International Trade Committee on May 11th, 2015

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Minister, on March 18, 2015, our Prime Minister announced support to help boost Canadian exports, specifically, a new export market development program that will provide a total of $50 million over five years in direct financial assistance to entrepreneurs seeking to export to emerging markets for the first time, and an expansion of the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, representing $42 million over the first five years, and $9.25 million in ongoing support after that. So can you tell us how these two programs will assist SMEs to make the leap into exporting?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

In the recent budget 2015, we confirmed that our government was establishing two new funds, one of which is directly targeted at small and medium-sized businesses. We have identified that it is our small and medium-sized businesses that have the greatest challenge in stepping forward, stepping over the line, and starting to export, because they don't have the resources available to them. Most of them are so focused on trying to be successful within Canada, and perhaps within North America, that they don't have time to look at all the other markets out there. We're saying to them, let us partner with you. If you want to participate on a trade mission and you may not have quite the resources to do so, let us partner with you on a dollar-per-dollar matching basis, and you can come with us in a non-threatening environment and be exposed to this new market. You'll meet some potential customers, you'll learn about the business environment, the regulatory environment there, and then you can make an informed choice. We want to be facilitators of our SMEs now taking advantage of the markets we're opening around the world.

So that first fund is focused on that. The second fund, of course, is to expand our trade commissioner service because we know that the trade commissioner service is the best agency of its kind in the world. We're never above constructive criticism and we continue to improve the delivery of those services, but we also want to expand the number of people who are providing those services to small and medium-sized businesses. We expect that we'll be able to add another 20 trade commissioners in total to our complement around the world and across Canada.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Minister, over the last two months we have heard tremendous support from stakeholders for the Go Global workshops. Can you tell us what the next steps will be in raising awareness of how our government supports export agencies?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

The purpose of these Go Global workshops was to raise the profile of the opportunities that our Canadian companies have to go into new markets, and to raise the profile of the tools we've made available to them, some of which I mentioned earlier. What we are now hoping to do is to take the next step, not just to appeal to a broad cross-section of SMEs but, where warranted, to focus on specific sectors and raise the profile of our trade commissioner service and tools with them. We expect we'll be rolling out that plan in the near future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

Okay.

Mr. Allen, you have about three minutes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Well, thank you. I only have one question, but it has eight parts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

You have three minutes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Minister, and officials, thank you for being here. I appreciate that.

I want to pick up a little on where you left off with Ms. Grewal's question.

I wanted to ask you how the department has been informed by the Go Global workshops. During the testimony we've heard that most people got a lot out of them, and some of the companies who were here and who didn't attend wished they had. In terms of the next steps, you talked about having a focused agenda. Are we looking at a canned delivery of these things? It seems that a targeted strategy would be good for some, but maybe for companies that were just thinking about it there could be a canned package. How has some of the feedback from these sessions informed the department on future steps?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

After each Go Global workshop we have the participants fill out questionaries. The purpose of the questionaries is to inform us how to shape and improve the program as it moves forward. We have identified significant opportunities in certain regions of the country where we can focus on two or three sectors. In others we have a broad cross-section of industries that want to participate. We want to make sure that the Go Global workshops series is not just a series of canned events but evolves as our stakeholders inform us of the improvements they would like to see.

By the way, we've already implemented many improvements along the way and you'll see noticeable improvements, as each of these workshops takes place, in how we deliver them. What we do in those global workshops is that profile.... We'll have representatives of EDC; the Business Development Bank of Canada, which is focused exclusively on SMEs; the CCC; the trade commissioner service; and a number of companies that are already exporting successfully. They share their best practices with the companies that are there. They share with those companies some dos and don'ts and mistakes they've made that shouldn't be repeated. This is all invaluable information. Our companies then go back home, they get to make informed choices as to what markets they want to penetrate, and we assist them in doing so by providing them with the tools they need.

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

You have 20 seconds.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay. I can't ask the next eight parts?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

Thank you, Minister. I must say, as the chair, it's great to see the work that you and your team does. We thank you for the work you do. We know you put in many hours and sacrifice a lot of personal time to get the work done for Canada. We want you to know, as a committee, that we appreciate that work and effort.

As a committee, we're going to suspend now for five minutes, and then we have to come back. We have to do a little committee business in regard to meetings, and there are a few other items we need to deal with, too.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

We are suspended.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

[Proceedings continue in camera]