CEPA fits with our global commerce strategy. I know that the global commerce strategy is being updated and renewed and maybe improved upon, but it's important that we pursue our trade interests and our trade strategy in accordance with an overarching strategy. One of the concerns I have is going out there and just signing agreements with any country that might be willing to sit down with us. We want it to fit our strategy.
I also argue that we don't want to oversell the effect of an agreement such as this. It's sometimes simple to make overstatements of how effective this will be or the impacts it will have on Canadian jobs, and that kind of thing. I would argue that Canadian commercial interests are driving our policy to get more involved with India, rather than the other way around. Canadian trade and investment with India has increased significantly, and that has led to more interest. But as I said in my first point, having an investment and trade agreement with India can facilitate the trade that's already growing and expanding. It will not drive that trade.
Finally, I think it's really important that we continue along this path of fostering strong relations at the government and at the commercial level with Asia, and with India, in this case, in particular. There's clear evidence that it's very tough work. It's difficult work for firms to start new markets. It's important to have networks and it's important to have relationships. There's one area where the Government of Canada can support that, and that's by having people on the ground having and developing networks. It is a difficult job. That is a capacity that we have and should continue to foster.
I just have a couple more comments on those positions.
I argued in a recent communiqué that was published by the School of Public Policy that it seems like a slam dunk that we should have a mission to India and an agreement with India. India is large, it's rapidly growing, and we share a lot of common ground in terms of democratic and colonial histories.
For those reasons, it seems like a really strong case for a mission there—at the time I was talking about the mission—but also for an agreement, but there are things working against the effectiveness of these kinds of agreements, and one of them is distance. India is a long way away, and there's very clear economic evidence, empirical evidence, that distance continues to matter. Of course, costs have come down in travel and communication, but distance is vital and it's important. Therefore, even if we sign a trade agreement with India, it's still going to be far away; it's still going to be a challenge to do business there. Again, it's not going to spur trade and investment, but it will facilitate it.
I mentioned the networks being important. Again, there's a lot of empirical evidence that these are important things. One of the rationales for our reaching out more to India was that there is a large Indian diaspora. Some people made arguments that there were good political reasons to go to India, but there are also very good economic reasons. There's evidence that migration stocks, the number of immigrants in countries, can drive trade and investment. That's because of the network effect that I spoke about earlier.
So relationships matter, networks are important, and having strong relationships and building these relationships are important. The long history we have with migration from India, and again, some of our colonial past, shares a strong argument for fostering this kind of trade agreement going forward.
The last point I'd like to make is that there are a lot of challenges that remain in our relationship with India. It's a complicated relationship and it will continue to be that way. But I think the recent Harper FDI policy may actually give us a little bit more leverage with India. India is paying attention to us. India noticed this recent decision on Friday to allow state-owned enterprises to invest in Canada. They noticed very clearly that we stated strongly that the future of such deals will only occur under exceptional circumstances.
I think India took notice of Canada, maybe for the first time—maybe even more than when the recent trade mission visited India. I think they really noticed Canada on Friday.
I would say strike while the iron is hot. We have an opportunity now to push hard. India has noticed us, and maybe this is a good time to push hard to try to get an agreement done.
Thank you.