There is a lot of Tory blue in the blue-ribbon business mission Mayor Rob Ford is leading to Chicago this week.

A partial list of delegates released by the city includes former Ontario Conservative premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, Janet Ecker, who served as a senior cabinet minister in both their governments, and Michael Wilson, a finance minister under former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in the 1980s.

Harris is attending as a representative of law firm Cassels Brock & Blackwell, Eves will represent Natel Strategies International Inc. and Ecker serves as president of Toronto Financial Services Alliance.

Other prominent businesspeople — local and national — include Robert Deluce, president & CEO of Porter Airlines, George Cohon, founder of McDonald’s Canada, Carol Wilding, president & CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade, Paul Brown, chairman of Enwave, Betty DeVita, president of Mastercard and Thomas Kloet, CEO of TMX Group.

Kloet spent many years in Chicago prior to Toronto, where he held prominent roles such as CEO of Crédit Agricole Futures Inc., a member of the board of directors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and a board member of the Chicago Stock Exchange.

The Fords are no strangers to the Conservative party: Rob and Doug Ford’s father, Douglas Sr., was a one-term backbencher in Harris’ government in the 1990s, and Doug, a city councillor, has mused about jumping to provincial politics, even taking over from Tim Hudak as the Ontario PC leader.

Most of the delegates will be departing for the windy city on Tuesday for the trade mission. Ford will be meeting with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to re-sign the Toronto/Chicago Sister City Agreement on Wednesday.