Evidence of meeting #39 for International Trade in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, Invest in Canada
I think that was my first event as CEO of Invest in Canada—
Chief Executive Officer, Invest in Canada
—so I don't have all the details of that.
Chief Executive Officer, Invest in Canada
My understanding is that it would be Ericsson.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
That's right. We used Canadian taxpayer dollars to lure a foreign company here to build capacity, but the IP isn't actually owned by Canada.
Chief Executive Officer, Invest in Canada
It created jobs that Canadians go to work in every day—
Conservative
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I believe there's a reasonable debate to be had on whether or not we should be supporting Canadian firms that build here and keep intellectual property here, instead of cheering on the hollowing out of Canadian corporate Canada—which you're doing here today—and producing IP for other foreign entities.
Chief Executive Officer, Invest in Canada
I won't disagree with you that we should build up our IP.
Chief Executive Officer, Invest in Canada
That's not the work that we do at Invest in Canada.
Liberal
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Broten and Mr. Kwon, thank you very much for being with us. Your opening remarks were very interesting.
You mentioned Export Development Canada and Global Affairs Canada. Which organization do you report to?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Commercial Corporation
It's Global Affairs.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Kwon, Ms. Broten said earlier that there were 66 people on her team. How many people are there in your organization?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Commercial Corporation
Our organization has 128 employees. Most of them are based here in Ottawa. Some of our business development folks are more remote and travelling.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
You mentioned earlier that you weren't going to China, and that there wasn't really much investment in Africa.
Here, we conducted a study on Africa, and we focused on certain countries, such as Morocco and West African nations. I understand that there are 54 countries in Africa, but are there any you're considering with a view to establishing better ties with Africa?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Commercial Corporation
We have a number of sources that we constantly look to in order to get market intel. Of course, we go through the full network of Global Affairs—all the mission heads and the trade commissioner service—and now, with all the heightened interest in defence and security, certainly the defence attaché network. We're all plugged in there. Over and above that, we speak extensively to Canadian exporters.
As much as I characterize that Africa is not the primary priority at the moment, we are still actively pursuing a few transactions there. I'll give you one very specific one. There's a company called SGL, Sander Geophysics Limited. It's a Canadian surveying company. It's doing some surveying work in Ivory Coast and Tanzania to look at energy mining. That's a concrete example. It's not a contract, but we're in the early stages of exploring. Where it makes sense, with Canadian capabilities, we are on the ground there.
In Morocco, we have De Havilland aircraft that we're refurbishing and selling. In the past, we've helped to build soccer stadiums in Cameroon.
We are active in that continent when it makes sense. At this very moment, it's a bit lighter—again, very openly—but as I said, this one particular Canadian exporter I cited is a concrete example, as is Morocco.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
We've just returned from a trip to Argentina and Brazil, where we often heard that they're eager to attract Canadian investment, mainly in the mining sector, but also in agricultural equipment. Obviously, they want our potash, believe me.
Do you assist Canadian companies in making these investments in the mining sector?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Commercial Corporation
This is not specifically related to the mining sector, but I accompanied Minister Sidhu and former Minister Ng on virtually every single trade mission, including earlier this year when we were in the Middle East. I think in the third week of June we'll be in Japan, and I'll be there again. This will probably be my third trip there.
We are very active, and I personally travel way too much for trade missions. In the work we do, we work and travel very extensively with my EDC colleagues because of the nature of that work. In February, I went with the minister responsible for NRCan, Tim Hodgson, to Poland for a very important team Canada effort to sell CANDU nuclear reactors to Poland.
