Yes.
Evidence of meeting #84 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 poland.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #84 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 poland.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
President, Canada-Poland Chamber of Commerce
Do we help other ethnic chambers to do what we do, to sort of teach them and guide them?
4 p.m.
President, Canada-Poland Chamber of Commerce
I don't think we do that, no.
4 p.m.
Red Dot Digital
I'm sorry. You'll have to repeat from the start. I apologize.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC
You've been in this business for many years, British-established. There are newer communities that are forming chambers of commerce, and they are doing business on the international scene, whether it's China, Taiwan, Japan, or India. How can you take a leadership role to encourage them, and provide that leadership so they get the experience, the tools, and the resources that you fellows have, and have provided over many years?
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Red Dot Digital
Yes. We're very good at making partnerships. What we do is we meet with other chambers—as you said, Indian, Chinese, and so on—and we talk to them and we collaborate on events, and we collaborate on partnerships and so on.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you.
That wraps up the first round. We're going to go into the second round now.
We're going to start off with the Liberals in this round. Madam Ludwig, you have the floor.
October 30th, 2017 / 4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you.
Thank you for your excellent presentations.
You talked about the use of colleges, for example. On October 3, I met with Colleges and Institutes Canada. One of the ideas a college president had from the College of the North Atlantic was to look at the recognition of credentials in the home country before immigrants come to Canada. If they're not there, is there an opportunity for us to get some prior learning assessments or recognition online before the person ever enters Canada and then ends up being a taxi driver? Could you speak to that?
4:05 p.m.
President, Canada-Poland Chamber of Commerce
Those are all good ideas. I don't know how helpful we could be. We are a relatively small organization based on volunteers only. We don't have an office, per se.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
If that opportunity was there, sir, would that be a good opportunity?
4:05 p.m.
President, Canada-Poland Chamber of Commerce
Absolutely. We would like to get involved in things like that.
4:05 p.m.
Red Dot Digital
This, again, would be the professional associations. I'm thinking engineers and nurses. With the U.K. and Europe, I don't think there's this problem. I'd go back to other things that are the barriers to entry to the workforce. I would say it's soft skills. In some cultures, for example, you don't look at someone in the eye, and you can actually not have a job just by not doing that. I think this is where maybe there's an opportunity also to take immigrants on board.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you.
Could I also get each of you to make a comment about some of the opportunities and changes around trade financing, trade research, legal aspects of international trade, market entry, and how well versed new immigrants are on those challenges? Once those challenges are mitigated, as you well know as successful business people, the opportunities there are immense.
4:05 p.m.
Red Dot Digital
I'm going to start.
With immigrants we're looping in many different immigrants. You have immigrants who come here with different skill sets. I think the ones you're talking about, and who would be interested, are the higher educated immigrants. Then you have everybody else who doesn't have the opportunity or who doesn't even think about it. Also, sometimes they live together so whatever they know stays within the community and there's no penetration of information. I think there's more outreach to be done in that field.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
To be clear, lots of times in Canada with people who have different skill levels we also have that challenge of trying to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit and opportunities.
4:05 p.m.
Red Dot Digital
I really think there's also an opportunity to educate the companies because more and more often you'll see immigrants coming in who are highly skilled, and they will not be able to enter the job market because the company on the other end will be very willing to do diversity inclusion and everything else, but they will say, “Well, he's not really like us.” I've seen that happen many times. I think there's an opportunity to educate both the immigrant and the company that is welcoming immigration.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Karen Ludwig Liberal New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you.
I'm going to mention this, so excuse me. We've heard different witnesses talk about the opportunity for diversification on boards. If we look at companies that are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, we see those that have a more diversified board of directors—new ethnicity, gender, what have you—tend to have a higher rate of return. So thank you for bringing that forward.
4:05 p.m.
President, Canada-Poland Chamber of Commerce
Yes, absolutely. I agree with Karima that knowledge of opportunities quite often gets disseminated from people to people, not through programs, not through official statements, or even announcements by governments. People usually learn from one another about how to get a job, find a job, and find the opportunities. I think disseminating more information through your organization and ones like ours adds more specific.... It could help a lot.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
You only have a half a minute, so you can get a quick answer in there.