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
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses.
I'd also like to welcome Mr. Easter. We worked together on the Canada-U.S. committee and the regulatory cooperation council. The RCC is an ongoing initiative, and I appreciate the work that the CBSA does and continues to do. We work on it together with our friends at Homeland Security to try to make the 49th as seamless as possible. It's easier said than done, as you can see with regard to a witness today.
It's something that I know Minister Fast is working closely on with his counterparts in the U.S., trying to make that border as friendly as possible, because about $1 million a minute and $2 billion a day is going across the border. These are the most integrated economies in the world. One in five jobs is based on trade, and we know that it's about 25% of our GDP. We have to continue to work together. I thank you folks for your entrepreneurial skills and for creating jobs.
One of the mandates of this mission of our committee is that we're trying to help your businesses expand not only to the U.S. but across to the other 38 new trading partners that we've signed agreements with. One of the initiatives that Minister Fast has been going across the country about, with some of the other ministers, is the Go Global workshops. Let me quickly go around the room and to our witnesses who are here via video and ask you to let me know if you've heard of the Go Global workshops, if you've participated in them, and, if you have, if you think they're good. If you haven't, maybe we can connect you with them.
Mr. McKay.
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Canada
I was just looking at the details of Mr. Fast's program, and that's the sort of outreach that needs to happen, especially with a program that's this detailed and tries to dig into the elements of what the government is doing to reach out to SMEs, different levels of business development, and different levels of exploring our export initiatives. It's the sort of local partnership that needs to develop, because really, it's that face-to-face contact and the ability, as I think we've heard from the other witnesses, to be able to speak to a trade commissioner, to be able to speak to a representative from the organization and have that conversation about their personal situation.
That's certainly why we've started developing these tools: because we need to address specific questions and help them find solutions rather than give them general information about opportunities.
Chief Executive Officer, Caboo Paper Products Inc.
We haven't dug too deeply into it. We've been so busy developing this business in the past few years that it's been tough to turn over every stone, but we could definitely benefit from that. We're in the kind of business where everyone needs our product, and if we're addressing the problems of the environment and deforestation this should be an international business.
We could definitely benefit from that. If there's any way a business like ours could network more with international leaders, or if there's anything like that where we can start to export into additional regions, we could totally benefit from that.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Maybe start up a business.
One of the other things you want the government to create is an eighth day so you can at least get some sleep. I know it's difficult.
Chief Executive Officer, Caboo Paper Products Inc.
Yes, and definitely when you have a family, you want to spend time with them and you need that work/life balance.
It's been a sacrifice, but we think it's worth making the sacrifice. We believe highly in this, not only for our brand but also the type of commodity we're trading. We think it could make a difference to the environment. Something like that could definitely benefit us.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
That's fantastic.
So our gentleman in remote, sweet Saskatoon.
President and Chief Executive Officer, International Road Dynamics Inc.
Yes, with 65% of our business in the United States and our equipment on the borders between Mexico and the United States and between Canada and the United States, we're very aware of Go Global to help trucking companies cross the border more quickly. It's an important part of our business, and given our exports we welcome every opportunity to meet with officials.
Just as a side comment, yes, because we deal in very large Federal Highway Administration projects, Buy America has been a big issue for us and has resulted in the loss of Canadian jobs as a certain amount of our manufacturing had to be moved to the United States to comply with that.
Thank you.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thanks.
Mr. Hicks, are you familiar with Go Global workshops?
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Moldmakers
I'm not that well versed in them, but I know our members have participated and, again, our prime international market is also the U.S. and Mexico.
The one thing I like that I've heard so far is that with Go Global, I think you're getting more just-in-time information rather than, say, a five-year study. So I think that would really be a good uptick to encourage our members and something I will take back from this video conference today, to encourage our members to participate more in Go Global. So we applaud you for having that as well.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Good, and I appreciate your being the messenger to your colleagues as well, because if they're not aware of these workshops.... We're trying to provide the services, whether through meetings like this or advertising through different industry brochures and conferences, because we are trying to help you take that idea, the concept, to commercialization.
Mr. Yu or Mr. Addante, have you had briefings with the trade commissioner service to help discuss some of the opportunities?
Chief Executive Officer, Caboo Paper Products Inc.
I have been to some international trade shows and I've had trade commissioners come up to me at the booths. I believe that's what you're talking about. For instance in Germany, we were at a trade show and I had several, I believe they were trade commissioners, representing, say, Denmark or Holland or Germany, places like that.
Conservative
Chief Executive Officer, Caboo Paper Products Inc.
Yes, they definitely approached me.
They weren't too familiar with the industry, and I didn't expect a one-stop-shop solution, but they definitely were there to help. To this day I can't say we've had any leads come through from them yet, but they've tried.
The one in Japan was very helpful as well. They've definitely all been very helpful. They're doing what they can. But as a suggestion, I would say maybe a few more resources and a little more knowledge of the specific industry would be helpful. And I know it's easier said than done.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback
I'm going to have to stop you there.
Mr. Morin, you have five minutes.
Marc-André Morin NDP Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Mr. McKay, we met in a particularly connected city, Saint-Sauveur, which won an eTown award for the most connected city in Canada. I can tell you that, in my riding, that is an exception. If we want business to move forward to the future, we have to make sure that a network is available, that the signal is of an acceptable quality and that the service is provided at an affordable price.
In Mont-Saint-Michel, in the north of the riding where I live, the service is very expensive. It is like driving the Flintstones' car on a freeway. You spend hours trying to do business online. Then it crashes and stops working.
Have you seen similar conditions in more rural or remote regions of Canada? Do you think the networks are up to providing businesses with service?
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Canada
Je vais répondre en anglais.
In Canada we certainly see regional differences in the capacity of the networks to service individuals and businesses, but it has been growing stronger over the past 10 years, and we do see pockets across the country, whether in rural Quebec, or New Brunswick, or P.E.I., or even the Yukon, where you have full online businesses that conduct business all day long based on the network. You're right, there are delays and capacity could be greater. There could both be greater investment in the systems and there could be greater band width to those communities.
As a company, we're approaching that challenge of delivering bandwidth to rural and remote areas by exploring the technology and by using what we call “moonshot experiments” to see if we can develop new technology that doesn't require the depth of investment to create physical infrastructure to deliver broadband, 3G, LTE, that level of capacity, to rural communities. One we have is called Project Loon, which involves using sub-stratospheric balloons to deliver 3G connectivity. It's an experiment that's currently underway in New Zealand and Brazil.
There are other questions about whether or not you can use small-scale satellites to deliver that sort of connectivity, or even a new generation of microwave or radio transmission. As a company, one of the areas we are working in on a global scale is to address those capacity challenges, because not only do they affect rural and remote Canada, but obviously they also affect Africa, areas of Asia, and even areas of Europe. You're right to identify it as one of the big hurdles for businesses in those smaller communities, because there's a real advantage in front of them and they need constant connectivity.
NDP
Marc-André Morin NDP Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Something is limiting e-commerce. There are pockets of resistance where e-commerce is not developing as quickly as it should.
What regulations, what measures, could we put in place to give users some sense of security so that they are not always worried about the security of their data or financial information and so that they are not victims of fraud or abuse?
Head, Public Policy and Government Relations, Google Canada
Once again, I think the frameworks around security of the networks and the security of financial systems have evolved over the past 10 years, but you're right to identify that as a concern.
One area we're working on as a company, and importantly in Montreal, is to have a cybersecurity team that deals specifically with attempts to deceive users on the web and through our search results. It's called safe browsing, and if you arrive at a search result that we have seen, through our systems, will to try to take you to a malicious website or to steal your information, it will actually block your path and not let you go forward, and warn you.
From the private sector point of view, we find it's just as important for us to make those investments so that our users are confident in these tools, so they can make those financial investments as a small business and be confident that the transaction will work all the way through for them and their customers.
In terms of the government, there's—
