Thank you for your question, honourable member.
It will take a number of tools to make that happen. Canada is already lagging behind in Africa. We need to catch up, even though I’m not entirely sure who or what we’re catching up on. However, for now, if we want our businesses to be on the ground, measures to support them have to be interdepartmental, which is the case with Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which passed through several departments concurrently.
Right now, Global Affairs Canada has an Africa strategy. Are the other departments involved? Coordination work is needed. It’s important to find a way for all the departments that have something to sell, whether that is Natural Resources Canada or the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, to come together to do that. Global Affairs Canada can’t go it alone. The department is doing what it can to raise issues, and on the business side of things, we have often had success on this continent. We have brought aeronautics here. We have brought leading companies, such as SNC-Lavalin, as members will recall. We have brought CPCS and engineering companies. They are all here. All of them came to this continent because they had support from the country, and not just Global Affairs Canada, and the institutions we have and the financial tools at our disposal.
We therefore need to go back to support tools, pool our investments instead of spreading ourselves too thin left and right, go to priority countries, priority regions, and succeed in business. We must always keep our Canadian businesses in mind. The diaspora communities are there. They own businesses and want to develop. We need to give them tools, and Canada can do that.