International Trade committee  If I might respond, I would say that the entrepreneurs represented here are SME owners. They need to sell their products abroad. Their situation is similar to that of several large businesses that, all told, are telling us that they produce for the world market and not just for the Canadian market and that they must have free trade agreements that remove trade barriers and obstacles.

International Trade committee  It's a good point. When you talk about large companies, the services they require are often different. For example, when the French trade minister goes to meet with his counterpart in a foreign country, the ambassador and some trade commissioners will be alongside him making the point that the French company is doing a great job and would be a great fit for what the country needs.

International Trade committee  We live in a world where competition is quite fierce. I often hear it said that in Canada we are at a competitive disadvantage given the fact that companies based in other countries have access to more resources. The equivalent of the Trade commissioner service in these countries disposes of much greater resources and means.

International Trade committee  As for cases of supposedly unfair treatment of SMEs, no such case has ever been reported to me. In my view, it would be a bad idea to use the size of a company as a criterion for the provision of a service such as that offered by the Trade commissioner service. If criteria must be set, they should reflect the fact that the company calling upon the service is financially healthy enough to have a reasonable chance of winning contracts internationally.

International Trade committee  I will start off. Our association offers a variety of services to those companies that are members of our organization. One element of these services consists in being here today to represent them. We also have offices in each of the provinces throughout Canada. We help businesses share best practices.

International Trade committee  It depends. To give you an example, yesterday one of our member companies contacted me. They're trying to deal with the REACH regulations in the European Union. I put them in touch with a trade commissioner in Europe, who's knowledgeable about these regulations, so they can figure out how to get their product certified and available for sale in Europe.

International Trade committee  I can start. It's a good question to ask how well we doing and how we measure up against the competition. I don't have any metrics, but I can tell you what I'm hearing anecdotally from a lot of our members. I usually hear good words about the trade commissioner service. We have several members here today—they are not exceptions—who have used the trade commissioner service.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bonjour à tous. It's a pleasure to be back before the committee today on behalf of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters to take part in your consultations on the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service. This year marks CME's 140th anniversary. Our association's inception dates back to December 1871 in Toronto, when a handful of manufacturers in a gaslit room decided to found the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.

International Trade committee  It already exists in certain industry sectors. We have members, for example, in the aerospace industry or in the pharmaceutical industry that really have almost integrated supply chains that span the ocean. There are specific industries. It depends on the value of the product and the nature of the goods you're manufacturing.

International Trade committee  That is a very good question. I believe that I will have to provide you with a very quick answer. Yes, there are some fears about that. I do think that we should fear the emigration of businesses. Essentially, we should be giving Canada's manufacturing SMEs every reason to invest here.

International Trade committee  The answer is yes. I didn't mention that in my comments, but we've been advocating for a flexible approach to how rules of origin requirements are determined. Some industries are more comfortable with a tariff shift approach, which is, by and large, the approach used in NAFTA. Some other industries, and you mentioned the agricultural sector, would be more agreeable to a substantial transformation definition.

International Trade committee  On whether past agreements have helped create jobs, I think it's quite clear that they have. For example, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, have really helped Canadian companies not only grow their market share in the U.S. market but also restructure the Canadian economy so that now we're really part of one integrated supply chain that spans across Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

International Trade committee  I can go first. I'm sure you'll want to add something. I can state that access to sub-national markets, otherwise known as access to provincial procurement, is an important issue for the Europeans. Furthermore, many Canadian companies are not necessarily averse to cleaning up the public procurement markets.

International Trade committee  The short answer is yes. Steve Verheul, Canada’s chief trade negotiator, has actually been quite open to and quite welcoming of input by industry. To our association, to CERT, and to several others I think he's gone out of his way to make himself available. Obviously he wants to get as good a deal as possible for Canada.

International Trade committee  Tariff barriers, as Roy said, tend to be low because we reduce them through multilateral efforts, but what we're hearing from a lot of our members is that when we're trying to do business in Europe we have some of the highest gross margins. In other words, it's a market that will pay a premium for quality and for good Canadian-made goods.