I would say a couple of things. One is to have a bit more holistic look from inside the government as we engage with companies, again focusing on more scale-up. Can the hand of government come in broadly to help our companies that are starting to scale up to move internationally?
One thing I would re-echo, which I think my colleagues would share, is the ability to look at funding and financing as a way to help companies enter a market. The trade commissioner service and the others are fantastic at making their connections and the networks, and we can definitely drive to get the deals ourselves, but what makes it easier is if you come together and say, “Let us ensure that we get into that market”. We find that our European colleagues are doing a much better job from a government perspective in really pushing their companies to enter such markets.
We've done a great job, but that doesn't mean we can sit on our laurels. I will say we need to competitively benchmark what others are doing and ensure that we do the same amount of support for our companies so we can be leaders globally, while at the same time—a couple of my colleagues shared this—we look at and create a domestic market.
There is a little bit of a mismatch, I would say, Madam Ashton, in that we look at domestic policy and domestic funding as being a bit aloof from helping companies to go international. The Americans, as we talked about, are linking it together. I'm not saying we need a buy Canada framework, but there are different avenues by which we can ensure Canadian companies do prosper while keeping trade regulations open for international companies to compete with us at home.
