Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, at the outset, I would like to place on record my disappointment that the chief executive officer of the Canadian Commercial Corporation is not here. I have a number of questions, and I think he or she would have been the right person to address them to.
With no disrespect to Ms. Sara Wilshaw, what she stated in her opening statement is mostly known to us. I would have preferred to hear from these two corporations. I'm happy that Ms. Katie Curran is here. If she had made an opening statement, we could have gotten an overview of what the Invest in Canada organization is doing, and I would have expected the same thing from the Canadian Commercial Corporation.
For example, CCC is a very interesting and very underutilized agency of the Government of Canada. People may not know that, for U.S. defence acquisition or purchases, Canadian companies are considered to be U.S. domestic corporations, and CCC can help a lot of small and medium-sized businesses get business there.
On the operational side of CCC, if I remember what Ms. Wilshaw stated, Canadian export is $766 billion, and the amount of contracts CCC has signed is just around $1.5 billion. It's not even that, it's $1.35 billion. That is too small. We have been signing free trade agreements across the world. We need Canadians to start exporting to other parts of the world, because those markets are new and because we want to increase small and medium-sized enterprises for export. CCC must play an active role in promoting these exports into new markets, whether they are non-Western countries in Europe or countries in Africa or Asia. I don't see that.
CCC has been in existence for a long, long time, and even now, they're just doing $1.35 billion. It's not even a drop in the bucket. Even their targets.... I'm looking at their corporate plan. The target for next year does not go up even by 10%. I think it's less than 5%, and every year it is less than 5%. It is pathetic. I'm sorry to use this language, but a corporation growth rate.... When we want exponential growth rate in exports from Canadian businesses, the growth rate that CCC is projecting, even to 2025-26, is not even 10% of what they're doing today.
Another thing is that they mentioned that they helped 221 small and medium-sized firms out of 300 exports. It's a good thing, but I would like to know the number of contracts that the CCC did for these 221 SMEs and how many of the total contracts they've signed are outside of the U.S.
As for the U.S. and western Europe, we don't need organizations like CCC to make a breakthrough in these mature markets. We need CCC to hold hands with Canadian exporters when they tap into the new markets in Asia, Africa and other places.
I'm disappointed on that front, Madam Chair. I wish they were here, as I had questions for them. In any case, I'm glad that Ms. Katie Curran is here.
Ms. Curran, I was reading through your departmental plan. It was mentioned that the pandemic reduced FDI. I can understand that. It was reduced by about 50%, but what is the trend you have been seeing in the last, say, seven or 10 years? What is the trend you are seeing in the growth of foreign direct investment in Canada? I know that Canadian companies are aggressively investing in other parts of the world. Canadian pension funds, Canadian corporations and private corporations are doing it.
What is the trend we are seeing in the growth of foreign direct investments in Canada?