A scathing wake-up call castigating the timidity of Canadian companies in international markets, combining bracing analysis and compelling anecdotes with shrewd prescriptions for the future.

Canada has all the makings of a global leader, yet it has opted to become a laggard, frittering away its jackpot of rich resources rather than building viable multinationals that are ultimately the country's best defence in a globalized world. Andrea Mandel-Campbell interviews some of Canada's leading executives and behind-the-scenes movers and shakers to reveal the hidden challenges to Canada's global success and the perils of continued complacency.

A lively and authoritative compendium of never-before-heard tales of Canadian companies abroad, Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson is also a hands-on guide for innovative competitiveness, helping readers to identify the nation's previously underestimated assets and abilities.

"Canada's current feel-good situation -- all those percolating economic stats and indicators -- masks a dismal reality. It's charted in Andrea Mandel-Campbell's Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson. In this, one of the year's most important books, she makes the cogent case that we're not hot, not cool. We're peripheral, a victim of our cult of middleness." -- Globe and Mail

"In her book...Andrea Mandel-Campbell highlights a Canadian epidemic symptom. She gives evidence as to how, for very little, money, great innovations and technologies leave our country to come back to our market with high prices." -- Edmonton Journal

Andrea Mandel-Campbell was bureau chief for London’s Financial Times in Mexico and correspondent for Business Week magazine in Argentina. For ten years she was a foreign correspondent in Latin America. She has written extensively on global competitiveness issues, including business ties between Canada and China. She lives in Toronto.

Andrea Mandel-Campbell's profile page