I will unfortunately miss the 1 year anniversary gathering on January 28 of the Waterloo MIN group because I will be in Montreal speaking to a First Nations group from Northern Canada at the Northern Lights Business and Cultural Showcase about Chinese outbound investment.

This year has been historic from the Canada China perspective. In December, we saw a thawing of the frosty political relationship that existed between Canada and China with Prime Minister Harper's visit to China and Hong Kong. CCBC hosted the Prime Minister's dinner in Shanghai with the Canadian Business community in China. This has certainly set the tone for opportunities in 2010.

Last year we also saw all major Federal Cabinet Ministers make the trip across the pond to China. The visits by Ministers Flaherty, Day, Cannon, Kenny and Jon Baird were well received and appreciated by the Chinese and Canadian business groups.

The world started to come out of the recession and things started moving in the right direction.

I also notice that so many more people now want to talk about China and realize that they need to engage China in some fashion in order to keep pace with the rest of their peers.

I am grateful to the Waterloo MIN and Igloo for giving me a platform to share business, culture and personal experiences about China. It is only through our words and sharing experiences, that we can we bridge a divide and understand each other and other cultures and business practices.

So now we have done year one, what else do we have to look forward to?

Well, during the first week of March, CCBC is doing an Outreach Program; a series of seminars about China starting in Calgary and going through Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay and ending in London. It is called "China - taking the next step".

In April we will be in Beijing doing the "Invest in Canada" seminar at the China Outbound Investment Conference and in June we will host "Sustainability Day" at the Shanghai Expo.

The only thing that has not changed is that the Leafs are in the same position as they were in 2009. Otherwise it is all good.

Happy First Waterloo MIN!