International Trade committee  We operate through a mix—of course, quarterbacked by the embassy in Washington. We have a number of consulate generals—larger posts—and then we have a number of smaller offices, in some instances one-person offices. Then we have a number of hybrids where you have a little bit bigger presence.

International Trade committee  As far as I know, there aren’t any reports on that, but provinces often do publish those types of reports.

International Trade committee  Yes, we do publish reports on market opportunities.

International Trade committee  Of course. One of our sectors is in charge of negotiating agreements, be they free trade agreements, air transport agreements or investment protection agreements. That covers all agreements, worldwide. I think that the assistant deputy minister in charge, Mr. Burney, has already spoken before your committee.

International Trade committee  As in all free trade agreements, our negotiators have issues at stake. It is always a big challenge, a battle between the two parties. However, we try to create a win-win situation in all our agreements.

International Trade committee  Since I am not in charge of those negotiations, I cannot say. Negotiations are always very complicated. It would be better if my colleague.... This is someone else’s area of expertise, someone else’s sandbox.

International Trade committee  At this time, part of our mandate is to help Canadian companies with their investments abroad.

International Trade committee  Sure. At the present time, we're in the process of examining whether to reinstitute a concerted business mission approach. Our minister is talking to us about it, but if you look at the example of the provinces and the provincial premiers when they go with large trade missions, the work on identifying participants is something that generally gets done between a regional office, a provincial trade ministry, our people, and our embassy.

International Trade committee  It depends on the type of dispute. I can give you a good example of where the government plays a very important role. For instance, there's RIM's situation in India, where it appeared to us that RIM was being singled out unfairly regarding its market presence. There was a war being waged in the Indian media, promoting false stories about RIM.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, to answer the question, there are consultants throughout Canada who offer SMEs services similar to ours. But the difference between our services and theirs is that ours are free of charge. We provide those services to whomever asks for them and is ready to export. Consultants always charge for those services.

International Trade committee  Informing Canadian clients of any changes in the market is part of every free trade agreement. Often, the clients themselves campaign for free trade agreements. For instance, a company that has had input in Colombia and is already competing with American companies will be at a disadvantage if the U.S. has a free trade agreement in place.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, as I mentioned before, one of the main challenges we face and the major service that we try to provide SMEs is that if they commit to visiting a market, particularly a distant market like India or China, they have a real focus to their visit. One element of our trade sections around the world is that we maintain lists of trusted accountants, trusted lawyers, trusted business advisers who are known to the individuals in our embassies and trade sections, or who have proven track records, or whom we can reliably suggest to a client.

International Trade committee  To address your number of 1.4 million, a lot of those firms would be factored out, because they could be anybody from a convenience store to a service that's provided locally. In reality that number is much smaller than the 1.4 million. In terms of the micro businesses, yes, we would work with micro businesses.

International Trade committee  We would certainly like to see the number of firms that we assist rise. It's an interesting statistic. About 2,000 firms do 80% of Canada's exporting. That is the latest statistic we have from StatsCan on this subject. What we want to do in terms of the services we provide—and there is no outer limit in terms of how many companies we could support—is to be in a position where we could see the very small firms that come onto the exporting scene grow, because, through their growth, they will in turn generate more prosperity.

International Trade committee  That is an element of what we want to do. We want to create the next major multinationals. We would like to be able to work with SMEs, or companies that are SMEs today and will turn into RIMs tomorrow. An element of what happens is that—