Prime Minister Jean Chrétien today announced that he will travel to Berlin, Germany, to attend the conference on Progressive Governance for the 21^st Century, at the invitation of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

"The realities of globalization, rapidly changing technology and increasing interdependence are among the issues facing many governments today," said the Prime Minister. "The conference in Berlin provides an excellent opportunity for countries that share values to exchange ideas on how to share opportunity, achieve a high quality of life, and foster modern governance and international cooperation. A strong consensus is emerging among these countries on how to realize the human purpose of globalization."

"I look forward to discussing with my colleagues the ‘Canadian Way.’ I will speak of our balanced approach to promoting prosperity and a better quality of life; a distinctive Canadian model that reflects Canadian values and builds on our strengths and history; one that sees these sweeping transformations as not only challenges to be met but also as opportunities to be embraced. I am releasing today ‘The Canadian Way in the 21^st Century’ a paper on the Canadian model that will guide our contribution to the international dialogue on these issues."

The conference will bring together some 15 heads of government from June 2-3 for informal discussions on new approaches to governance which are sometimes described as the "Third Way" or "Neue Mitte" (new middle). Conference participants will discuss how to advance prosperity and shared opportunity in the context of global economic competition, strengthen civil society, and build an international community of shared values.

A conference of experts from each participating country will precede the heads of government meeting on June 2. The results of their deliberations on progressive governance will be provided to the leaders.

Short biographies of the Canadian experts are attached.

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BIOGRAPHIES

Ken Battle is President of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. Before founding the Caledon Institute in 1992, he was Director of the National Council of Welfare, a citizen advisory body to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. He has worked at the Department of Manpower and Immigration, Secretary of State, and Queen’s University.

Battle was educated at Queen’s and Oxford. He has researched and published widely on social policy in the areas of income security, taxation, medicare, social services, poverty, social spending and the politics of social policy. He wrote the influential Social Policy by Stealth and Thinking the Unthinkable: A Targeted, not Universal, Old Age Pension. He is a media commentator, conference speaker, lecturer and advisor to government. He served on the federal Task Force on Social Security Reform in 1994 and as policy advisor on child benefits reform to the Minister of Human Resources Development in 1996 and 1997.

Dr. Evans is a Canadian physician who received his undergraduate medical training at the University of Toronto and engaged in specialty training in internal medicine and cardiology in London (England), Boston and Toronto. Following five years as a member of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, he was appointed as the Founding Dean of the McMaster University Faculty of Medicine. From 1972 to 1978, he served as President of the University of Toronto. In 1979, he undertook a study of education for public health and population-based medicine supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. From 1979 to 1983, Dr. Evans was Director of the Population, Health and Nutrition Department of the World Bank. In 1983, he returned to Toronto as Chairman and CEO of Allelix Inc, a biotechnical research company.

Dr. Evans is currently Vice-Chair of the merged company, NPS/Allelix Biopharmaceuticals Inc. He also serves as Chairman of the Board, Alcan Aluminium Limited, Torstar Corporation; and is Chairman of the Canada Foundation for Innovation. He is a member of the Board of Directors for several Canadian corporations and is Chairman of the Walter & Duncan Gordon Charitable Foundation. He has chaired the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as advisory committees to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Robert Lacroix has been a Professor in the Department of Economics at the Université de Montréal since 1970. From 1987 to 1993, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and from 1994 to 1998, he was President and Executive Director of CIRANO (Centre for Inter-university Research and Analysis on Organisations). Dr. Lacroix has been Rector of the Université de Montréal since June 1998.

Dr. Lacroix has done extensive research into the economics of labour and human resources, as well as the economics of technological progress and innovation. He is the author of 15 books, 26 book chapters and 60 scientific articles. Dr. Lacroix is a member of the American Economic Association, the Canadian Economic Association and the Association of Quebec Economists. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1989, where he served as a member of the Research Evaluation Committee and the Appointments Committee.

Dr. Marchildon was born and raised in Saskatchewan. He attended the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in history, economics and law. He practised law for five years in Regina and northern Saskatchewan, serving as both a defence counsel and crown prosecutor. In 1990, Dr. Marchildon completed his Ph.D. in economic history at the London School of Economics. He then joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he remained for five years. During this time he was also a visiting professor at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow and the International University of Japan.

In 1994, he returned to Saskatchewan to become the Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs for the provincial government. Since January 1997, he has served as the Deputy Minister to the Premier and Cabinet Secretary, the most senior position in the provincial public service. Dr. Marchildon has written on a variety of subjects, including Canada-US trade relations, economic history, Canadian politics and constitutional relations. His most recent book, Profits and Politics: Beaverbrook and the Gilded Age of Canadian Finance, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 1996.

Peter Nicholson is Chief Strategy Officer of BCE Inc., Canada’s leading telecommunications services company. He earned a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics from Dalhousie University and a Ph. D. (Operations Research) from Stanford University in 1969. Dr. Nicholson’s varied career has spanned academia, government and business. He was a member of the computer science faculty of the University of Minnesota (1969-73); served in a number of senior positions in the Government of Canada (1973-78); held elected office in the Nova Scotia Legislature (1978-81); and held senior executive positions in the fishing industry (1979-84) and with the Bank of Nova Scotia (1984-94). Before joining BCE in 1995, Dr. Nicholson was Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at the federal Department of Finance (1994-95).

Peter Nicholson is a Director of Stelco Inc., Teleglobe, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; is a Governor of the National Research Council of Canada; and is Chairman of the Canadian Institute of Telecommunications Research.

Since 1997, Martha C. Piper has served as the 11^th President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia (UBC). Dr. Piper received her B.Sc. (1967) in Physical Therapy from the University of Michigan, her M.A. (1970) in Child Development from the University of Connecticut, and her Ph.D. (1979) in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University. Upon completion of her Ph.D., Dr. Piper was appointed Director of the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy at McGill University.

In 1985, she joined the University of Alberta as Dean of the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, and was appointed Vice-President, Research, in 1993. The portfolio was expanded in 1995 to include External Affairs.

Martha Piper is a board member of both the Protein Engineering Network of Centres of Excellence, the Canadian Genetic Diseases Network of Centres of Excellence, the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, and the Board of the Advisory Council on Science and Technology. In 1997, Dr. Piper was appointed as a member of the Canada Foundation for Innovation. In 1998, she joined the Board of Directors of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), and became a member of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. In 1999, Dr. Piper became a member of the Interim Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Bob Rae served as Ontario’s 21^st Premier after a career in politics spanning nearly 20 years. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and of Oxford University, and currently serves as Partner in the Canadian international law firm of Goodman Phillips & Vineberg. Mr. Rae also serves as a director of a number of charitable and public companies, and is adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto in the Faculties of Law and Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Rae is the author of two books, From Protest to Power, and The Three Questions. The latter has been translated into French under the title, Prospérité et bien commun. He served as a member of the Security Intelligence Review Committee for Canada, and in 1999, co-chaired a successful international conference on federalism. He continues to serve as Chairman of the Forum of Federations.

Vicki Saunders is Chief Innovation Architect and Co-Chief Executive Officer of the NRG Group. She has a Masters of Arts in Soviet Foreign Policy from the University of Toronto. Between 1990-1994 in Prague, Saunders opened and ran an English language school and a Czech Republic-India import-export business. Back in Canada, as a consultant to the North York Board of Education, she created technology, entrepreneurship and international programs. In 1997, she co-founded KidsNRG, which has become a leading catalyst and supporter of youth entrepreneurship in technology. She also founded the Toronto cell of FastCompany, a leading business magazine in North America that features a unique community of readership cells in 52 cities around the world.

Saunders is a member of the SchoolNet National Advisory Board Working Group on Social Issues and Community Involvement, a member of the Board of the Women in Trades and Technology National Network for the Women in Technology Initiative. She is also a founding Board Member of the Ontario Organization of Women in International Trade; Vice-Chair for the SMART Toronto Women in Technology Initiative; Founder of the GirlsAreIT! Program; and the National Internet Business Plan Contest for Young Women Entrepreneurs.

Dr. Jacquelyn Thayer Scott is President & Vice-Chancellor of the University College of Cape Breton in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Prior to assuming her current post in 1993, Dr. Scott served as Director of the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. She has also been on faculty at the University of Manitoba, operated her own public relations and management consulting firm, and been employed as a journalist by the Canadian Press and the Columbian Newspapers.

Dr. Scott is a member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Science & Technology, and chaired that body’s recent report to Cabinet, Stepping Up: Skills and Enterprise in the Knowledge Economy. She chairs the Canadian Alliance of Education/Training Organizations; CANARIE Inc.; the Statistics Canada Advisory Committee on the Nonprofit Knowledge Base Project; and Atlantic University Sport. Dr. Scott is also a governing board member of the Corporate-Higher Education Forum, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, Sempra Atlantic Gas Ltd., CDI Education Corporation, Sydney Steel Corporation, and is an advisory board member of the International Coordinating Council of the State of the World Forum, and Canada’s Office of Learning Technologies. She has been awarded a number of professional honours, including the Nova Scotia Gzowski Award for Literacy, the Canada 125 Medal, the "Woman of Excellence" Award of the Canadian Progress Club of Halifax-Dartmouth, an Honorary Life Membership from the Canadian Association for University Continuing Education (CAUCE) and an Honourary Doctor of Laws from the University of Waterloo.

Gérard Veilleux is a business executive born in East Broughton, Québec, on May 7^th, 1942. He attended Laval University, earning a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in 1963 and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Carleton University in Ottawa. In March 1994, he attended the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School.

From 1982 to 1986, he served as Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations and Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council. In 1986, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury Board and was named President and CEO of the CBC in 1989.

Mr. Veilleux has been, and still is, active in a number of government, professional and cultural organizations. He is the author of Les relations inter-gouvernementales au Canada. He became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995. Mr. Veilleux is presently President of Power Communications Inc., a subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada. He is also on the Board of Directors of Gesca; La Presse Publications J.T.C.; Great West Life Assurance; London Life; Investors Group Ltd.; Biochem Pharma Inc.; Power Broadcasting Inc.; and Quebectel. He is also on the Board of Governors of McGill University.