Remarks at a breakfast with business leaders in Ottawa, Canada

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 6, 1995

February 24, 1995

Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister, Ambassador Chretien, Ambassador Blanchard. Ladies and gentlemen, Ambassador Blanchard's introduction of me is a sterling illustration of what is known in our little circle of friends as Clinton's third law of politics, which is, whenever possible, be introduced by someone you have appointed to high office. They'll lie about you every time. [Laughter]

I want to thank Jim Blanchard for the wonderful job that he has done representing the United States in Canada and representing Canada to the United States. I want to say the second half of that again, Mr. Prime Minister: representing Canada to the United States. Sometimes he comes to see me in the White House and he works me over for 10 or 15 minutes about one of these rather complicated issues that we are trying to discuss between our two countries, and I look at Jim and I say, "Now, whose side are you on, anyway?" which is, I think, the best compliment I could give him in being part of the cement that holds this remarkable relationship together.

I want to welcome all the business leaders here from Canada and the United States. Thank you for coming today. I'd also like to thank you, madam, for hosting us in this magnificent, magnificent hall in this wonderful facility. It's a tribute to the vision of the people of Canada in building it for all of the citizens here and others who visit.

I ran for President of the United States primarily because I wanted to help get our country's economic policy back on track, because I felt that unless we had a strategy for moving into the 21st century in ways that would give all of our people a chance to be rewarded for their work and succeed as workers and as members of families, we were going to have a very difficult time in preserving the magic of the American dream.

And we have worked very, very hard for the last 2 years in our administration, in our country to try to do the things that, seems to me, are critical to pursuing that mission: to increase trade, to diminish the deficit, to increase the level of partnership between the public and private sectors, to advance the cause of American interests around the world, to improve our investment and the quality of our investment in the education and training of our people, to do those things, in short, which would increase the productivity of the American work force in ways that would actually generate not only more jobs but higher incomes.

Canada has almost exactly the same challenges because all the advanced economies of the world face the same challenges in the global economy of the 21st century. One key to that for us is making the most of our relationship. And Jim Blanchard mentioned that when we first met 12 years ago when we were both young Governors, I had - even though I was a long way from Canada, I was asked to be one of the Governors that promoted the interest of what subsequently became NAFTA, the first agreement between the United States and Canada, among the Governors and then tried to sell it in the Congress and especially among those who were somewhat more protectionist in our Congress. I was glad to be able to do that.

And since then, I am pleased with the progress that we have made working with Canada and NAFTA, which has increased our bilateral trade by about 15 percent last year alone; in the GATT agreement; in the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation group that we're a part of that's now agreed to open markets in Asia early in the next century, something very, very important to those of us here in the West; and of course in the Summit of the Americas, trying to open the markets in Latin America to all of us. And Latin America, as all of you know, is the second fastest growing set of economies in the world and an enormous opportunity for all of us here, as well as an enormous responsibility in terms of what we should be doing in preserving democracy and open markets in that part of the world.

I am pleased with all of that. I'm especially pleased that a few months ago, for the first time ever in our country, there was a survey which said that more people saw trade as a source of hope than as a threat for the first time since we had been taking such public opinion surveys. That is very important. My premise is that unless all of us intend to just close our markets, we will get the downside of global trade and global economics just by living and getting up every day. And the only way we can get the upside is to aggressively push these trade agreements and then work on having the kind of arrangements necessary to expand the frontiers of opportunity. So I feel very, very strongly about all of that. And I hope that all of us can be working on that in the years ahead.

In the meanwhile, let's not forget that there's something to be said for doing more to make the most of what's right here in front of us, our own relationship. And the aviation agreement that we're going to sign in a few minutes is an example of that. It will make it easier for businesses to do business by significantly expanding passenger and cargo services between our two countries. It will mean billions of dollars in new business activity and thousands of new jobs on both sides of our border. Now, the only bad news is for those of you with frequent flier accounts; it means you'll earn fewer miles because it will be so much easier and quicker to get back and forth between Canada and the United States. That's also a high-class problem in this context. [Laughter]