Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. I have heard the kind of complaint the
hon. member mentioned when travelling across Canada trying to investigate the problems facing Canadian industry right now.
I cannot agree with him more about the problems faced by small and medium sized businesses. However, the problem is multifaceted. In a lot of Asian countries the commercial laws are not in place. They have different cultures. They also have different ways of doing business. Also, because of language barriers and so on Canadian businessmen usually have a tough time making deals with Asia-Pacific countries in comparison with the way we can deal with our European counterparts and our North American counterparts. That is why for the past while only big business seems to have the ability to make deals with the region.
That also points to the reason why social development and a system of development to help those countries to institutionalize good open government are so important in our foreign relationships with them.
However, at this moment we still have to promote our trade for small and medium size businesses. What the department is doing now is investigating and looking for an institutionalized structure through which small and medium sized businesses could reach those markets. Sometimes they could afford one trip to the Asia-Pacific region but they might not be able to sustain the effort.
Through these trade commissions in our posts in those corresponding offices and with a more permanent structure in place we hope to help the small businessman facilitate them. At this moment we are trying to invite trade delegations from the Asia-Pacific region to Canada as well as to support our trade delegations going to various regions. By matching the businessmen on both sides of the ocean, by helping them to form partnerships and joint ventures we hope to help facilitate the trade effort.
There is a lot more that needs to be done at the beginning of our exploration of that market. The business community has done quite a bit on its own. With the government's commitment to providing help we can achieve much more in the near future.