Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to comment even briefly on the global markets action plan. I was in front of the committee in December and enjoyed that occasion.
The document, Mr. Chairman and members, is certainly a clearly and cogently set-out document. It's written in easily understood language, which for us trade economists and trade junkies is not always the case. We love acronyms, and this one spares you from that. The graphics and the tables are excellent, and many of the most important aspects of current Canadian trade priorities, including listing the key foreign markets, priority sectors, and the addresses and emails—all of it very useful information—are set out and described very well.
Canadian governments past and present and increasingly provincial and territorial governments, which have partial or full jurisdiction over many areas of contemporary international trade negotiations, have done a very good job, I would argue, since 1947—the founding of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—in helping, with other countries, to establish a solid framework for trade and related matters, especially investment, on which every region of our country is so very dependent.
So let me say at the outset, if I might, Mr. Chair, that in essence I'm in general agreement with what's in the document. Trade and vigorous trade policy negotiation and implementation is, I would argue, a central pillar, a foundation, of Canadian economic growth and prosperity. The global markets plan provides a good description of what is going on internationally, who is doing what, what Canadian priorities are, and who benefits from all the concentrated, high-priority activity in this important area of public policy and commercial activity.
Although I hate to suggest it, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I think that Canada needs a global markets action plan 3.0 right away. The one we are discussing here today, as good as it is, I would argue is already dated. It tells half the story. We need the other half to address and to take advantage of the world that is evolving ever so rapidly.
The new world is a world of innovation, of creativity, of knowledge, of services, of the Internet, and of electronic commerce, none of which the current plan—which I call 2.0—is focused on. The new world is also a world of imports as well as of exports; of investment, which often replaces trade in goods and services; of massive flows of capital, which now overwhelm the volume of international trade and even investment at times. It's a world of highly mobile skilled labour, of entrepreneurs, and of venture capitalists who can invest and settle basically anywhere in the world. It's a world in which Canada has all sorts of advantages, I would argue, if we choose to deploy and to support them in the years ahead.
Given the size of the investments needed in this new, emerging world, this innovation and knowledge-intensive world, I'd suggest that it's very important that the private sector and the public sector in Canada—and indeed elsewhere—work together to get the results we need, especially for the next and succeeding generations.
My thought, then, is that the global markets action plan 3.0 will need to focus much more than the current document does on the domestic economy, to help exporters and investors be in a position to take advantage of all the doors that are so well described and that are being opened for them through our very current successful, vigorous, and ongoing program of trade negotiations and of trade promotion.
As the Governor of the Bank of Canada and others have been saying in recent days, exports and the jobs that are directly and more importantly indirectly related to our international trade have not been increasing as they should, as we expected them to increase. Indeed, if you look at the economy overall, trade is a drag on our economy at the moment, although the numbers, Chair, in the last two months have looked a little more promising again.
We thus have serious work to do in Canada, I would argue. It involves all forms of labour, every community, capital, education, and infrastructure to help our traders and our investors prosper and to contribute even more to our growth and prosperity in the years ahead.
I think further that, while understandable, we haven't paid enough attention in recent years to the United States. Distance, size, and economic growth count in trade—that's what we measure day by day—and our nearest neighbour has all three. It has growth, it has nearness of distance, and it has large size with respect to us in particular. We enjoy an extraordinary privilege, located where we are here in Canada, and I think we should take more advantage of it.
Finally, Mr. Chairman and members, we'll have to get our minds around exchange rate policy. The variability of exchange rates adds to uncertainty and to inefficiency, as every small and medium-sized business—which I know you will be focusing on in this committee—and even larger firms know. We also have to understand matters such as electronic commerce, online trade, and the digital economy more generally, as well as all the privacy and security issues related thereto.
Further, we'll have to address the important matter of how to innovate here or to buy technology and ideas from abroad more effectively, to commercialize these ideas and technologies in order to produce the goods and services that the world's consumers and businesses need in the years ahead.
All this is material, I would suggest, Mr. Chairman and members, for a global markets action plan 3.0.
Thank you.