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 News from Around the Americas | October 2006 
Senators Arrive for Bilateral Talks
 El Universal
| | Sen. Santiago Creel of the National Action Party |
Ottawa - Senators arriving here on Sunday for the XIV Mexico-Canada inter-parliamentary reunion plan to ask for more Canadian visas for Mexican workers. They also hope to convince their Canadian counterparts to help pressure U.S. congressmen into attending the annual meeting.
Every year, Mexican senators meet with Canadian and U.S. lawmakers in separate events. While flying to the Canadian capital on Sunday, senators from Mexico´s three major parties agreed that it makes more sense to fuse the two meetings into one. They argued that having legislators from all three countries present could help resolve common problems.
The Mexican delegation, headed by Sen. Santiago Creel of the National Action Party (PAN) will also try and convince their Canadian counterparts to boost the number of guest worker visas granted to Mexicans from 12,00 annually to 40,000. They hope to negotiate the opening of the current program to electricians and workers in the construction and hotel industries.
Currently, only agricultural workers are included in the program.
The lawmakers still qualified the current program as a success, however, noting that Mexican workers generally bring home between US$12,000 and US$13,000 for six months of work. PAN Sen. Alejandro Galván Garza, who heads the Senate commission on North American relations, added that the workers are flown to Canada and are treated well by Canadian employers.
President-elect Felipe Calderón is set to arrive in Ottawa next Thursday. While the Senators will return to Mexico before Calderón´s visit, Creel said he would set up a meeting between the president-elect and top Canadian lawmakers.
PETROLEUM INDUSTRY
Galván Garza also mentioned the possibility of exploring Canadian interest in oil exploration and the petro-chemical industry - a delicate topic back in Mexico. The Constitution prevents foreign companies from investing in Mexican oil, but national oil company Pemex´s reserves are declining and its heavy tax burden has kept it from seeking new oil fields or renovating its aging infrastructure.
Calderón has called for allowing limited investment in "secondary" petroleum activities, but a coalition of left-leaning parties has pledged to block any such measures, saying it violates the Constitution. |
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