The Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) is a lobby group for Canada's top 150 CEOs. This organization consolidates the various demands of corporate capital into a
unified voice to influence Canadian public policy. This thesis will periodize the CCCE's policy recommendations from 1988 to 2008 to historically examine the evolving trajectory of discourses produced by the CCCE. To theorize processes of state reorientation and economic restructuring occurring in Canada, and the CCCE's role within these transformations, this thesis draws on Jessop's (2002) concept of the "Schumpeterian Competition State". I also employ Gramsci's (1971) theory of hegemony to frame how the CCCE persistently attempts to replace existing forms of "common sense" with their own particular form of economic rationality. I conclude that the CCCE provides strategic-discursive frameworks that positively interpret processes of economic restructuring, helping reorient Canadian public policy, thus illustrating the CCCE as a conduit of hegemonic discourses.
