran of international conferences from his nine years as finance minister, said he's eager to inject some of the informality that characterized meetings of finance officials during those years into the summits of government leaders that he'll now be attending. He'll make similar points in a speech he plans to give at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland later this month.
"Getting to know you is a very important part of this," he said yesterday.
"We did establish strong personal relationships."
Earlier yesterday, Mr. Fox said that his top priority at the summit will be "warming up" relations among his country, Canada and the U.S., after the three neighbours took opposing stands on the war in Iraq.
Speaking on CTV's Question Period, Mr. Fox suggested that Canada and Mexico's opposition to the U.S.-led invasion caused a "momentary" frostiness in relations that delayed a broader agenda between the nations.
While still classifying relations as "excellent," he said, ". . . what we have to do is warm them up further. We let it cool a bit in the last 18 months, so we have to come back very strong on the bilateral agenda."
Mr. Martin's key meeting during his two-day trip will be Tuesday morning with Mr. Bush. The Prime Minister confirmed that he and the President will hold a follow-up summit in the next two months. But, in the meantime, he will press Mr. Bush on issues ranging from the mad-cow crisis and the softwood dispute to the Maher Arar case and the divvying up of reconstruction contracts in Iraq, he said
Some U.S. senators, such as Minority Leader Tom Daschle, are now pressing for made-in-America stickers on beef, which would constitute another blow for Canadian farmers struggling without full access to the U.S. market. Mr. Daschle is viewed widely as advocating this new protectionist step because he is facing a tough re-election battle in his agricultural state of South Dakota.
With a report from Erin Anderssen
