the founding chairman of the Canada China Business Council.

Desmarais's Global influence [China]

While few deny Desmarais's influence within Canada, his political and business connections also stretched to other parts of the globe.

In 2008, he was presented with France's Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour — a distinction rarely given to non-citizens — by President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom Desmarais had befriended a decade earlier when Sarkozy was down on his political luck.

Martin said Wednesday that Desmarais had a keen understanding of Canada's role on the world stage. He was, for example, the founding chairman of the Canada China Business Council.

"He had very early involvement in Europe and very early involvement in Japan, very early involvement in the oil industry and in the Middle East and a very early involvement in China," Martin said.

"He was, in so many ways, a man ahead of his time. I really think that he had an understanding of where his country fitted into the world."

Landry told Radio Noon's Bernard St. Laurent that when he was once on a trade mission in China, he was told by Chinese officials that when Desmarais visited the Asian country, he was received like a head of state.