International Trade Committee on Nov. 8th, 2017

[Thomas Beck]

This is the wrong picture here.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You'll have to tell us how you managed that.

Ms. Jorge, what about you?

[Michelle Jorge]

I can speak with regard to my experience with all the meetings I've had in Portugal. It appears to me that equality amongst the sexes is in an excellent position as far as Portugal is concerned. I don't know that the government has specific incentives, but overall what I do know about the Portuguese government is that they are very respectful of family time.

I know that the work environment there allows for a lot of flexibility. It's not the standard nine to five. Most companies operate with a flexible environment. You can complete your hours at different times, which I think provides great opportunities for women and men equally.

For example, when people get married, they get two weeks' paid vacation. You get a week off when you get divorced, too—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Michelle Jorge]

—so I'm already due three weeks....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Madame Lapointe, you're way over your time, but it was a very good question and an interesting answer.

We'll move over to the Conservatives.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We'll move on to something else. I want to talk about the education aspect that was presented by Ms. Jorge.

As a former educator, I think this is something that's so critical. Of course, having awareness between different countries is critical. Having student exchanges from universities is so important. You talked about the 40 scholarships you had. I'm curious about the criteria. Are you looking at it from the business side or are you looking at other types of metrics?

[Michelle Jorge]

I'll defer to Matthew on this one.

[Matthew Correia, Executive Director, Federation of Portuguese Canadian Business & Professionals]

Our scholarship program is run by university professors, college professors, and high school principals. They are a judging committee completely autonomous from our organization. All applications are submitted through email. We have four categories: high school, college, undergraduate, and graduate.

We also have the scholarship to NOVA university in Lisbon, which has been quite popular. We get about 20 applications. Those are a bit more rigorous in terms of what they are looking for, but everybody who has come back has said they had an amazing time. Language is an issue. A lot of people say they don't want to apply because they don't speak Portuguese, but when they go and take the course there, they end up learning it a little bit more.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Are the criteria then business focused, or—

[Matthew Correia]

They are more community involvement focused.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Okay, thank you.

Someone mentioned earlier the frustration of having credentials when you're coming from other countries and having them not respected, but the reality is that it happens from province to province. You may say you want to come to this province, and you may go through a certain set of standards and then realize that, if you want to go to another part of the country, it doesn't work for you. Again, that has to do with professional associations and also with the courses you take. Different educational institutions may not recognize others' courses. The fact that provinces are responsible for education and accreditation of professionals causes a bit of concern, especially for people in Europe who don't expect to see this when they go to another country.

Could we talk about maybe how people feel we could get over that particular hurdle? Are there groups and organizations you talk to that discuss this frustration? If so, are you getting any traction? We haven't been able to make much of a mark on that over the years.

Perhaps, Mr. Beck, you could expand upon that.

[Thomas Beck]

I'm from a country where it doesn't matter whether you are in Munich or in Hamburg. It's all the same. If you are an engineer, you are an engineer, and it's recognized all over the country.

Germany has a very interesting education system. It's called the dual system. You might have heard of this. For three years, it's half government and half private industry that are educating workers and future engineers, and that works very well. If you have done that, you are good to go to Hamburg, you are good to go to Berlin, and you are good to go to Munich. It's recognized all over the country, as I mentioned. This is totally different in Canada, as you mentioned, sir.

I know Siemens started an initiative two years ago to adopt a system that is a little bit like what I just mentioned, together with the provinces—with Ontario, for example—and universities and colleges, and also unions. The governments of the provinces and the federal government have participated. They started a year ago and they educate young engineers in that area. That is a great start. We can only learn from each other. Canada has a good system, in my opinion. It has great engineers, great scientists. But a view over the edge to see what countries such as Germany are doing, to bring folks together from both countries, would definitely help a lot. This is a little bit a part of our job as well—not so much, but a little bit, together with our members like Siemens and others.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

I'm going to move over to the Liberals now.

Mr. Peterson, you have the floor.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. It's been very informative so far.

I'm going to start off with our friends from the Federation of Portuguese Canadian Business & Professionals. How many organizations or individuals are in your group, and how does that process work? Can just anyone join? Is it focused on any industry, or what are the criteria to be a member of your group?

[Michelle Jorge]

Basically anyone can be a member if they are of Luso-Canadian descent, so they can be from different countries around the world. The majority of our members are business owners or professionals. We also allow non-Luso-Canadian people to join at a different level of membership. It's part of our culture. We're very welcoming, and that transfers into how we are in our organization.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Would a number of your members be in the export world, and if so, are they exporting to Portugal or are they exporting to other markets? Do you help them reach their new markets, help them sort of navigate the administrative system that's involved with exporting?

[Michelle Jorge]

We have a number of companies, as I mentioned—we tried to get them here today—that are exporting. For example, we have one company that's doing construction projects over in Portugal. With regard to whether we have provided direct assistance, anybody who contacts us for any type of assistance, whether it be to connect to a certain company over there, to connect to government, we always do what we can. Even if somebody from outside of our membership contacts us, we're always there to support them in any way we can.

One of our main focuses is to enhance networking opportunities, so that's what we're here to do. Our partnerships that we continue to develop with various organizations there—members of government, organizations of corporations that are doing international work—also place us in a better position to be able to do that.

[Matthew Correia]

If I could chime in on that, a lot of our members are the mom-and-pop shops that were started by immigrants who came here and whose kids are now taking over, but we're also finding that we have Portuguese Canadians in higher positions in businesses that are recognized internationally. We have those two forms of businesses of our members and then those of non-members who are of Portuguese background.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Is there something we can be doing as a federal government to leverage and to capitalize on those existing relationships that we're not doing? Is there any way that we can help solidify that flow of trade?

[Michelle Jorge]

I'm going to repeat what I said before. We need to provide those opportunities for the face-to-face dialogue and enhance those opportunities. We have AICEP from Portugal that's based here. Pardon my ignorance, but I don't know if the Canadian government has an equivalent to AICEP over there in Portugal.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

The Portugal tourism board...?

[Matthew Correia]

Yes.