The special relationship: why the US and Canada need each other’s support and continuing friendship

Lisa Raitt: Thank you for tuning in to The Raitt Stuff. I’m your host Lisa Raitt and in this podcast I’m going to share insights on current hot topics in the areas of public policy, politics and business, with some guests along the way. Welcome back to The Raitt Stuff. I am so happy today to have my friend, Beth Burke with us. Beth is the CEO of the Canadian American Business Council, and she’s got deep experience in both the house of representatives as well as the United States Senate. But not only was she a legislative person, she also served as the presidential appointee in the Export Import Bank during the Obama administration. Before she got into government, Beth was a business consultant with clients in the hospitality and healthcare sectors. She’s originally from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. She is here with us today from Milwaukee, and she brings an outside the beltway sensibility and insights into her work on the council. Thanks so much for joining us today, Beth.

Beth Burke: Hi Lisa, good morning. It’s wonderful to see you.

Lisa Raitt: Good to see you too. Are you in Whitefish Bay or are you somewhere else?

Beth Burke: Yeah, I now live just outside of Milwaukee. I’m in Grafton, Wisconsin.  I live here, but I commute wherever I need to be since the CABC has a footprint everywhere in the US and Canada. I travel probably three weeks out of the month. My next stint is DC, Ottawa, Toronto, back to DC, Denver, sort of wherever the wind takes me.

Lisa Raitt: I love it. Now I have known about CABC since I’m going to say I was a cabinet minister in 2008, easily. And I’ve always known it to be a really important binding partner between Canada and the United States. It allowed people to go to the US and have really good conversations with congresspeople. And as well, I always enjoyed it when CABC would come to Ottawa. And if I recall correctly, would interview our prime ministers because you would do it with a different level of reverence than we had in Canada. And I always thought it was really good interviews that you did on Canadian soil, having an American business person do the interview. CABC was founded in 1987. And it was when the Reagan administration was negotiating the original free trade agreement with the now just passed prime minister, Brian Mulroney. And,I’ve been thinking a lot about the PM’s legacy and how he really has changed the country. And I thought it’d be a good chance to have a chat with you about the Canadian-American relationship and what we can learn from it today, especially since as we’re approaching your election period in the fall. Just to start off, what do you think about the impact that free trade has had between our two countries?

Beth Burke: I think that’s a wonderful question. CABC really does consider ourselves the big protector of the US-Canada relationship. And in this period of defining free trade and NAFTA with the prime minister and President Reagan, I think it was really a pivotal moment in the relationship where the prime minister specifically decided this relationship is so important. And we look at it from a friendship perspective because he had such personal connections with the presidents and with everyone. I think that’s a lesson I’ve learned from a lot of the conversations around his passing is just how connected he was to everybody. But he took that to the next step. He said, okay, Canada and the US are each other’s best partners and allies. And why don’t we take that to the next level? Why don’t wemove forward and drive the relationship to a new place where we really look at trade from a new perspective. And he arguably put his fingerprint on this relationship in a way no one else has. He really tried to double down the friendship. I think that’s a lot of where we are today and protecting that free trade and that relationship is so important and is at the core of what we think about every day at the Canadian American Business Council.

Lisa Raitt: 50% of the world’s population is going to an election this year. That’s a remarkable statistic. Canada’s, if not continuously, certainly at this point in time, we’re trying to assess where we are on the world stage. It’d be helpful if you gave me from an American perspective where Canada is on the world stage right now. What’s our role?

Beth Burke: I think from our perspective, the relationship is so important that they’re intertwined, right? That the US and Canada face the world’s challenges together. That we are, as I said, each other’s biggest partner and neighbor, supplier. I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons about where we sit with one another, what it means to truly be a neighbor, especially given the pandemic that we just lived through understanding and realizing supply chains. I think Canada is uniquely positioned as they have so many resources and so much potential to engage with not only the US, but globally. I think making sure that these relationships remain intact is vital. I think the relationship, especially between US and Canada, transcends political change. And I think we’ve seen the relationship evolve and survive through many different amalgamations of whatever political party is in control on whatever side of the border. I think Canada is very well positioned. I think we will continue to protect and foster that relationship because both the US and Canada do better when we work together.

Lisa Raitt: I agree 100%. The federal government recently announced that they’re going to take a Team Canada approach to diplomacy, and we’ve done it before, and it’s been successful. And when I say team approach, I mean, everyone, business, different partisan groups, it’s just rebuilding those connections across the border. So Minister Champagne, Minister Ng have visited the US this year as part of the rollout on the U.S. engagement. Tell us a little bit about the approach, who’s taking part and what does it look like? Because I assume you’re an important partner on the other side.

Beth Burke: Absolutely. So Administer Ng announced her first trip to the US right on the heels of this announcement. And you may know, CABC often engages and works closely with everyone. We were sort of the first phone call and they asked us if we wanted to get together and have a conversation about what’s working, how the relationship could be strengthened, things we can highlight, things we can work on together. And from the Canadian American Business Council perspective, we really believe that working together and highlighting this cross-border relationship is so important. We are in a unique position given that we are really the only bilateral business organization. So our members are both Canadian and American, which is a unique perspective. And I think gives us a good lens when we work with the Team Canada approach. I think there is an investment in making this a long-term commitment to Team Canada, USA working together because, that’s what we’ve been doing for this whole time. I see CABC as like the original Team Canada, USA. We’re really excited that this engagement is happening. And to the point that you raised, I think it’s really great to see that it is federal, provincial, every party, every level of government involved because there are so many inputs at which the business community, the governments interact. I think we’re really evolving to a place where this relationship is just so intertwined that this just feels like a natural step.

Lisa Raitt: Okay, I’m going to ask you to be brutally honest with us. You were a staffer, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives. What is the profile of Canada?

Beth Burke: I think everyone in the US loves Canada. I think the thing that happens is that there are so many big complicated issues that the US faces every minute of every day. And so often they say, oh, Canada, they’re going to be great, they’re fine. They’re great, they’re our ally, they’re good. So sometimes it gets a little bit neglected, that relationship gets put to the side because it’s easier or seems more urgent to address the complicated, problematic relationships. And so I think that hopefully that we can continue to build on how important this relationship is and remind the US how important it is to engage in this space. There is a new caucus that just formed in Congress called the American-Canadian Economic Security Council. It’s bicameral and bipartisan. So there are House and Senate co-chairs of both parties, and they come together to really focus on the relationship. There used to be a Northern Border Caucus, which I think still sort of exists, but that really focused on the border. Whereas this new caucus is really trying to focus from a US perspective on this relationship and how important the economic ties are. This is a huge step forward in their relationship and an acknowledgement from the US side that this is important. A lot of the money that comes in and out of these districts and states really comes from their trade relationship with Canada. There are people in this caucus who had no idea until they engaged a bit further how much their jobs and economy are linked to Canada’s. It’s a huge step forward and really important.

Lisa Raitt: That’s amazing, and I’m looking forward to hearing more about it. Last question, Beth, in Canada, we talk a lot about the cost of living. We talk a lot about inflation. We talk a lot about interest rates, and we talk about housing. What are some of the economic risks that you see on the horizon in the United States?

Beth Burke: Well, I think from a US Canada perspective, the biggest challenges, potential hurdles that could come are anything thickening of the border, right? Worried about protectionism is always a hurdle that we need to face and attack. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to highlight how important it is to, while we are protectionists to a certain extent, understand that our neighbors, in Canada and the US really are so integrated. I think we learned supply chain integration is so huge. So anything that would offset that or hinder free trade, I think would be really a problem. The other thing we focus a lot on from a policy perspective at the Canadian American Business Council is regulatory cohesion. And understanding that there is a good flow of regulation so that businesses can operate. I don’t think that cohesion necessarily means the same. We are two different countries who are going to have different perspectives, but having a system that works for businesses to easily navigate that is really critical to keep this economic fluidity moving.

Lisa Raitt: Thank you so much, Beth. I’m looking forward to seeing you at CABC events. I’m a big fan and I wish you all the best.

Beth Burke: Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s always wonderful to see you, and I look forward to seeing you again real soon.

Lisa Raitt: Thanks so much for tuning in. Now, if you have any questions or comments or even requests on topics to discuss, drop me a line at [email protected]. Your interactions actually will make this better. I’m your host, Lisa Raitt, and this has been The Raitt Stuff.

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