International Trade committee  Madam Chair, the vast majority of our network is back in place. I think there were a few places where some of the restrictions remained. I believe India is one of those places as well, but most of the folks are back. I would like to also add that, in fact, the trade commissioner service never skipped a beat.

International Trade committee  Yes, I'm happy to tackle that one, although I wouldn't want to speak to the resources that Steve and his team would still require for the work they do and will continue to do, which is really important, both at the WTO and on the bilateral regional trade discussions that continue.

International Trade committee  Certainly. Thank you for the question. In fact, we do have people who are dedicated to agriculture, on supporting agriculture and agri-food industries and our farmers in the mission in New Delhi. Obviously they are looking at the different requirements and regulations for importing, and they make those known to our Canadian exporters and our clients.

International Trade committee  I'm really proud of what the trade commissioner service has been doing in this period during the pandemic to support the businesses. They haven't stopped, not for a second. We have more than 12,000 clients, and no one has dropped the ball or we would hear about it very quickly. We have a regular feedback mechanism to understand our client satisfaction.

International Trade committee  Madam Chair, perhaps I can take a moment to add to that. Certainly we are looking to promote, and we have been out actively promoting with a number of our partners, federal and provincial as well as chambers, the trade agreements that we do have and the access that has been gained, to try to take advantage of those things as best we can.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much for the question. Investments over a certain threshold that come into Canada, whether they come through the Invest in Canada hub or some other means, or whether they're facilitated by the trade commissioners, are subject to the Invest in Canada Act. The Invest in Canada Act says that it provides for the review of significant investments that are made by non-Canadians.

International Trade committee  It should be very clear that the Invest in Canada hub operates as a departmental corporation, so they have their own board of directors, their own president and CEO. I think the question would probably be better directed towards them, but you have correctly identified that they have a certain budget allocated, and the trade commissioners work very closely with them.

International Trade committee  I would have to come back to you on that.

International Trade committee  Madam Chair, we can refer the questions to the Invest in Canada hub and seek responses.

International Trade committee  That is a very interesting result. I'm not sure I've seen that StatsCan report, but thank you for drawing it to my attention. I know that our chief economist has been looking at exporters, and she put out a very interesting stat last week, noting that the number of Canadian SMEs exporting went from 19,600 in February down to 15,600 in April but is now back up to 18,400.

International Trade committee  I'm happy to answer that question. The short answer is that we are really excited about the results we are seeing from this virtual trade mission, and as you say, about making a lot of these more accessible events for others. What we're doing right now amongst the trade commissioners is sort of collecting best practices.

International Trade committee  Let's hope it's not an experiment, Madam Chair. Certainly, countries around the world are taking measures, including border restrictions, to address the pandemic, and those measures can pose challenges for Canadian companies and their representatives. We understand, obviously, that foreign governments have legitimate public health and safety priorities, just as we do here.

International Trade committee  I'm certainly glad the opportunity was raised. I hope it was transmitted to the trade commissioner service for action. As you rightly point out, there very likely is a Canadian company that can meet the needs. We do have people who watch for tenders and who watch for what's going up and for opportunities all over the world all the time.

International Trade committee  I might defer to my colleague Duane McMullen to answer that question. Certainly, we have a website that is quite robust with a lot of information on it. Duane's team manages that, so perhaps I can defer to him.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. We do have a very quick response rate, and we try our best to get back to people as soon as we possibly can—within a matter of hours if that's possible. It depends, obviously, on some time zones. Of course, we also like our clients to stay very close to the regional offices that we have, which are located all across the country.