Evidence of meeting #57 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 companies.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I have a minute, so you have 15 seconds each. If you could do one thing, if you could advise the government to do one thing that would help SMEs increase their international trade, what would it be?
We'll start with you, Mr. Turi.
5 p.m.
General Counsel and Director, Global Business Services, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters
Obviously, continuing to open markets is huge, so let's continue to invest in opening new markets. That's vitally important. With respect to the direct funding, follow some of things I was outlining earlier. Let's not put up too many barriers, let's not create limitations based on size and history, and let's look at the export potential of each project. It doesn't have to be a massive type of fund where we're funding thousands of companies. I think that if you focused on smaller companies, greater impact, more potential, I think this would have a better chance of moving the needle.
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
I would say advertise, advertise, advertise, and no, that doesn't necessarily mean television commercials and an extended budget. That's not what I'm saying. There are things like Facebook, Twitter. There are all kinds of things. Get the word out there for what services are available.
5 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Reduce trade barriers. Ultimately, that's the biggest impact for a small company. Whether that's a free trade agreement or whether that's importing into Canada through CBSA, just try to reduce them as much as possible.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Yes. Thank you.
You mentioned green technology. I spoke with a constituent today and one of the services they provide is fencing for agricultural communities and farmers who need electrical fencing. One of the aspects is that they don't have access to power, so they use solar panels in the rural areas. They try to support Canadian businesses all they can, but they're buying their solar panels from China. They just got a ruling under the Special Import Measures Act, and it's gone up over 200%. It was initiated by four Canadian companies in the solar industry trying to stay competitive. So here we're penalizing a Canadian company that's trying to promote the use of green energy, but Canadian businesses can't buy the product as supplied by Canadian businesses.
I understand what you're saying, that we're trying to promote and we want to promote green technology, but we also are a globalized world and when government interferes.... If everything is level and we have a fair trading field across the world, that's great. That's why trade agreements are so important, I believe. You eliminate those unfair taxes and subsidies. Wouldn't you agree?
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
I would agree; however, Canada, like any country, still needs to be prepared to take corrective action when other countries are dumping goods or are unfairly subsidizing or doing some things that quite frankly aren't fair. If you leave business to business to deal with itself, the market will dictate price. The market will dictate all kinds of different things. When foreign governments start getting involved, you have....
I don't know why the dumping was placed on the Chinese solar panels. Whether it be subsidization or whatever else, Canada needs to be prepared to take a defensive posture in those circumstances.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal, separate from government, oversees that, and there's the WTO. I think the balances are there. That's just an example.
5 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
Yes. They're supposed to determine injury, right? Obviously, if it was not being fair to the Canadians, they had to do what they had to do. I think most Canadian traders understand that. It's difficult when you get foreign government policy that's actually not good for our economy. There's not very much we can do about it.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Randy Hoback
Thank you, witnesses. It was great having you here. I appreciate your spending some time with us.
Colleagues, if you can just hang here for five minutes, we have a little bit of housecleaning to do before we adjourn the meeting.
[Proceedings continue in camera]