I would say that the economic diplomacy theme requires the business strategies of our Canadian firms, of all sizes, to be oriented towards growth markets.
I know members of this committee travel widely in Canada in your constituencies and through your committee work. I would urge you to have one simple question that you ask all firms that you meet, which is, “What is your plan to go into new markets?” A supplementary question might be, “What are the tools that the government needs to help you with that plan?” If the business doesn't have a plan, that's a management failure. But if it does have a plan then, in Canada today, the financial tools of our incredibly solid banking system are there.
We're already an incredibly open market, and I'd like to see it become more so. I'd ask them, for example, do they have the talent they need? Is there a specific talent that they need to partner with local educational institutions to develop? Do they need to find that talent and either connect to it digitally, bring it in on a temporary basis, or partner with it to build a facility in another market?
Basically, we have been impressing upon our firms—and, in fact, they're market leaders—to have a strategy for Asia. More specifically, does China figure in their plans, given that it's a market of a billion people? And India, for example, because it's such a large growth market...but this is a country that's been rated, perhaps, as ranking 120 out of 150 countries as the most difficult place to do business. It doesn't benefit from the same, I would say, rule of law, lack of corruption, and more straightforward ways of doing business that Canada does. In that sense, our diplomatic assets are essential to help Canadian firms navigate the complexity of these markets, particularly the bureaucratic elements of importing and exporting to these markets.
Thank you.