International Trade committee  With respect to the TPP, right across the spectrum of resource industries, everything from energy, forestry, mining, a lot of the same industries we mentioned in connection with Canada-EU. We have a lot of B.C. companies involved in selling services into TPP markets, so it is ver

International Trade committee  I'm more familiar with my own province. I would say one of our competitive strengths here is we have good infrastructure to support trade. We have Canada's largest port. We have a second port up in Prince Rupert. We've made major investments not only to expand port capacity, but

International Trade committee  You would get a variety of views on that. There is some concern. I have been reading in the newspaper about not enough railcars being available for some of the bulk commodity producers. The CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada had a letter in The Globe and Mail a co

International Trade committee  I don't think it's a huge advantage. We'll see whether the U.S. administration is able to get the authority that it currently lacks from Congress to actually participate in a meaningful way in both the discussions with the Europeans and the TPP. I think it would be unfortunate if

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I should be clear that because B.C. is on the Pacific Ocean and we're Canada's Pacific gateway, according to many, we've been quite keenly interested in the process leading up to the TPP. We were very much pushing for Canada to be at the table prior to the

International Trade committee  There's no question. We have a bigger commercial interest, a bigger trade flow.

International Trade committee  I think the industries I see that are most interested in the Canada-EU agreement, based on the phone calls we've had and the turnout we've had at meetings where this has been discussed, would include the technology sector, broadly defined, and I think for reasons that Jim has all

International Trade committee  That's a very good question. We had one written piece that we did for the members before the technical summary was actually released by the federal government, to sort of alert them to what we were hearing and what we had been briefed on by federal officials. We invited guest spe

International Trade committee  I haven't thought about that, but I would say that a lot of major European companies are very experienced in the project development and construction business, so they would have better access into the B.C. marketplace, as I understand it, under the terms of this agreement. For

International Trade committee  The other side of it is in the procurement area, to the extent that we have more competition in public sector procurement markets in Canada. In principle, that should be beneficial to taxpayers. I'm a taxpayer; I'd like to see my governments be as efficient as possible in the pro

International Trade committee  That's a very good point. I think Europe, the EU collectively, is our third- or fourth-largest commercial partner here in British Columbia. Like some other provinces in the west, we are quite heavily focused on the U.S. but also on Asia-Pacific. I don't think Canada-EU trade is g

International Trade committee  Forestries have been great, not in Europe, but we've had the story of the B.C. lumber industry and the penetration into Asian markets—which by the way took a dozen years—again it was a long-term exercise, industry working together with the federal government, with provincial offi

International Trade committee  I've seen $2.5 to $3 trillion for the EU. They have a big government over there, as you know, so there's a lot of procurement that takes place. It's a huge market for us. As I understand it, very few Canadian companies today are selling goods or services into the EU public procur

International Trade committee  We have very strong companies in engineering, in project management, in the IT side of the public sector. IT is a huge chunk of the procurement dollars spent by public sector entities. We have great companies in that area. Those would be three. Infrastructure providers. We're bui

International Trade committee  Every profit-maximizing business will try to maximize its profit. That's how market economies work. When I referred to more competition, I meant in the Canadian marketplace. If we reduce trade barriers in Canada, whether that's with the Europeans or anyone else, there's going to