Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for this opportunity.
My name is Omar Allam. I am here today as an individual with 20 years of international business, public sector, diplomatic, World Bank and global trade consulting experience that spans the North American, European, African and Asian markets, in addition to having worked in emerging markets such as China, India, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to name just a few.
Today our country faces important questions with respect to international trade policy, investment and competitiveness. We need clarity regarding our strategic goals and priorities in the global economy. At the same time, we need to urgently align our trade policy with domestic policies as well as choices on climate change, innovation, immigration, labour markets and regulations.
Over the last two decades, Canada has chosen to pursue international trade at varying degrees, and we've seen Canada continue to use various tools at its disposal to counter non-market practices and to defend Canadian jobs.
However, even with free trade agreements in place and the hard work of Canada's international trade portfolio and the broader trade ecosystem, Canadian exporters continue to face the same fundamental challenges, and I really want to focus on the lack of financing and capital for the Canadian companies that are doing business globally, because we're losing out on major global business opportunities in probably every market in the economy. Nevertheless, there's always room for improvement, and there are a number of areas that can be addressed.
The immediate focus for Canada should be a new international trade and investment strategy that maps out export and FDI priority markets and sectors. The traditional approach of reducing tariffs and dealing with trade barriers no longer works. When it comes to strategic tactics and trade policy, we need to do things differently.
Canada should continue to promote its trade policies as a means of complementing the multilateral trading system through strategic trade and economic partnership agreements that go beyond FTAs. We need to reorient towards these types of trade partnership models with key trading partners. This can in turn resolve trade barriers and, as well, get market access commitments. Moreover, countries such as the U.K., Japan, Singapore, Australia and the EU are all pursuing similar partnership arrangements. For example, the U.K. signed a state-level trade agreement with Oklahoma, and this is the fourth such agreement between the U.K. and an American state.
Moving to concessions, when designing and negotiating these types of trade partnerships, we need to be smarter about concessions in return for greater access to markets of interest to Canadian companies. For example, countries may want access to Canada's natural resources—critical minerals, for example, and renewables, LNG, etc. This gives Canada a greater incentive at the negotiating table and room to manoeuvre in terms of improving market access. Canada may also seek foreign investment from a given country to support economic diversification or commitments related to defence, security or foreign policy.
Canada can also ask for preferential market access in exchange for these types of concessions that trade partners are looking for. For example, Canada can ask for market access and the removal of non-tariff barrier measures from country X. We can fast-track approval of foreign takeovers or investments in critical infrastructure projects from a foreign company with strategic interests. Having said that, I would also propose concessions with some hooks, such as, the head office needs to be in Canada for x number of years in order to gain access to natural resources.
There's also a lack of trade finance, which is a significant non-tariff barrier to trade. To date, the Canadian government offers a broad array of financing and tools to support Canadian businesses in their international business pursuits. Financing for these activities falls short of our competitor countries.
Let's take the infrastructure sector as an example. The government's ability to assist companies to compete in infrastructure development or exports in the infrastructure sector in global markets is challenged by early-stage financing. The key issue is government financial support to help de-risk Canadian investments in foreign markets. This is what the U.S. is doing.
In closing, regardless of political stripe, Canada cannot keep up with the rapidly evolving and changing trade landscape and the highly competitive geopolitical economies of tomorrow. We need to think creatively. We need to act now. We need to put significant resources behind this now.
Without significant action, Canadian companies will continue to fall behind competitors and we will miss out on opportunities. The risk of inaction is too high.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering your questions.