Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. It's good to be back with the committee.
I will quickly read a statement so we can get on with a more interactive question-and-answer session.
Given Minister MacKay's testimony to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development last week on the department's main estimates, and given the expressed interest of this committee, I propose to talk in the first instance about the government's international trade agenda.
I think all of us here recognize that trade is absolutely fundamental to Canada's competitiveness and our economic well-being. It creates jobs, prosperity, and underpins our social programs and indeed our quality of life, which is why it's critical that Canada reach out to the markets of the world in a focused and strategic way.
Since becoming minister, I've underscored at every opportunity I could my concern that Canada has not adapted quickly enough or rigorously enough to this new global business environment. We're a country of 31.6 million people, and I think it is pretty obvious that we simply cannot afford to build our economy around serving a market of 31 million, 32 million people. Fundamentally, if we tried to do that, we would be an impoverished state, and nobody wants to go there.
But as I said, we're falling behind the competition, and for several years the warning signs have been there in places like Asia, for example. We're falling behind countries like Australia, which is negotiating free trade agreements at a rapid and aggressive pace. Here in North America, our share of U.S. merchandise imports has been falling since 1996, and the Americans have been signing trade agreements with mad abandon, covering some 15 countries since 2001, with 10 more negotiations under way—a clear sign that the Americans themselves, with a market of 300 million people, are not sitting back. They are looking for opportunities far from home.
We're not gaining access to new markets as quickly as our competitors. We're not attracting the level of international investment that we potentially should, and we're not attracting the level of attention or recognition our businesses deserve in global markets. We fundamentally need to create a more competitive Canada.
I can say this government is committed to creating a competitive Canadian economy. We laid out our economic plan in Advantage Canada and followed up with strong measures in the recent budget. We're creating the right economic frameworks on a number of fronts to make Canada more competitive. Being competitive means reaching out to the right global markets, and it means giving our businesses the tools and the access they need to be successful, which is why the budget included additional resources for our global commerce strategy—$60 million over two years and $50 million ongoing. It's a key investment in focused, targeted efforts to make our firms more competitive and to help Canada step up its trade and investment performance.
Our first focus is to expand our presence in emerging markets. Traditional marketplaces, like the United States and Europe, are contending with rising giants like China, India, and Brazil. The power and influence of these economies today and tomorrow cannot be ignored. It's going to be a fundamental fact of international commerce, and it will shape economies around the world. Our success depends on being there in the market for our businesses. We need to be armed with the right tools, support, and intelligence that our companies need. It also depends on our businesses being able to access the global pools of capital and talent they need to grow and diversify.
Through the global commerce strategy, we'll expand our presence in key regions, starting with China, India, and Latin America. We will hire sectoral business experts, both abroad and in Canada, to gather intelligence, analyze markets, and provide the tools and advice our firms need. We will work with Export Development Canada to make strategic equity investments that will help small and medium-sized Canadian firms capture opportunities in emerging markets, and we'll boost the number of EDC officers at our DFAIT offices abroad, especially in China and India. This will ensure that our businesses are supported in the right places, in the right ways, at the right times, to capture the opportunities they're looking for.
Our second focus is to bolster the foundation of our commercial success, which is, without a doubt, North America. Canada is not just a market of 31.6 million people. Canada is an entree into a North American market of 410 million people. It's essential that we strengthen our connections to the North American marketplace, and that is fundamentally what we mean when we're talking about the North American platform. We're talking integrated supply chains within North America, which give us a competitive leg-up in dealing with markets overseas.
With the softwood lumber dispute finally behind us, we're working with the United States to build on our long history as neighbours, as partners, and as friends, in order to foster a more comprehensive trade and investment relationship.
Looking ahead, we'll reinforce our presence in the U.S. through a number of initiatives. For example, we'll engage private sector experts to make connections between Canadian expertise, American demand, and capital pools. With Mexico, we'll expand the level of support to Canadian firms doing business there and continue supporting initiatives like the Canada-Mexico Partnership, which is bringing our nations' business closer together.
Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership, we've been working closely with our partners in the United States and Mexico to build a more sophisticated North American platform, one that can compete more effectively with similar platforms in the large markets of Asia and Europe. This means, among other things, bringing our regulations closer together and fostering a greater level of cross-border cooperation among different sectors. We need to eliminate the tyranny of small differences, and we can do that without any sacrifice. Indeed, we can probably enhance regulatory effectiveness and achievement of regulatory objectives.
This work will also pave the way to re-energize Canada's traditional trade and investment relationships with the countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. We are, in effect, expanding our neighbourhood. We're committed to strengthening our commercial presence in those markets, which are increasingly important to Canadian suppliers, to customers, and to investors.
Our third focus is a re-energized negotiations agenda. We remain committed to a successful Doha Round at the WTO. This will remain a top priority, but slow progress compels Canada to match our competitors' aggressive bilateral and regional market access efforts. We cannot allow Canada to become a disadvantaged spectator in the race for market access. We must expand our bilateral trade network and gain access to those markets that hold the most potential for our businesses and our investors.
We're currently negotiating free trade agreements with EFTA, with South Korea, and with Singapore. We're focusing on a range of foreign investment protection agreements, FIPAs, with countries like China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and others. We're looking at science and technology agreements, like the one I signed recently during my January visit to China.
We will accelerate our efforts on this front. We'll help Canadian firms, investors, and researchers, as well as the commercial users of technology, tap into exciting global opportunities.
We mustn't forget the many other initiatives included in the recent budget that will help Canada compete in the global context. I'm thinking primarily of the budget's infrastructure investments. I've spoken often of global supply chains being the drivers of international trade and commercial success. In this day of global supply chains, we all have to recognize the importance of smooth, effective transportation links for our trade performance. The budget delivers on this. It includes an additional $410 million for the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative, raising the total federal investment in the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative to $1 billion, another step towards creating more opportunities for improved trade with Asia. It also includes a financing strategy for our new Windsor-Detroit crossing, the most heavily used border crossing in the country, along with a $2.1 billion fund to support gateways and border crossings across this country.
These investments prove to international shippers, exporters, and importers, not to mention foreign investors, that Canada understands the importance of a smooth, efficient, and pan–Canadian transportation system that links the heartland of North America and Canada with the heartlands of markets in Asia and elsewhere. It proves we're making the right investments into our infrastructure to make Canada a hub of choice and, through our global commerce strategy, a partner of choice for global trade and investment for decades to come.
We're realigning our departmental activities to achieve greater results. Like all departments, we're faced with balancing expenditure restraints with our commitment to providing the best services we can to Canadian business. That's why we'll continue to examine closely our expenditures and allocate resources to high priorities. We're committed to putting resources in the right places in support of the best results for Canadians.
Canadians have come to expect a high level of service from my department, and we aim to continue meeting their expectations or exceeding them over the coming year--through our trade commissioners, for example, who are working around the world to connect Canadian expertise with global trade opportunities and investment capital; through our trade policy and negotiations group, which is fighting for the access our businesses and investors need to global markets and investment pools and defending our interests at the negotiating table; through our global operations group, which is working closely with businesses to develop targeted market plans for the most promising countries for Canadian businesses and investors around the world; and through our investment, innovation, and sectors team, which is attracting investment to Canada and building new science- and technology-based partnerships with other countries to help our researchers tap into the innovative work being done around the world.
In short, we're very proud of our many efforts to connect Canadians with opportunities beyond our borders. I can assure this committee that we'll continue providing the highest possible level of services to Canadians at the best possible value. I look forward to working closely with the business community and with parliamentarians from all sides to move our trade priorities forward in the time ahead. We need to make Canada more competitive, more prosperous, and more successful for future generations. We need a stable trade policy to do that. I look forward to working with you to develop the best possible trade policy for Canada, one that is not subject to partisan gyrations over time.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.