Yes.
Evidence of meeting #31 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #31 for International Trade in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Okay, great, thank you.
I have another question on a completely different topic. I know the government is laying the groundwork for a potential trade agreement with Indonesia. Do you see a large potential for Canadian clean tech to Indonesia?
This will go to whoever is going to speak on this.
2:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Sectors, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Maybe I'll invite my colleague Mr. Forsyth to comment if he has any further comments.
Overall, trade with southeast Asia is an area that we see as high-potential, particularly with some of the emerging markets and with the trade diversification strategy that I referred to earlier. Indonesia is part of that consideration.
I'll pass it over to Doug if he has any further comments.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
I'm sorry, Ms. Kwan. I have to cut you off.
We are moving on to Mr. Sarai, please, for five minutes.
May 14th, 2021 / 2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to hear from the trade commissioners. You have been very impactful in supporting Canadian businesses. How do you find it when you're abroad and you're promoting Canadian clean tech? What has been the response? What has been the success rate? Can you elaborate on that?
2:50 p.m.
Director General, Trade Sectors, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Thanks for the question.
We've been really focusing a lot of effort in promoting Canadian clean-tech goods and services around the world. As I mentioned, it was important for us to be able to renew the resources through budget 2021 and continue the support to Canadian companies in regional offices.
To your question, in our missions abroad, Canadian companies connect with our trade commissioners there to learn about the local business environment, the high-potential business partners and what the business risks are, and get some advice on business opportunities and networks. So far, from the resources we have been given and from the tracking of our activities, we found that there has been success we can point to and also that there is continued potential for even more of that success, given the strong capacities of some of our very good companies and their technologies.
Where we want to help even more is to provide an ever better focus area of support to different companies across their needs. I know we have limited time, but one of the areas and programs where we really provide that enhanced focus is through our Canadian technology accelerators. It started out in the U.S., but now we have them in Asia, some in Europe, some across the Americas. We run 12-week programs, and our partners around the virtual table here, in particular BDC, EDC and others, work together with us in preparing companies and then connecting them when they are abroad. Mr. Noseworthy mentioned the waste-water mission that took place earlier to India. That also pointed to a lot of specific opportunities that our Canadian companies have been able to further develop and seize upon to be able to grow their activities in international markets.
For us, it is an important area. It is an area we feel we need to continue to support the industry on. Just to give a sense of what I'm talking about with the Canadian technology accelerators, since 2013 the program has raised capital of over $600 million. Canadian companies have increased revenues by $238 million, and it has created about 2,500 jobs. We very much look forward to continuing that.
What we've seen more recently is very encouraging. We've had 30% growth since 2019 in women's participation in the Canadian technology accelerators. We are very pleased to see that and we are very pound of it, so we'll continue to work in that regard as well.
2:55 p.m.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you.
My next question is for Ms. Huddleston, from the Department of the Environment.
Could you tell us how we're collaborating with international partners to develop clean-tech solutions, and probably more so on standardization? I assume that when we can standardize stuff, whether it's in the automotive sector or in other emissions standards, a lot of our clean tech can be specially distributed to places such as the United States and Europe.
2:55 p.m.
Director General, Bilateral Affairs and Trade, International Affairs Branch, Department of the Environment
I can speak to collaboration with international partners on clean tech from the perspective of Environment and Climate Change Canada, but I think my colleagues from Global Affairs are probably better placed.
From the perspective of Environment and Climate Change Canada, we work with Global Affairs to negotiate environmental obligations in all of the free trade agreements. That helps create new markets for clean-tech solutions.
Environment and Climate Change Canada also works with other partners around this table to identify market opportunities for Canadian exporters of environmental and clean-tech goods and services. We do so by leveraging the co-operation and the relationships we have bilaterally under those free trade agreements or the companion environmental co-operation agreements. We also work closely with the trade commissioner service.
I would defer to my colleagues at Global Affairs to speak more specifically to the question.
2:55 p.m.
Director General, Trade Sectors, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Thank you.
Perhaps I can add a little bit from the perspective of the trade commissioner service. If other colleagues have additional comments, they're most welcome to join in as well.
In terms of international partnerships, from a trade commissioner service perspective, we are of course led by Canadian companies. What we're seeing, in particular.... I talked about the clean-tech side, but I also want to mention the climate finance side in terms of partnership. We're seeing multidirectional connections being made to connect our Canadian companies to even more opportunities and more financing and capabilities around the world.
As one example, we would have a Canadian company with a very strong capacity in a certain area. We would help it, through the network I mentioned, in Europe and elsewhere; this example is in Europe. We helped to connect them to a Finnish international financial institution that has a project in Africa, for example.
The traditional model of going out to a specific market now has, as I'm sure members will appreciate, multiple connections in an integrated, interwoven world. We feel that the benefit comes from additional connections that the trade commissioner service is able to provide to create those partnerships with various agencies and organizations, including all of the partners here, of course, to get our Canadian companies into new and emerging markets.
3 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much, Ms. Kwan.
I want to take a moment to thank all of the witnesses. I know it's a lot for you all to come to committee. We actually needed two hours, rather than an hour, with all of you. Thank you all very much for your participation and valuable information.
To my colleagues, it's constituency week next week. I hope you all have a successful week. Thank you for your assistance.
I will now adjourn the meeting.