International Trade committee  Well, it's closer to yes, but—

International Trade committee  I assure you that I speak on behalf of that potato.

International Trade committee  No, but perhaps my colleague, Luc Santerre, might be able to.

International Trade committee  Well, I think there are many obstacles. The first is that it's far away. If you are exporting a hard good, the logistical problem and the cost of getting your good to the Indian market plays a role. There's the consumer in India: very price-conscious; very concerned about certain foreign goods for servicing kinds of reasons; different tastes.

International Trade committee  You hear a lot of different numbers, but in India they're all big numbers—

International Trade committee  —because if you multiply anything by 1.22 billion people, it's a big number. I've heard that anywhere between 250 million and 300 million people are in what India refers to as the middle class. I'm not entirely sure it's the same definition as ours, but affluent consumers number 25 million and they can afford whatever they want.

International Trade committee  First, with respect to the Indian diaspora in Canada, it is a tremendous asset, particularly in a market where relationships matter. In India, you have to invest a lot in the relationship before you get the deal, and you need relationships to be able to navigate in that market. It's a different kind of business culture, a different kind of bureaucratic culture, and a different kind of consumer.

International Trade committee  My answer would be, principally outside the CEPA; the government's strategy to build a relationship with India involves using all of the tools in the tool box. CEPA is only one of them. The foreign investment protection agreement is one. The social security agreement is one. The nuclear cooperation agreement is one.

International Trade committee  Well, Canada cannot prevent Canadian firms from taking advantage of low-cost services—call centres, or software development, or other kinds of services—in other countries. If it's available to them, that helps them remain globally competitive, because that's what their competitors are doing, and it still provides for a lot of quality jobs in Canada.

International Trade committee  The provinces are closely consulted on the negotiations with India, first of all through the long-standing permanent mechanism for consultation between the federal government and the provinces and territories. It's called C-Trade. It's the committee on trade. It meets at least quarterly to review all trade matters.

International Trade committee  You make a point that they support the negotiations in general, but the devil is in the details. That's true of all trade negotiations. The fact is that I just came from two hours of sitting around a table like this with all the provinces to debrief them on what happened at the last discussion.

International Trade committee  I like to use the McCain plant as the best example I can think of in regard to investing in India, because they took a very patient approach, they took a very local approach, and they are very successful. With respect to the balance in the flow of investment, it's a little bit difficult to be confident in the numbers, because a lot of the investment of which we are aware between Canada and India doesn't seem to show up in our numbers, our official numbers.

International Trade committee  Well, the wage cost is the principal—or at least one of the principal—Indian competitive advantages. That is just in the nature of trade. I don't see that as a major vulnerability to Canadian exports in any sector that I can immediately think of.

International Trade committee  In the course of the most recent discussions with India, the sixth round of negotiations two weeks ago, Canada made proposals with respect to the structure of the services, market access negotiations, and the temporary entry of business persons. I think that is a first step in engaging the market access part of the negotiations, the exchange of offers, and the real—forgive me—horse-trading, the real negotiating process.

International Trade committee  First of all, with respect to the tariff on lentils, the bound tariff in the WTO, the tariff that India may not exceed, may be 30%, but the applied tariff is often at zero when India needs the imports. The problem with that is the uncertainty with respect to whether the tariff is going to remain at zero or move back up.