Derek Burney, the new right hand man to newly elected PM Stephen Harper is not only an old Mulroney hack but a serious Contientalist in his own right. In fact his policy comments were echoed by policy wonk Harper through out the election when it came to Conservative policy on International relations with the United States. Take Burney's speech to the Ranchmans Club in Calgary last November, one of three identical speeches he gave during the year He told the well heeled corporate elite of Alberta the following;
We should take our head out of the sand and reconsider our position on missile defence and endeavour, more generally, to become more than a spectator in the defence of our own continent. Pride in what we once were is no substitute for the resources and resolve that would enable us to contribute more tangibly now to our own defence. If we want to be more relevant in Washington we need to give security a higher and clearer priority. We cannot afford a free ride on our own defence. Where’s the sovereignty in that?
The Energy sector – a Canadian strength – obviously merits smarter cooperation; a more certain policy climate in North America for efficient extraction, refining and transmission, along with stronger monitoring and some upgrades of our shared electricity grid? This should not be a game of competing subsidies, inducing an already robust industry, but rather the object of sensible commitments aimed at delivering mutual benefit.
There is also considerable scope for regulatory reform streamlining, harmonizing or mutually recognizing one another’s standards. That would alleviate many unnecessary and costly ‘makework’ procedures that undermine small and mediumsized exporters in particular. To be meaningful, these require serious commitment and engagement by political leaders. Top down, not Low Common Denominator up!
Nonetheless, stakeholders, particularly those of you in the business community, should shake off your customary timidity and speak out. Business support – and that of key Premiers like Peter Lougheed was vital to success in earlier trade negotiations and could help restore a much needed jolt of common sense in the management of our most vital relationship today. If you do not, you may be sure that others with a very different agenda will happily fill the vacuum.
It should come as no surprise that Burney and the Conservative party plan is to revive Missle Defense, develop a contiental expansion of NAFTA and look at creating an economic union with the United States.
Burney's life after being a diplomat has been to become a mover and shaker of the Corporate elite in Canada within the corridors of power.
His recent appointment to TransCanada Pipeline last fall indicates that his pipeline to power within the Conservative Party is appreciated by the Oil Barons in Calgary.
Looking at his criticism of the Liberals International Relations policy is too look forward to the Harper Government introducing an integrationist approach to Canadian U.S. relations. Real, effective leadership requires signalling top priority - confidently and clearly - to the manner in which we manage relations with the United States. Fundamentally, for Canada, it is a choice between engagement and irrelevance; between tackling hard issues vital to our well-being or dancing on the periphery, between leading and advancing our long-term interests or following the short-term whims of popular opinion
Canadian Institute of International Affairs - National Capital Branch SymposiumDerek Burney, former Canadian Ambassador to Washington and Chairman of the Board of Directors of New Brunswick Power
pdf - 130KBA historical analysis reveals that Stephen Harper affirmed the January 2003, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) New Frontiers Project to develop a strategy for shaping Canada's future within North America and beyond. Composed of the chief executive officers of 150 leading Canadian enterprises, the CCCE has been dedicated to building a stronger world influence for Canada, and believes that Canada's best path to growth is through openness to the world and deep integration with the United States. The CCCE together with the U.S. Council On Foreign Relations (CFR) has pioneered principles of security and prosperity that culminated in the drafting of the SPP.
North American Security and Prosperity Initiative is now available at www.ceocouncil.ca. The initiative calls for action on five fronts:
Reinventing borders by eliminating as many as possible of the barriers to the movement of people and goods across the internal border and by shifting the emphasis to protection of the approaches to North America;
Maximizing economic efficiencies, primarily through harmonization or mutual recognition across a wide range of regulatory regimes;
Negotiation of a comprehensive resource security pact, covering agriculture and forest products as well as energy, metals and minerals, based on the two core principles of open markets and regulatory compatibility;
Sharing the burden of defence and security, so that each country is capable both of defending its own territory and of making a meaningful contribution to ensuring continental and global security; and
Creating a new institutional framework based not on the European model but on cooperation with mutual respect for sovereignty, perhaps using joint commission models to foster co-ordination and to prevent and resolve conflicts.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, composed of the chief executive officers of 150 leading Canadian corporations, was known as the Business Council on National Issues until late 2001. Its members head companies that administer in excess of $2.1 trillion in assets, have annual revenues of more than $500 billion and account for a significant majority of Canada's private sector investment, exports, training and research and development.
Derek H. Burney Corporate Biography
Derek H. Burney: The CAE's Not-So-Secret Weapon (PDF)
When Burney left the Canadian embassy in 1993, he became the chair and chief executive officer (CEO) of Bell Canada International, a job he held until 1999. Although he had no apparent scientific or technical knowledge of any relevance to CAE Inc.’s simulation busi- ness, Burney became the company’s top executive in Octo- ber 1999. Presumably his many powerful contacts within the Canadian and U.S. governments were his top assets. During his tenure at CAE, Burney also demonstrated a profound commitment to promoting Canada’s role as a major contributor to the U.S. military-industrial complex. He used his posi- tion to deliver speeches to large, influential Canadian busi- ness associations, warning them about the urgent need for government to spend billions more on Canada’s military. He was particularly keen on the military’s acquisition of high- tech equipment and increasing Canada’s role in U.S. weap- ons-development programs, like so-called “missile defense.” Burney retained his position as CAE president and CEO until August 2004. As revealed by the CAE’s “Notice of Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders,” Burney, who in 2003 held 160,220 common shares in CAE, was paid very handsomely for his services. His salary and bonuses between 2001-2003 were over US$4.75 million. Burney has taken to his role as a top executive and works closely with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), which was formerly known as the Business Council on National Issues. The CCCE, Canada’s most powerful big- business lobby group, “represents the CEOs of 150 leading Canadian corporations…that administer in excess of $2.1 tril- lion in assets.” Besides being vice chairmen of the CCCE’s Executive Committee, he is also the co-chair of its “North American Policy Committee” and a key member of its “CEO Action Group on North American Security and Prosperity.” Burney is also associated with another right-wing interest group, namely the Canadian Defence and Foreign
Affairs Institute (CDFAI), which describes itself as being “dedicated to enhancing Canada’s role in the world by helping to stimulate awareness and debate amongst Ca- nadians about their nation’s defence and foreign policies and the instruments that serve them.” The CDFAI brings together well-heeled Canadians from military, corporate, media and academic backgrounds to promote pro-business foreign policies. Another of its “fel- lows,” Dr. Jim Fergussen, is Canada’s leading academic cheer- leader for the “missile defense” weapons program. He is a University of Manitoba Political Studies professor and the deputy director of that university’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies, which receives generous government fund- ing through the Department of National Defence.
Burney keeps busy these days as: a business advisor to IDELIX, a Vancouver-based “digital imaging, computer aided design, modeling and simu- lation” company with military contracts.
Business Advisors
Bill Owens President & CEO (Retired), Nortel Networks
Derek H. Burney President and CEO (Retired), CAE Inc.
James H. Frey President (Retired), Northrop Grumman TASC
Christopher P. Haakon CEO and General Manager (Retired), Boeing Autometric
Darryl N. Garrett Defense and Intelligence Industry Consultant
Dr. Dwight Porter President, Applied Decision Resources
Mark Sochan CEO, Nuvonix Technical Advisors
Bill Buxton Principal & Founder, Buxton Design
Dr. Sheelagh Carpendale Professor, University of Calgary
Dr. David Cowperthwaite Software Engineer, Intel
He is the Lead Director at Shell Canada Ltd. and a Director of CanWest Global Communications Corp. and TransCanada Pipelines Limited.
He is also Chairman of the Board of NB Power Corp.
He is Chairman of the Confederation College Foundation and a Fellow at the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute.
He is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Trade Policy and Law and Adjunct Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.
Nor should it be a surprise that Burney the war monger, whose corporate connections are in the Canadian Military Industrial Complex was a strong supporter and advocate of Canadian involvement in the war in Iraq.
A day earlier, CAE Inc. president Derek Burney said he would have preferred to see Canada join the United States in taking on Saddam Hussein.
"Canada's relationship with the U.S. is too important for vacillation and too vital for detachment," Burney, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States, told a Montreal Board of Trade meeting.
"I would have preferred, frankly to see Canada among the coalition of the willing standing with the U.S. the U.K. and Australia," Burney said
Burney said war will hurt his company's business in the short term. But he said growth at his company, which makes flight simulators for the military and civilian markets, would resume once the Iraq conflict is out of the way. "Politics and defence contracts are never too far apart," Burney said. "All I can say right now is I hope that's not the case. Our two major customers right now are the U.S. and U.K.," he said
Defence industries worry about impact of Canada's non-participation in Iraq war
Burneys biography Getting it Done was published last year. It is his tale of his years as a quizzling diplomat for Mulroney, and his role in getting NAFTA negotiated. In the crunch of the free trade talks: inside the making of a historic deal
Free-trade talks with United States had amusing and sinister sides: book
DAN DUGAS
OTTAWA (CP) - A former Canadian ambassador to Washington has revealed the dark - and amusing - sides of free-trade negotiations with the United States in
the 1980s.
Derek Burney, who will be a key player in a transfer of power to Stephen Harper should the Conservative leader win the next election, recently published
his memoirs.
Brian Mulroney's former chief of staff and ambassador to Washington writes about crude remarks made by James Baker, who was U.S. President Ronald Reagan's
treasury secretary.
"We saw flashes of anger from Baker, directed crudely and personally at (then finance minister) Mike Wilson over financial services," Burney writes in
Getting it Done: A Memoir.
Burney says he gave as good as the Canadians got as heated negotiations boiled over into personal attacks.
The book also tells of an odd question from Mulroney that stumped Burney after he had called the prime minister from Washington to tell him a deal was in
the making.
"So Derek, how will it play in Drumheller," referring to the southern Alberta community.
"For a minute, I couldn't respond. Finally I said 'Well, it is very good for Canada on energy and red meat, so I assume it will go down well in
Drumheller,' but I really didn't have a clue," Burney writes.
"That's great," Burney quotes Mulroney as saying.
Derek H. should not be confused with his son,Derek J. who is President of Corel Canada.
Update; StageLeft reveals Burney as a Hatchet Man for reducing the Civil Service.
And No BMD, Eh is getting flack from one Blogging Tory who is defending the indefensible by claiming that Harper does not support Ballistic Missle Defense. And of course denies that there is anything sinister about Mr. Burney.
