Evidence of meeting #54 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was welding.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Claude Choquet  President and Chief Executive Officer, 123 Certification
Céline Bak  Chief Executive Officer, Analytica Advisors Inc.
Anne Jackowetz  Vice President, Finance, Cravo Equipment Ltd.
Ramona Materi  Principal, Ingenia Consulting

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback

Thank you.

Mr. Gill, you have seven minutes.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to take this opportunity to thank our witnesses who are appearing before the committee and helping us with this study.

I'm going to start with Ms. Materi, and other witnesses may feel free to provide their input as well.

Ms. Materi, you mentioned in your remarks that we should maybe look at other countries for what is and is not working and what we can learn from that. I wonder if you have any experience, or if you have any information or knowledge you'd like to share with the committee in terms of policies. What is it that some competitors are doing that's really working for their SMEs that we could possibly learn from and maybe help implement to support our SMEs?

4:10 p.m.

Principal, Ingenia Consulting

Ramona Materi

I'm not completely familiar with those countries. I know from my experience in Vietnam that.... Coming back to having a strategy, as far as I know, Australia has a very robust strategy on exporting its educational services. When I saw them in Vietnam they were very active there.

Another strategy I am aware of, which might be controversial and about which others may have more knowledge than me.... As I say, this might be a bit controversial, but I understand that in Australia and the U.K., for example—it's subsidized, but there is a charge for services—they use their equivalent of trade commissioners. That may be controversial.

My own view is that if you're going to export markets, if you're serious about it, you'll put up some funding; if your company doesn't have that funding, are you in a position to make those exports? The reason I made the suggestion is because I don't know that much about the others. I'm concerned, as I say, about whether the trade commissioners know what our competitors are doing, or not. I don't know the answer.

4:10 p.m.

Vice President, Finance, Cravo Equipment Ltd.

Anne Jackowetz

I would like to add to that. We've got our first project in India in 2015, but one of the things we have found in getting that established is that we were competing there with Israel and the Netherlands, whose federal governments are providing subsidies to them to go in and set up demonstration houses to let the people see, in their own climate, using our facilities, how to grow. That has been huge. I think that's something that could be a good proposal for the Canadian government to get involved in, allowing SMEs to do their demonstrations in these various countries and give them support to show the products there, doing it not in our country but in their country.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON

Wonderful.

Does anybody else want to put in their 2 cents?

Thank you, and I—

4:10 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, 123 Certification

Claude Choquet

If you wish, I could weigh in on that.

In terms of innovation, I think that we are heading in the right direction. We must continue to support tertiary services where we have very highly developed expertise in technological development. The development should perhaps be global. We have to see how other countries are reacting to our innovations. The current process of government support for research and development must not be stopped, whether it is experimental or based on new technologies.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON

Please go ahead.

4:15 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Analytica Advisors Inc.

Céline Bak

If I might add, we do have examples of transformation occurring within the industry with regard to the move from R and D to products to services and it might be helpful to bring up that example. I bring up the example of Canadian Solar which is in the audience today. That company started in part with help from the CANMET labs within Natural Resources Canada with a leading edge technology. It then became a major manufacturer of solar panels that were used by other project developers.

It is now becoming a worldwide service provider for the development of major projects and the ownership and the operation of those projects with all the financing that goes with it. You have the whole evolution and they will now be a vector through which energy storage companies will work for microgrids. These microgrids are going to part of what I believe we could call “clean technology 2.0”, the next wave of clean technology.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON

Thank you.

My next question is related to some of the government agencies. I'm wondering if you can share with the committee your experience in dealing with the trade commissioner service, EDC, and BDC and how helpful they were to your organization in helping you to export, guiding you in the right direction, and having the ability to reach out to them. I think, Ms. Jackowetz, you mentioned that you had some dealings with them.

4:15 p.m.

Vice President, Finance, Cravo Equipment Ltd.

Anne Jackowetz

Yes. I think overall they've been very positive experiences. EDC and BDC are very good in their strategy to provide certain products to SMEs, but I think they could do a better job in promoting each other. I think sometimes they work in their own space with their own focus, and if we come with a problem that maybe they can't help us with but the other one could, I think if they worked together more, that would be beneficial.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback

Mr. Gill, your time is up, so I'm going to Ms. Freeland.

April 22nd, 2015 / 4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much to our witnesses, including our witness who is joining us long distance. It has been really valuable for the committee to hear directly from people running businesses.

Ms. Bak, I was really interested in the comment in your presentation about Canada being invited for years to second technical experts to the World Bank. Can you explain a little more what that invitation has been and why you think it is so important that we do it but haven't been doing it so far?

4:15 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Analytica Advisors Inc.

Céline Bak

It's a very interesting question. All of the international financial institutions have shared centres of excellence, which are used by all the countries that participate in lending. As you know Canada is a major shareholder in all the international financial institutions. A lot of the countries will come to those shared services of technical experts and say they have this problem, how can they fix it?

Other countries have seconded their technical experts to those shared services, people who understand what they have to offer. There are many ways of skinning a cat, of solving any problem. If you get expertise from someone from Spain about what they have to offer, or someone from Germany or Japan or Australia or South Korea for that matter, sometimes you end up with something from them. I know that we have been invited to second people to these organizations and we haven't taken the opportunity for reasons that I do not understand. It's a very low cost strategy. It probably would fall under Natural Resources Canada's bailiwick and could possibly be done in conjunction with industry.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Thank you very much for that. I know our analysts were listening. I think that would be a good specific point to raise.

I was also really interested in your reference to the fact that a lack of a clear national environmental strategy means that Canada has been losing out on specific agreements, like the U.S.-Mexico deal. Again, I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little. Where, in your view, should Canada have been and what have we lost?

4:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Analytica Advisors Inc.

Céline Bak

It's unusual for the U.S. to announce a diplomatic endeavour with Mexico without Canada being there. I note that. I think it has to do with climate change. You probably have noticed that climate change is a matter that is addressed by Secretary of State Kerry, but Secretary of State Kerry always talks about trade right after he talks about climate change. It is literally the next paragraph in the article in The Wall Street Journal, or The Financial Times, for that matter. I wonder if we might not take the benefit of putting those two items together. We can have a different conversation with some of our trading partners than that which we may be having today.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Do I have time for one more question, Mr. Chair?

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback

You have about two minutes left.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Okay, great.

Ms. Materi, I was really interested in your reference a moment ago to the Asian infrastructure bank. As you know, Canada is not a member. Should we be?

4:20 p.m.

Principal, Ingenia Consulting

Ramona Materi

Because I'm not an expert in the bank, I would only be able to offer my personal view, in that there are well-known human rights issues in China. There are practical issues: if everybody else is joining the club, should we? Perhaps they will do a second round of intaking members. I don't have the expertise to really say. As I say, I do think, though, there are the existing IFIs. On the services side, every opportunity that we can get Canadians in there—as in this example of getting that technical expertise—and leverage our membership to assist all SMEs, but particularly service SMEs, I think would be helpful.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Chrystia Freeland Liberal Toronto Centre, ON

Okay, thank you very much.

I just have a final question for our three witnesses who are here.

We heard some really interesting testimony from an entrepreneur from British Columbia. As a woman starting her own company, she said she was surprised to discover she had greater problems getting access to capital than she would have done had she been a man.

To our three women witnesses, have any of you experienced that? Do you have any ideas on what we can do to help?

Ms. Jackowetz, you look—

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback

Unfortunately it's going to have to be a short answer. You're running out of time, but I'll let her answer.

4:20 p.m.

Vice President, Finance, Cravo Equipment Ltd.

Anne Jackowetz

No, I haven't come across any issues myself. I'm not the president of the company, so maybe that has something to do with it. We have a male president.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback

Okay, I think we're going to have to move on here.

Mr. Cannan, you have seven minutes.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate your sharing your stories and insight. The school of hard knocks is the tuition that we need to learn from. You have aptly proposed some suggestions, and we want to incorporate those as we move forward to help other Canadian businesses to succeed such as you have.

Ms. Bak, I had the pleasure of meeting you in December and learning from you about the diplomatic commerce strategy. In your opening comments you talked about the government struggling to balance the budget. The good news is that the budget is balanced. One of the aspects we're working on is a diplomatic approach for a North American approach with the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. We'll be working with additional information coming before us soon because of the Paris talks in December. So we're looking forward to working right, and we do have the responsibility to work with our ten provincial and three territorial provinces in developing that.

In saying so, maybe you could share a little bit from some of the success stories you've learned about and shared with me, for example, solar and the one Canadian company specifically in Honduras, and how that's going.

4:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Analytica Advisors Inc.

Céline Bak

Yes, I would be very pleased to do that. It will give us an opportunity to bring in another institution that's less well known, the Canadian Commercial Corporation, which is an interesting entity.

Canada is one of only eight countries that has the facility to do sovereign-to-sovereign procurement. The Canadian Commercial Corporation, as you may have heard, signed a $15-billion agreement with the Government of Saudi Arabia for a major contract for light armoured vehicles and has traditionally been really focused on the world of military procurement. It is to be determined if it will continue and if it will actually take up the opportunity, but I believe the Canadian Commercial Corporation could play a role in the development of markets for companies in the clean technology industry.

In regard to Honduras, this is a very interesting example. Honduras is a country of priority for Canada's development strategy and is a country that is agriculturally based and has a lot of exports, such as melons. Melons play a huge part in building up the social infrastructure of Honduras. In order for Honduras to get the best price for those melons, the melons need to be refrigerated, and in order to do that, they need electricity. So in this instance, electricity is a core part of development.

Canadian Solar has been engaged with the Honduran government in discussions about the possibility of deploying what you can call “utility-scale solar” literally, instead of building large coal plants. You may or may not be aware of this, but the cost of solar is declining at such a rate that it will actually make a difference in terms of the amount of coal-powered energy that is deployed in the future.

It's a terrific story including international development and including our Canadian manufacturing and supply chain, bringing with it services in regard to financing, and actually training people within Honduras so that they can then work in other countries and develop the solar industry within the region.