International Trade Committee on May 7th, 2024

[Pete Stamper]

Yes, it's fine. It would be nicer if it were shorter, but it's a year-long permit, so I think two or three months is fine to then have a year-long permit.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay. Thank you so much.

I appreciate Mr. Stamper and the other witnesses who talked today about how to support SMEs.

I wanted to go to Mr. Tse from the Vancouver Airport Authority.

Thank you so much, Jason, for the tour of the expansion I recently went on.

Have the new facilities and enhanced systems at the Vancouver International Airport improved the efficiency and reliability of Canada's international and domestic supply chains?

[Jason Tse]

The development I alluded to is currently under way, so it has not been completed yet. Having said that, we did do a proof of concept that looked at some digital solutions to improve the efficiency of our cargo infrastructure assets. One of those was a truck slot booking system, which we tried out with the various players. It can increase throughput and reduce the carbon footprint from some of the trucks. That is something we're continuing to socialize with our community, and hopefully we'll ensure its implementation as we get into the completion of the airport south project as well.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I noted when I visited that there was a lot of talk about high-value goods, and there was conversation about shipping goods by air, especially cherries and crabs.

How does an SME or a smaller player get into competition, or how do they compete with the big players like Amazon that use a lot of the capacity to move goods through airports? How can smaller players compete? Do you have any thoughts on how the government could make that happen?

[Jason Tse]

As I alluded to earlier, when we attract additional all-cargo services, the sort of Achilles' heel right now is that we're very dependent upon perishable products, so we need to diversify our export base to, for instance, more advanced manufactured goods. PacifiCan supporting AbCellera in the pharmaceutical space is a great example of that. We visited AbCellera as well. They don't export a lot currently by air, but hopefully, as they move forward, that will build a bigger base for exports by air out of our market. That will attract additional services, and then we can serve the local market and the transiting market through the rest of North America as well.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to take this opportunity to ask Mr. Kapoor my last question today.

You mentioned the same ideas, that you're trying to support smaller businesses around innovation and more opportunity. I'll ask you if there's anything you'd like to have on the record today that you would like this committee to know about so that we can make sure that your voice and the voices of your clients are heard.

[Anoop Kapoor]

Yes, I'd like to indicate that the regional economic growth initiative that we are implementing in our region is a successful program. It has resulted in $1.3 billion in exports, the support we provided to SMEs. It has also resulted in creating jobs in our region.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Is there anything there that the federal government was involved in to help that growth? Are there any initiatives that happened that were federally driven or that the federal government could have helped to enhance?

[Anoop Kapoor]

We're making investments in critical drug initiatives in Edmonton, where we're strengthening the supply chain to increase our capacity to create critical medicines. We're making investments in the hydrogen economy, because the global demand for hydrogen is going to increase significantly. We're developing the supply chain and getting ready.

In the case of Saskatchewan, we're thinking about how to strengthen the supply chain associated with the adoption of small modular reactors as the nuclear industry takes hold, from a greenhouse gas emissions' perspective.

Being there for SMEs in advance of new industries taking a foothold is important so that our SMEs are ready to take on opportunities that come with opening up new sectors or new industries.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you to my colleagues.

Thank you to our witnesses. Accept my apologies again for the late start, but it is what it is. We've appreciated your time and your contribution today.

This meeting is adjourned.