International Trade committee  We're aware of the initiative. We at MaRS work with multiple sectors of the federal government on this kind of stuff and we let our entrepreneurs know as well.

International Trade committee  In terms of the certification piece absolutely, there are Fair Trade U.S.A., Fairtrade U.K., and Fairtrade International. There are a lot of organizations that do certification for organic, or non-GMO, or LEED certification for buildings and that sort of thing. In terms of what w

International Trade committee  It's a bit of both. We do our homework. We do our own bits of headhunting to find corporations that we think would be good corporate ambassadors that already do good work. BDC is an excellent example of this because it has already baked into their mission the task of helping entr

International Trade committee  The vast majority of them are value-added products, simply because 10% or 15% would be something like a consulting service, or a social web design firm, or that sort of thing, but then the rest are largely companies that produce things—widgets—for folks to use. Then you're talkin

International Trade committee  MaRS works with a considerable number of SMEs, and the barrier is always in getting people in the door. There are so many different services available, from the federal government, provincial governments, municipal governments, and there's a high barrier of entry for people to kn

International Trade committee  I think that certainly within countries, our businesses can make choices regardless of what the policy is. I'll give you an example of a really fantastic B corp that is operated just outside of Toronto. It's called Oliberté. They are the world's first fair trade shoe factory. The

International Trade committee  There are a few countries that have B corp legislation on the tarmac, so to speak. The best example, as I said before, is the United States. There are 27 states with B corp legislation, plus DC. Every state has its own sort of unique wrinkle, but for the most part the legislation

International Trade committee  That's difficult to sort out because of the 1,200 B corps, we've got 130 here, and 800 in the U.S. A good chunk of them, I would say about a third to 40%, are exporting somewhere. But insofar as the Canadian ones that are exporting is concerned, that's a little more difficult to

International Trade committee  With MaRS, more specifically, a couple of months ago.... We do this stuff relatively regularly, taking entrepreneurs to global workshops that are formal and then through the trade commissioner, or through the consulates office, for example. We just went down to San Francisco wi

International Trade committee  With regards to the work that we do with SMEs, because of the fact that a lot of it is impact-based, India is a big player for us. On the B corp side of things, because of the high value added, as Mr. Davies mentioned before, we are looking more at developed countries in that reg

International Trade committee  I would echo what Ms. Ramji says.

International Trade committee  IBM annually does a consumer study in the U.S. Basically the gist of it is.... I think most everyone who purchases anything from milk all the way up the chain understands that at this point we have anywhere from 12% to 20% growth in the market in terms of stuff from organic, to n

International Trade committee  Gavin, who is the founder of Lucky Iron Fish and a friend, has worked very closely with the WHO and with the relevant administrations in the United States and Canada for that sort of thing. I know the sourcing of the iron is very important, because they source all of their iron l

International Trade committee  Yes, generally if they can sell it here, then we'll be all right elsewhere in the world.

International Trade committee  The most obvious point is that it's a multi-pronged approach. The way B corp works right now is that there's a certified B corp, which is basically a stamp you can put on your company when you have cleared all of the hurdles saying that your company is focused on people, on the p