International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My closing comment is very simple. We owe, through the clerk, information for Mr. Cardin, Mr. Harris, and Mr. Julian, in particular, and we will get that back to you. I guess the only comment I'd make is that on “buy American” and its success or failure, the fact is that through Minister Day, through the G-20, the Prime Minister and others, and through the WTO, we're looking at anybody who's backsliding on any of the commitments to keep the world economy open.

International Trade committee  I'd like to add to that. You raised a very good question about the geographic and sectoral impacts of SMEs and how they get into the game. Minister Day has a small and medium-sized enterprise advisory committee. It's completely comprised of companies that are small to medium-sized at best, and it addresses many issues that could be a problem or a restriction.

International Trade committee  I think Mr. Plunkett will answer this one in his role as the lead negotiator on EFTA and on Canada-EU.

International Trade committee  I think we certainly owe you a response. Through the clerk, we'll get back to you with a good breakdown of that. But if you take the U.S., depending on the year, it's somewhere between 75% and 80%. Since we have a free trade agreement there, it's a very small percentage elsewhere.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  We obviously measure what we're doing and who we're doing it for. About 60% of our total staff time is spent on traditional trade or exports, because small and medium-sized companies are our clientele and that's what a lot of them are doing. At the same time, the growth has been on two-way investment--trying to attract investment into Canada, but also helping Canadian companies that have problems or need assistance as they are doing outward investment for various reasons.

International Trade committee  On a constant basis, we're looking at where we should be. So from time to time there may be closures, and from time to time there may be openings. Using Mongolia as an example, there are 29 Canadian mining companies active there, plus telecommunications, plus airlines, so the time had come and it was announced by Minister Emerson and by the Prime Minister last year that we'd be opening in Mongolia.

International Trade committee  In Brazil, we're opening two new offices, in Recife and Pôrto Alegre. In Mexico, we're opening a couple of new offices. But we're also adding people. For instance, in Panama we didn't have a resident trade officer, but as you start to move down the path of air negotiations, free trade agreements, or whatever, it's obvious that Panama is playing a different role.

International Trade committee  David and I could answer that very quickly, and the answer would be yes, and yes, in the sense that I hate the old stereotype, but we punch above our weight in many things. Canada and Canadian companies are extremely active internationally for the simple reason that for most companies the market here is too small to allow them to reach their full potential.

International Trade committee  There are plan Bs in the sense that from current ministers and previous ministers there are very strong reactions to what happens in certain hypothetical eventualities. That would be a fair comment. Is there a working group looking at if you fail on this particular one...?

International Trade committee  Well, I'm not sure that it's a given.

International Trade committee  Rapid fire and then we can come back. These are not lobbed questions you ask. Not all in the same sequence but going backwards, yes, we look at human rights violations globally. We do look at them. But do we segregate trade unionists, NGOs? I don't believe I've ever seen it. I will check on that one and get back to you, but I don't think that's one we've tracked.

International Trade committee  Our budget for the total commerce is about $180 million. That would all be around that promotion publicity, so I would have to take it back from there a long way. That's why I'll have to segregate it for you. Going back to that one question on tracking NGOs, if you look at where we're looking for free trade agreements and using your example of Colombia, we have a very large development program focused on peace and security programming activities.

International Trade committee  No. What we have is we're continuing to press hard for as free and open a market as we can have.

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. I believe everyone here has partly answered it. First of all, from our perspective, I think, the supply management is not on the table. Instructions from us, from our political level and from a bureaucratic level, are very, very clear. Supply management is something that we, as Canadians and as trade officials, hold dear.