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 News from Around the Americas | February 2007 
Canada Backs Mexico Security Plan
 Jonathan Roeder - Herald Mexico
| | Canadian Foreign Minister Peter G. Mackay speaks during a meeting with members of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico City,Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
On a visit to Mexico on Thursday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay pledged to support President Felipe Calderón in his efforts to crack down on crime, while also praising the considerable growth in trade between the two nations.
Before an audience of business representatives and diplomats in the capital, MacKay said providing security and adhering to the rule of law was "a test that none of us can afford to fail," and offered Canadian training and assistance toward achieving that goal.
"With such a significant Canadian business presence in Mexico, and over a million tourist visitors per year, we too have a strong, vested interest in Mexico´s success when it comes to security," MacKay said. "We´re prepared to work closer with Mexico in this regard, in creating a safer environment."
The security topic is a sensitive one - a string of incidents in which Canadian tourists in Mexico were victims of violence have concerned Canadian officials in recent months.
Last weekend, two Canadian tourists were slightly injured in a shooting at a hotel in the tourist resort of Acapulco. In January, another tourist, Adam DePrisco, 19, was killed in Acapulco after allegedly being hit by a car - but a travel companion and a local official claim he was hit while trying to escape nightclub workers who were beating him.
Nearly a year ago, the bodies of Nancy and Domenic Ianiero were found with slashed throats in their hotel rooms in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo. The deaths remain unsolved and family members and Canadian officials say state investigators have bungled the investigation.
Since taking office in December, Calderón has deployed military and federal agents in a number of Mexican states where violence has flared in recent years. Much of the violence - including more than 2,000 murders last year alone - has been attributed to drug traffickers and organized crime rings.
While expressing his support for Calderón on security issues, MacKay praised the growth of trade between the two countries since the creation of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in 1992 and the subsequent implementation of NAFTA in 1994.
Since then, MacKay said, two- way trade has increased 300 percent while investment jumped 400 percent. "To put it mildly, the changes we have gone through in the last 25 years were extraordinary."
MacKay later met with Calderón and Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia Espinosa.
In a joint news conference, MacKay and Espinosa said they discussed expanding a guest worker program, in which around 10,000 Mexican agricultural workers have traveled to Canada annually for temporary employment since 1974.
Espinosa said the program may be expanded to include workers from the construction, manufacturing and service industries. It was not immediately clear how many Mexican workers would be accepted, but Espinosa said the issue would be the topic of discussion during a summit of Mexican, Canadian and U.S. officials later this month in Ottawa.
She added the agricultural guest worker program was "a model of cooperation" between the two nations. |
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