International Trade committee  Yes, to your first point, I agree with everyone that the competitiveness is absolutely key. We're taking a different approach to it. It's about affordability for small businesses in Canada right now. Being able to afford to run a business today is becoming more and more difficult.

International Trade committee  That's good to hear.

International Trade committee  Thank you, and thanks for the opportunity to be here today to share CFIB's perspective on how governments can connect small and medium-sized enterprises with trade opportunities. I am going to walk you through a bit of a slide presentation. I'm hoping you have it in front of you, over the next few minutes.

Finance committee  Absolutely, because they know that by doing that they will attract more and retain the ones who are there. It's very expensive to hire and train new people, so you're going to do everything you can to keep the good people you already have at your organization. Part of that is about being flexible when you need to be flexible.

Finance committee  When it comes to the Canadian free trade agreement, I think a key piece of it is the regulatory co-operation and the table that they've created, right? Right now, we have some concerns that it hasn't really been moving forward the way it should. We really would encourage the government to take some leadership and get the provinces moving to make this table work.

Finance committee  That's correct. For something as simple as changing the colour of the warning flag on the back of your truck, you have to stop at a border and change it.

Finance committee  That's the kind of the thing we'd like to see, that kind of co-operation. This is the key part of the whole Canadian free trade agreement that needs to get up and running. It needs to be active, it needs to show that it's going to have results, and we need the federal government to be part of that.

Finance committee  No, I have not talked to indigenous governments.

Finance committee  Small airlines.

Finance committee  What was that?

Finance committee  Well, we talk to our membership.

Finance committee  That's where we get our direction from. We get our direction from our membership.

Finance committee  It's the federally regulated employers, and we recognize that not a lot of small firms are federally regulated. There are some, but not many. What happens is that the federal regulations often then get copied by provincial regulations, and therefore they end up spreading across the country.

Finance committee  Federally, yes they are.

Finance committee  Yes, there are small airlines that are all over the place. But mostly it will be the smaller trucking companies that might be federally regulated. And there might be some small broadcasters and that kind of thing.