International Trade Committee on Feb. 9th, 2017

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

It would be interesting to know that. I don't know if it's possible to get that information, but the committee would like to maybe know, if that's possible.

[Michael Danagher]

If I may say, Elise was responsible for the rollout of this program and for its promotion efforts. I think last year she spoke to well over a thousand different companies at different venues. We did work with the bilateral chambers—for example, the Canada-India Business Council—so we have been able to promote the program to some of those communities.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

That's excellent. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We're going to move over to Mr. Dhaliwal.

Go ahead.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to commend the great work that your organization is doing. It's quite fascinating. When it comes to small businesses, to talk about my constituency of Surrey—Newton, it has small businesses, and so does British Columbia in general. There are new immigrants, as Mr. Van Kesteren was saying, and they are interested in expanding trade overseas.

In one example you mentioned, you met with the Canada-India Business Council or something. Is there a program that's in place so that you are reaching out to as many companies as you can so they are able to take advantage of the program?

[Michael Danagher]

Well, we need our partners. We need our partners on the federal level and we work with our provincial partners, but of course the larger business associations are absolutely essential in getting news of this program to companies. I would say in general that with the response we've had for the launch of the program, we're fully subscribed for the allocations for the current fiscal year. Now that we've unrolled the program, we don't want to promote a program for which there won't be funds available in the current fiscal year, so we've taken a different approach on marketing the program and we have been a little bit more reactive in the last several months. However, if we see that a particular constituency is not represented, we could easily provide some kind of focused promotion of this program.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

That's where my issues come in. The way I look at it is that you are the actor, right, but there are certain communities and certain businesses out there that do not have the resources or do not have the kind of management that can reach out to organizations like yours. That's where my concern is, and those steps should be put in place so that you're able to reach out—

[Michael Danagher]

Yes.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

—to as many as you can.

Would you be able to tell us how many companies in British Columbia took advantage of this program?

[Elise Racicot]

Are you asking about the number of recipients in British Columbia specifically?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

That is correct.

[Elise Racicot]

It's 87.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Are they small companies?

[Elise Racicot]

Yes.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

That's quite encouraging.

Karen, I'm going to pass it on to you. You can share my time and take yours afterwards as well.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

I have a number of questions. I represent the riding of New Brunswick Southwest. We are heavily involved with exporting. However, in the Atlantic region, not only are over 50% of businesses small, but they're actually micro-businesses of one to four employees. Do you ever receive any inquiries or requests from microbusinesses at CanExport or, previously, PEMD?

[Elise Racicot]

Thank you for your question.

I don't have a specific number, but I can tell you that the median of 17 should maybe be a pointer. There are quite a few companies that are in that range. I don't have the exact statistics, but frequently we have really small companies that are interested. We have had quite a few recipients that would be in that range.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

One of the areas I know about from constituents and even from my own background in teaching international trade is that the federal government will frequently sign and get involved in negotiations for international trade agreements, but sometimes there's a bit of a lag in introducing the benefits to those small and medium-sized businesses. The large businesses seem to get along with it. They seem to have more expertise in-house.

How can we better prepare businesses not only to take advantage of the exporting opportunities but also to benefit from the supply chain domestically in Canada? There's a big uptake in opportunities for that as well.

[Michael Danagher]

Thank you for the question.

As I mentioned in my presentation, one of the tools we're developing is an FTA implementation strategy. We've already had a series of seminars with small businesses across the country. We're working in close proximity with our provincial partners.

The objective, of course, is to get practical and sector-based information and specific business cases into the hands of people who are interested in CETA. It will remain to be seen how that sticks, but I think that the realization that the FTAs need to be implemented in a more strategic way is well realized within Global Affairs.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Can I just have one more quick question? It's fast.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You might have some time later on. We're going to move over to the NDP now.

Ms. Ramsey, you have the floor.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Thank you so much for being here today.

I think it's a really important conversation for us to have, and I'm appreciative of the member who brought this forward, because we often hear this from people at the committee.

We also hear about red tape, and we get a lot of complaints. Certainly the Canadian Federation for Independent Business has been before the committee several times telling us stats on businesses that are engaged in trade, and the red tape is something that is brought up over and over.

I know this was previously studied in the 41st Parliament under “Connecting Canadian Companies to International Markets”. Also, it was one of the NDP's recommendations to have some form of one-stop shop access whereby basically there would be one pathway instead of multiple ones.

My question goes back to my own riding. If a business in Essex were to come and meet with me, first of all, how can I connect them with CanExport and other programs? Number two, is there a one-stop shop, or do they need to inquire with each department and program individually?

[Michael Danagher]

I'll answer that.

For CanExport, it's delivered online. We advise some of your constituents to familiarize themselves with the guide, and the applicants' guide was designed to be fairly straightforward. We did some beta testing on it, and certainly in the creation of the program we did listen to CME and CFIB and their recommendations.

We have developed what we think is a very cost-effective and timely delivery of the program. The time frame of 25 working days within our department really means taking what are often very complex business cases and determining whether, first, they're viable, but also seeing that all the criteria of the program are observed.

We also have feedback from applicants, both successful and otherwise, in terms of how to improve programs. Our feedback so far has been predominantly positive, but they've made some recommendations, not so much on the administration of the program but more on the scope of what it can do.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I think it's actually the case that people have to access different programs under different departments.

[Michael Danagher]

Yes.