Evidence of meeting #66 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was indian.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thirty-four million: so you can imagine that there might well be some opportunities for Canada to do this.
One thing I thought you might focus on and that I was surprised at was the reference to your company, which is the Pacific Exotic Foods company. Briefly, what do you do?
President, Pacific Exotic Food Inc.
I started my company by importing and exporting Indian groceries. I was the first one to start making natural juices and tropical juices. That's why it was given the name: Exotic Foods. For the natural fruit juices, I deal with major chain stores here, such as Sobeys and Save-On-Foods, and all kinds of things, plus some exporting to the U.S.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
You'll forgive me because I don't know: do you experience tariff barriers when you bring products from India to Canada?
President, Pacific Exotic Food Inc.
I bring them from India to Canada and I manufacture here. I bring raw material here from India.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I don't mean to be rude, because I think you have a propensity to dialogue. I think you would make very good in politics, but it strikes me—
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Respectfully, would a free trade agreement help your business, yours specifically?
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
For you, Mr. Ghuman, just so I can understand it better, because you're in real estate. Could you imagine that a free trade agreement, or at least one that establishes clearer rules between two sovereign states, would help your business?
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
I'm getting some positives.
You're dying to say something, Mr. Dhesi, I sense that.
As an Individual
—to some extent yes, but what about my investment? The government should be there to protect me—
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Perfect. Again, it's the importance of a rules-based system to help protect investment, to help protect your business interests, and also to lower tariff barriers in your case, Mr. Dhesi—
As an Individual
Just like Mr. Dhesi, I have done the import-export business with India from Canada. It was about eight or nine years ago, and I had some problems. It happened to be my partner, who was from India and really did an excellent job ripping me off. After one year or so, I said “thank you very much”. I lost some money, not very much, and I closed my business.