International Trade Committee on April 26th, 2021

[Sara Wilshaw]

Yes, I understand. Thank you.

Madam Chair, if I may respond, my team has been doing a tremendous amount of training for folks across the board to help people understand how to take advantage of the FTAs. We have new tools—digital tools—available to businesses to look at and find easily the tariffs and also to find opportunities in new markets as a result of the FTAs that are out there.

We also have a lot of other supports that are helping people and SMEs to go digital and to access new channels into these markets as well.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Coming back to the knowledge-based sectors, we know that the global economy is going towards a knowledge-based economy. We had it at one stage in terms of our natural resources—oil, gas, minerals and forestry products—but five to 10 years down the road, it is the knowledge-based sector and the technologies such as artificial intelligence and other robotics and automation that are going to create a massive impact.

They have invested in artificial intelligence, photonics and genomics, etc. What are trying to do to help these specialized sectors take advantage of all of the FTAs we have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Give us a brief answer, please, Ms. Wilshaw.

[Sara Wilshaw]

Yes, certainly.

Briefly, we have made major investments in rolling out additional Canadian technology accelerator programs. These have gone digital and, actually, in the virtual space, have been connected up amongst themselves to offer even greater opportunities. That program is working very well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Hoback, you have five minutes, please.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for being here this afternoon.

My first question will go to you, Mr. Verheul. Have you been directed by this government, or what instructions have been given by this government, in regard to getting a plan in place for getting more procurement of vaccinations, booster shots and personal protective equipment? What role do you serve in regard to that?

[Steve Verheul]

Well, it's not really something that I'm on the front lines of. If we're finding that other countries—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Is it maybe the trade commissioners?

[Steve Verheul]

Trade commissioners do have a greater role than I do, so Sara might want to respond to that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes. I'll address it there.

[Sara Wilshaw]

Thank you for the question.

Madam Chair, certainly my team around the world has been deployed in a kind of reverse trade commissioner role, in some sense, in doing the sourcing from the very beginning. They developed a whole book of all the really excellent PPE that's out there, and they have been working diligently to make sure we have it.

They've also been doing a lot of work on the investment side to bring in investments in PPE manufacturing and medical devices manufacturing. Also, you would have seen, of course, the Sanofi win and also the Medicago investment over the last year.

In terms of the vaccine procurement itself, this is really a whole-of-our-network operation, working very closely with PSPC, PHAC and all kinds of others to make sure that we are getting the vaccines here and that the shipments are uninterrupted.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

What is the status of our trade commissioner service at this point in time? Do we have everybody redeployed in the countries where we pulled them back from when COVID first hit? Are we fully staffed? Do we have a full budget in place to support trade commissioners?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Madam Chair, the vast majority of our network is back in place. I think there were a few places where some of the restrictions remained. I believe India is one of those places as well, but most of the folks are back.

I would like to also add that, in fact, the trade commissioner service never skipped a beat. Even in the early days when they were being evacuated, the team was actually serving clients and providing advice even from the airport lounges as they were trying to get back to Canada.

We provided somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45,000 to 50,000 services this year.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I'm going to stop you there, Sara. I only have five minutes.

My next question is in regard to EDC. How are you finding the insurance rates and the ability to offer insurance into different countries for our Canadian manufacturers? Are you still offering those services? How expensive is that risk this year compared to other years?

Can you give us an overview on how that's functioning?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Is the member talking about risk insurance?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes. I mean risk insurance particularly. I have heard rates in certain countries have gone through the roof.

[Sara Wilshaw]

Madam Chair, as I understand it, EDC has not offered political risk insurance for some time. If you're talking about the letters of credit and the other kinds of supports, they offer that on a commercial basis. As you know, they are an arm's length organization, so they make those determinations for themselves as to what their rates will be.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I understand that, but I'm curious. There must be some understanding of the rates and how they are functioning, if they are actually becoming very expensive. Part of the process for the Canadian government is to provide services that assist our manufacturers in exporting.

I have seen situations in history where the Americans, for example, went in and subsidized those types of rates or offered special finance programs.

Are we doing anything like that?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Madam Chair, I do know that EDC's services to SMEs have increased significantly over the last little while.

I can get back to the member with some more information about their rates, if that is of interest.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I would appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 30 seconds, Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

On Friday one of our witnesses talked about this being the new norm. The situation we have now could be going on for the next five years.

Have you been instructed by this government to put in place plans if that is the scenario? If we should see this type of situation where you have a fourth wave, a fifth wave or a variant wave, how will we react? How are we going to function? What does that look like?

Have you been instructed to provide some insight into how we should operate and conduct ourselves?

[Sara Wilshaw]

Madam Chair, if that is directed to me in terms of how the trade commissioner service operates, I think the answer is that we are increasingly going digital in our service offering. We have seen some really interesting opportunities come out of that, which we will continue to explore.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Sara, have you done the preparation for a possibility of this going on for five years?

I will even direct it to Mr. Verheul, the deputy minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Hoback, I'm sorry, but your time is over. Maybe the witnesses could somehow answer your question through another one of your questioners.

We go on to Mr. Dhaliwal for five minutes, please.