International Trade Committee on April 22nd, 2015

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thanks for sharing that.

The other nugget I found was in Minister Paradis' portfolio under International Development, and you shared with us that there's an opportunity for Canadian companies. Canadians by nature are a little more humble and are not out there waving the flag as high as we should be and as proudly as we should be.

Can you share a bit about the opportunities in working with our foreign aid and Canadian companies and how we can market our clean tech through our global markets action plan initiatives?

[Céline Bak]

I think this is an example that applies to engineering as well, insofar as Canadian companies are not necessarily part of the set of solutions that our development colleagues within DFATD—with all its letters—look to. It's a case of our being aware of our own capacity and actually enabling International Development or the former CIDA to be able to contract with private companies in order to do bilateral initiatives.

At the moment, that contracting vehicle is mostly limited to NGOs. NGOs play an important role, but there is evidence to suggest that private companies provide greater impact for the money than do NGOs. That's something to consider.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thanks.

This is for Claude, Anne, and Ramona. Anne and Ramona were here before the meeting and we talked a bit.

Are you aware of the Go Global workshops that Minister Fast, our Minister of International Trade, and our trade commissioner officers are conducting across Canada? Have you had an opportunity to participate in one?

[Anne Jackowetz]

Yes, I sat on the panel in the one for Kitchener-Waterloo, and it was very beneficial. I think it had a good response. That was the first time, too, that we had everybody from all the different ministries gathered in the same room and saw them together, and hopefully they'll be working together in future endeavours like that.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Ramona?

[Ramona Materi]

I have not attended the events. I am aware of them. In fact, it was one of my recommendations that I made to the committee. It may be expensive in time and money, perhaps, but it is this kind of face-to-face event that is bringing companies into the room and bringing the various alphabet soup of agencies together. Again, thinking of the size of firms, if you're wanting to reach out, one thing to consider is offering them on a weekend, on a Saturday or that type of thing.

My other recommendation for them was to look at smaller markets, in a certain sense, like a Nanaimo, and other places such as Prince George, which may in fact have some potential world-class companies that are serving the agriculture sector or the resource sector and so forth.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

There is one next week in Nanaimo, ironically, and it is about the relationships of people around the table.

Claude, have you had a chance to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

We're going to have to cut you off right there, Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I was just going to ask if he knew about that.

[Claude Choquet]

I am not familiar with those workshops. I took part in some of Minister Ed Fast's activities that were held every six months and that Ramona Materi was also part of. Otherwise, what you are saying is new to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

I'm sorry. Hopefully one of the other colleagues will pick up the question.

We'll go to Monsieur Morin.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Bak, in my riding, we have a company that specializes in renewable energy. It is the first company in Quebec to trade carbon credits with California. What you were alluding to previously is perhaps a huge market for all our SMEs that export their products. We are not seeing it in Canada, but some countries around the world are coming up with regulations to encourage clean technologies. Even in China, the requirements for architecture and transportation are very advanced.

In your view, what potential could we exploit if we just opened our eyes and looked at reality from that perspective?

[Céline Bak]

I assume you are talking about Biothermica. Is that the company you are referring to?

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Yes.

[Céline Bak]

They are a jewel in Quebec's crown; they do very good work. Enerkem is another example along the same lines. A number of companies in Canada can capitalize on the impact they have on the carbon market. It is certainly possible to increase the level of knowledge in those companies, which could put a value on their impact on greenhouse gas emissions and ensure that they survive and grow strong.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

In your view, is there any virtue in exploring the regulations in the countries we are doing business with to see what possibilities are out there? I am thinking, for example, about incentive programs in renewable energy.

[Céline Bak]

Companies in the sector are already doing that. The regulations set the stage for the markets, whether for water, for renewable energy, for energy efficiency or for transportation. Regulations always set the stage for the markets.

Yes, Environment Canada could produce a summary of all the regulatory changes around the world that our companies could use. That kind of summary would be a useful tool for our businesses.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

In terms of those missed opportunities you briefly mentioned, is that fact that Canada is not part of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank going to limit our companies, such as our engineering or service firms, when it starts raining infrastructure contracts?

[Céline Bak]

There is an upside and a downside to the China development bank. The bottom line is that you have to pay to play, period, end of story, but it's not enough to pay. You have to pay and then you have to pay for demonstrations, so you have to be a shareholder, and then you have to show up with money to work on a particular project.

In the case of that bank, I expect that microgrids would be an area where we would want to show up and say that we have something special. Carbon capture is another area where we would want to say that we have something special. Low-carbon water is another area where we could be given a sandbox within an eco-town, where we could demonstrate what we have, and have the services that go with it, and from there do very well.

One of the downsides of being so serious about renewing infrastructure in Canada, which this government has absolutely been, is that Canadian engineering firms are really busy at home. We need to think about the fact that we're going to need to find international engineering partners for some of these projects. There is a sort of balancing act to play there.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Materi, do you feel that government institutions have enough data on companies to be able to appropriately match good companies with worthwhile areas?

I am on the outside looking in, but it seems to me that we do not have an industrial strategy like Korea or Japan, for example. We do not really have an industrial strategy aimed at specific areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

Mr. Morin, you're over your time by 10 or 15 seconds, so I think I'll stop you there.

We'll move on to Mr. Shory.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming here and enlightening us.

I will start with you, Ms. Materi, because you have experience living outside of Canada. You've lived in India and Australia. I'd like you to comment on whether or not Canadian companies understand foreign business cultures. This Monday we had a witness here who mentioned that to do business in China, you need to understand how business works there. Of course, I was born in India, and I grew up there. I can tell you that the business attitude in India is different from the attitude in Canada.

Do you find that Canadian companies are adequately informed about the personal aspect of business cultures in other countries? If not, how would you recommend that we address this information deficit?

[Ramona Materi]

To answer the first part of your question, I think probably that smart exporters, when they're starting out, try to go into a country where there's a business culture match. Maybe that's why there's a tendency to go to the U.S., because there is a match there. I would think that smart exporters who start off in Turkey, when there's nobody in the family in Turkey and who have never lived in Turkey, or were never an exchange student in Turkey, nothing, nothing, nothing.... I think the companies who are doing well get their feet wet in similar cultures.

With regard to the longer term, I just look at myself. I was a girl who grew up in North Vancouver. Because of the Rotary Club, I got to spend a year in India. Because of the Canadian government, I spent two years in a school where there were kids from 55 countries. Because of the Rotary Club, I studied in Switzerland. Because of an agricultural organization, I studied and worked in Australia. I think it is a longer-term strategy, and I think the efforts the government is making to support international student exchanges are absolutely crucial.

There's also remedying the issue in the short term. I personally have visited Turkey, but I've never done business there. Are the trade commissioners providing reality checks, as I presume they try to do, for businesses in terms of it being a different culture? It may prevent startups from just going in and then pulling back because they had no idea how people did things in China, whereas another company—such as yours, that has had a lot of experience in markets—is developing that knowledge.

Beyond a four-year election cycle, it's the long term. By the time I was 25, I had quite a bit of knowledge of different countries. I think it's very important that we continue to do that with people in exchanges and so forth.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Okay.

Ms. Jackowetz, you told us about your experience with the TCS, BDC, EDC, etc. Did the advice that Cravo receive reflect detailed knowledge of target markets, the business climate, the standards and interests, and the procurement processes in other countries?

[Anne Jackowetz]

I can't say definitely that this is where we got our knowledge from. For a lot of it we did our own research. By the time we engaged these parties, we already had our markets in mind and had done our research.

I will say, however, that there are some programs that EDC has been working on. I took part in one just the other day, a webinar that EDC put out on doing business in India. I was able to listen for over two hours. Canadian businesses who had successfully gone into the Indian market talked about their experience. To me, sharing stories with each other is great. They talked about what they found to be successful. I think programs like that are really valuable for us.

On our behalf, what we find useful is having somebody on the ground in those new markets that we're going into, somebody like a sales consultant. If we don't have a demonstration house there, we need to have somebody on the ground who is local and who can help us with that.