You know you have hit the big time when the CFIB is able to bring a huge international conference on small business to the nation's capital. That is the story of the International Symposium on Small Business held in Ottawa in 1981.
It was an organization that began as a Pan-Pacific Partnership in Hawaii in 1974, and with the support of CFIB, became the International Symposium on Small Business in Tokyo in 1975, then on to Washington, DC, then to Seoul, Korea, then Anaheim, California, then Berlin, then Melbourne and finally Ottawa. It was an organization backed by the Small Business Administration in Washington and MITI in Japan. The Japanese delegation was always over 60 persons and Korea and Taiwan brought another 60. In total, we brought representatives from over 40 nations together once a year. In 1983 it was renamed the International Small Business Congress.
I had to compete with over five nations to win the selection process for 1981, and the secret of my success was not the CFIB, but a personal letter of invitation signed by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. The Minister at the time of the Congress was Charles LaPointe.
A year before the Ottawa event, about 20 people from Industry Canada were at the Symposium in Melbourne, Australia to understand what it was all about. I remember heading to a special event one evening with a Canadian delegation of over 25, and having to deal with one of two buses breaking down. They combined the delegates into one bus, and for twenty miles, I sat on the lap of the Minister of Industry from Manitoba. 
The most successful effort in bringing delegates from around the world was made by the Government of Canada through their embassies. My job was to search out the best speakers for Ottawa through my national and international networks. I was also given a key address at one of the Plenary Sessions. Every province sent vital pubic servants to the Symposium and I was able to do a million dollars worth of lobbying. It was an outstanding event. I was so proud of my country.
My media exposure was massive and of a different kind. We were now seen not just as fighters, but builders. We had coverage from the US television media and reporters from around the world. I fell in love with the ISBC because it was an endless learning experience. The next year we went to Torremolinos in Spain. We were supposed to go to Madrid, but because of called national elections, the Government of Spain could not guarantee our safety in the capital.
Bill Rompkey was the new Minister of State for Small Business in 1982, and he had a formal role to play the year after hosting the Congress in Canada. He flew there in a government jet with the small business critics of the NDP and the Liberals, but they spent all their time in the local casino.
A highlight of my ISBC years was in 1984 in Amsterdam where I was able to meet Queen Breatrix. She singled me out because of my Canada lapel label and told me how her mother Queen Juliana had sent her to live in Ottawa as a child, during World War Two. She showed me the gold maple leaf brooch she was wearing and said that she wore it every day of her life. I said it must have been a big adjustment coming home to Holland after the war, and she said she missed her ice-cream.
I used to think that Ottawa could not organize a two-car funeral, but I was wrong. When you can find ways to cooperate rather than fight, it is incredible what you can accomplish together.