Evidence of meeting #56 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 business.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also want to thank our witnesses for being here with us today and helping us with this important study.
My first question is for Mr. McKay. You mentioned in your remarks with regard to the new site that Google launched in terms of being able to help businesses export. I'm just wondering if you can talk a bit about that and help us understand exactly what that is and how you hope to help businesses.
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Canada
Certainly. As I mentioned in my remarks, we offer a number of services to small businesses because small and medium-sized enterprises are big customers both in terms of number and importance on our advertising side, as well as in the services and tools we provide to them. Importantly, what we've learned over the years in dealing with small and medium-sized businesses around the world is that there's a relative lack of understanding about the markets they're trying to break into. Even when they have advertising tools in front of them, and have the ability to market digitally to foreign markets, they may not understand the cultural traits, the seasonality of retail behaviour, school behaviour, and cultural events that may influence their ability to sell into a market or that may encourage them to launch digital advertising campaigns at a specific time. This site is intended to give them specific information about those characteristics and those signals within 10 of the largest export countries for Canadian businesses. As well it provides them resources and links to our partners at the EDC and other organizations so they have some idea of the tools available to them to grow into our market places.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Last Thursday. Can you share with us the initiatives that Google is taking in getting the message out to SMEs and that they are able to take advantage of this?
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Canada
In terms of this particular initiative, we are participating in a Toronto Board of Trade event alongside Minister Bernier and the Mayor of Toronto to promote the site itself. The head of Google Canada, Sam Sebastian, will be going across the country later in the summer and fall to talk about these sorts of export-driven information campaigns. These are naturally the sort of products that we encourage our customers and our users to use when they approach us about what is available to them for advertising. It provides part of a corpus of information we provide to our customers and users when they're considering what to do in terms of online advertising.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Perfect. My next question is for Mr. Bergan. If anyone else has comments to make on this question please feel free as well.
You mentioned some of your dealings with the trade commissioners, and possibly with some of the other government agencies such as EDC and BDC. Are you able to share your experience with the committee on how well equipped you feel these organizations are and if they have the necessary tools to help SMEs succeed?
President and Chief Executive Officer, International Road Dynamics Inc.
I guess overall my experience with all of them has been very good over the years. We've been in business for 35 years. I've seen a lot of changes. Many of the changes are a result of government changes, government priority changes, and rollback or cutbacks in budgets. I think they all have a role and I think they all can help Canadian companies. They've certainly helped us in specific ways.
It was EDC that was able to get behind us and provide the guarantees so we can maintain our line for the export markets with the payment guarantee program they have—if something happens and your customer can't pay, or there's turmoil in that particular country—and the bonding. When you get into these countries, especially on infrastructure projects, they require bonding. EDC has been able to provide that to us. Some customers are hesitant to dealing with an SME from Canada, and the CCC gets in the front and then it's a government-to-government contract or a customer-to-government contract.
The area that I think they can really help with—and once again I emphasize the bureaucracy that exists in many of these countries is far more than we're used to, especially if you've dealt in the United States and try to go offshore—is the potential of corruption. I think that the Foreign Affairs, its local offices—as I said the first phone call I make is to the ambassador or the commercial officer—can lead us and help us through all of the tangle of uncertainties, local policies, and the things that are unusual. They've been very good at that. They usually have a commercial officer who is a Canadian, but they're supported by staff that are local. They have access to all the information that we ever needed. If I say there's any one thing that's been helpful for us in going offshore with our first sales in Egypt in the early 1980s, it was External Affairs.
Conservative
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Moldmakers
I would like to jump in. Our sentiments are similar to what the last gentleman said. We've had a lot of good workings with the EDC.
When we have a lot of general meetings throughout the year, we've had EDC at a round table discussion with some of our major banks. The banks can do certain things for us in long-term and short-term financing. They work in harmony or cooperation with EDC. Each one states what they can and can't do for us.
Again, what our individual members work out with them is their own business. As I said, we've had very good cooperation in general. It is a great option to have available to us when needed. We appreciate that EDC program. As the last gentleman said, there have been some changes, but in general we are very supportive of it.
I was wondering, and I don't know if this is appropriate, but the last question that was asked to me about Buy American—
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Moldmakers
I've had a couple of minutes—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback
I'm running out of time, so hopefully we'll get a chance to come back to you.
We'll move on to Mr. Easter.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hicks, go ahead and finish answering that question on Buy American first, before I start.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Moldmakers
Thank you very much for that.
I want to mention that we are pretty well stand-alone when it comes to Buy American. Our reputation stands for itself, but we do get some problems. One thing that you could help us with, if you're looking for constructive suggestions to help us, is at the border. Primarily, most of our customers are either American or Mexican. We have some tremendous problems at the borders with letters of introduction and so on.
We can visit them and try to solicit business with only a passport, but when they come to visit us they need letters of introduction. They get grilled at the border like you wouldn't believe. I don't know if the others would agree with me, but I've said several times that we need to create a certain type of passport or an attachment to their passport that says that these are VIPs who are coming into Canada.
Obviously, we need to protect the border, but when these people come into Canada to place business with us or potentially to place business with us, they should be welcomed at the border and not given the third degree and brought into secondary inspection and so on. That is an ongoing problem for us. When it is Buy American you can imagine an American's attitude when he's unnecessarily harassed at the border trying to come into Canada.
There should be sensitivity training for our border people when this type of people are coming into Canada in my opinion, whether it's for our business or other businesses or people who are looking to invest in Canada. In my mind that is an improvement that could be done, because it's still happening.
I thank you for letting me say that.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Just to add to that, if I could, Mr. Chair, as you know this is not my regular committee. I am the critic for Public Safety and National Security, but I have travelled to a lot of border points over the last 18 months, and that is one of the complaints that you get. I think you said “sensitivity training”.
I say a little common sense would go a long way—
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
—at some of those border places in understanding the needs of business, the need to move quickly, and so on.
It's not the purview of this committee, but it may be something the committee wants to consider a recommendation on, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I want to thank all of the witnesses for coming.
I'd like to start with you, Mr. McKay. You said, and I think you are correct, that the web is a great equalizer. I'm from P.E.I., and we like to think that you can do anything over broadband in P.E.I. that can be done anywhere else in the country—except we've got a little snow at the moment.
You mentioned as well that small businesses are not utilizing websites. Can anything be done from a government perspective, either provincial or federal, to assist in that regard, because I think young people especially are there. People my age may not be.
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Canada
Thank you for bringing that up, Mr. Easter.
I think earlier in this study you had a witness from the Business Development Bank who discussed the sorts of consulting services they provide small businesses. I think there could be a broader holistic approach to encouraging the growth of business abroad through the existing mechanisms, through a simpler interface with the trade commissioner service, and through a simpler understanding of what the EDC can do for you when you're growing as a business, so that you're able to map out exactly how you're going to grow your business.
Perhaps there's even the possibility, whether it's a credit system or a tax-refund-based system, to encourage businesses to take on the additional cost of exploring an online service, whether it's e-commerce or simply digital advertising, or even if it's moving some of their human resources and finance systems that are currently pieces of paper in the back office into an online environment that makes their life that much simpler and allows them to conduct their business that much more simply.
I'll give you a slight anecdote, since I was in Charlottetown in October. As someone from central Canada, I landed and wanted to do something interesting. I picked up my phone and immediately looked at where I was going to get a dinner at a place not in Charlottetown. That's a perfect example if you're a business in October in a tourist-based region where you have very deep seasonality. I could tell from the online listings via my phone what companies had websites and were still open on October 14 to serve me dinner and give me a tour.
