Evidence of meeting #131 for International Trade in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was smes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership
When we were consulted by the federal government extensively on what the priorities were for the NAFTA renegotiations, we made it clear that it was to do no harm. By that we meant we should make sure we maintain market access into the United States, with 0% tariffs on all the things that we export to that jurisdiction. That's what a free trade agreement is. We would just emphasize that any future free trade agreement must have that as its priority focus. All of the rest of the add-ons are fantastic, but the prize is market access.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
These are good questions and good answers. We have time for one more MP.
Mr. Sheehan, you have the floor.
Terry Sheehan Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your testimony. That was great.
The fall economic statement yesterday talked about increasing our exports overseas by 50% and creating the global strategy. Perhaps we can get comments from you. There was some money associated with that. It is very timely that this fall economic statement happened and you're here today to respond on that comment.
Perhaps I'll start with Mathew.
November 22nd, 2018 / 12:30 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
As I said in my commentary, we were very pleased to see the $1.1-billion investment in an export strategy. That target very much aligns with what CME had asked for. We spoke about it in front of this committee before. Getting the tools right is really important. Just saying you're going to do it or throwing money at something is a first step, but it doesn't guarantee any outcome.
The other thing I'd say is—and we talked a little bit about this already—we shouldn't get so hung up on where trade is growing. The priority should be to grow trade. We don't have enough companies trading. We don't have enough companies scaling up to go global, so the priority really should be on expanding the number of companies and the number of things we're selling. It shouldn't matter whether it's in the States, Mexico, Brazil or China—just grow that. There is a lot of focus around diversifying away from the United States. No, let's grow our pie in the United States, and grow a pie everywhere else at the same time.
I just want to make sure that from our perspective, growth is growing a full pie, not just a limited amount of that pie.
Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.
I have to drill down on that. You said “tools”. Can you give an example of a tool or two?
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Sure. I mentioned the mentorship networks earlier. I think they will be critically important to transferring knowledge to those who don't know how to export. Some of the funding will go to different sector associations across the country to give their members the tools they need to understand market opportunities. Trade commissioner service, additional funding for it and the CanExport program, all those different tools will be really important but how you implement them is more important than just saying you're going to implement them.
Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.
That would be enhancing the existing tools. Do you have any idea for any new tools that perhaps aren't there right now?
Senior Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters
Most of the tools we had put forward and suggested were largely copied in the fall economic statement yesterday, working very closely with Minister Carr's office, so there's not a whole lot more from our perspective. Again, trying to implement them is going to be critically important.
I mentioned earlier it's trying to get the pieces in place, like STEP across the country, and working with provincial governments to coordinate those efforts. It wasn't talked a lot about yesterday but to work with those provincial governments would be a critical piece.
Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.
Chris, you looked as if you wanted to say something.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership
Export goals are laudable. They are a metric by which you garner and gauge your efforts. Export values are a function of two things: volumes and prices. We can increase volumes by opening market access and whatnot. We can affect prices by building pipelines, quite frankly. If we get world prices for our oil, you watch our exports go through the roof.
Vice-President, Policy, International and Fiscal Issues, Business Council of Canada
It's a very simple tool, and it's going to sound rather bureaucratic, but EDC, BDC and the trade commissioner service don't share a CRM system. It strikes me as a very basic thing you could do so that someone in government can see that this person has access to different services. I think that would be helpful.
Vice-President of Automatic Coating Limited, and Founder, Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Ontario
I want to make sure that whatever program you have is equitable for all different folks. I don't want to see one picking the winners or losers. I want everybody to be able to access it. When I look on my street—and our plant is in a very industrial area—there's a lot of great technology by people who maybe don't have the wherewithal to do that networking.
Right now, on the provincial economic development side, officers visit the companies and tell them what services are available but there's no coordination between the federal and the provincial. There are feet on the street right now, provincially. If you can coordinate that federally through some of those resources, you'll have the people who know what services a lot of the businesses on the ground floor are doing. You need to take what these people can make and sell it to people who need it. There are no interlinks to make that happen.
President, Canada China Business Council
Trade missions matter and the political leadership of trade missions matter in China. It's unique to the China market.
President, Canada China Business Council
It can sometimes be viewed as a luxury but they matter in helping SMEs get in the door and get legitimacy. Getting attention in China as another country is really tough. The Atlantic mission that was just over, which coincided with our annual general meeting, was critical. The plan was all four provincial premiers and three of four were there with big missions: education services, SMEs, seafood, etc. It's the only way you can get in and get some legitimacy for the SMEs and get them some exposure. That matter is in the tool kit.
The other thing is, as I said in my comment, please don't forget services. That's really critical to SMEs in Canada. Very specifically, the Australians have a China-ready for their hotel industry. It's very simple. You need to have a landing page in Mandarin for your WiFi because the guests cannot read English or French so you need to have a landing page and that means you have that. You have a breakfast, which is congee. You have translators available and then you're China-ready and you have a seal and that means the Chinese tourist knows that hotel understands their needs. They're very specific to sectors.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you. We've had good dialogue and great presentations today and good advice for us.
We're going to have to end it there. We did two rounds. We're doing well today. We're going to suspend just for a couple of minutes. I don't want MPs to go too far because we're going into future business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]