International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for having given me an opportunity to present our viewpoint on this rather important and thorny issue. I'll be reasonably brief, and I look forward to a wide-ranging conversation. As a quick introduction to Bombardier, we make pla

International Trade committee  Mr. Bains, the short answer to your question is that we have not done an analysis of that sort. I can make two observations. First, access to markets on fair conditions is essential to our survival. About 95% of our business takes place outside the country, and some 35% of our

International Trade committee  If memory serves me, Mr. Cardin, we were consulted twice. The first time, the approach was rather general. We were asked to give our view point on a possible free trade agreement. The second time, it seem to recall that there was about our concerns. We did have an opportunity to

International Trade committee  I made a recommendation earlier during my comments. The object of a negotiation is precisely to arrive at a point where both parties and their demands are satisfied. As an employer in Canada and Quebec, what we seek is a level playing field. To achieve that, there are two possib

International Trade committee  That's an extremely interesting question. Each company or each segment of the economy may answer that in a different way, because different corporations need different kinds of support internationally, if I may say that. Bombardier, as I was saying, is physically present in 60

International Trade committee  Well, we live with what is on the ground. In other words, we have established in many markets where we have to establish in order to sell. So we are local producers. In some cases that is a natural outflow of the expertise and the comparative advantage that's present in that mark

International Trade committee  I don't know about other Asian markets, but Korea is a big market. It's home to an important set of competitors--one in particular, I should say. If in global markets we are operating on rules that provide them with the same disciplines we have, then we can compete. I mean, thi

International Trade committee  I have one supplementary comment, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for allowing me 30 seconds. With respect to other countries, a great danger of not having liberalized access to markets like Korea is, as I said, that the United States does--and increasingly, it's going to do so. So what

International Trade committee  Yes, I've heard of it.

International Trade committee  I go back to what I was saying about living in an imperfect world. It is ironic, at least in our case—and I'm speaking very narrowly—that for us to be able to compete in our own country, we're competing on less favourable grounds than we compete on in other countries. So I guess,

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My comments will be very brief and, in some respects, impressionistic. It's worth noting that the EFTA with which we're negotiating is a smaller group of countries than the one with which we started out negotiating. That may reflect how long it

International Trade committee  I'm not sure I used the term “gateway”, and if I did, my intention was not to indicate that this is a first step towards a Canada-EU agreement. What I was driving at was a notion that we are able, in this instance, to demonstrate that there is enough of a community of interest

International Trade committee  I would probably regard the comment I made as referring more to the general economy than to the company itself. We are established in these markets as we are in the markets of the European Union more generally. So for us, this is really potentially levelling a playing field if th

International Trade committee  My answer will be shorter than that of my colleague. The benefits per se that Bombardier stands to gain are modest. However, as investors in two of the four countries involved in this agreement, we stand to gain a significant psychological boost. The agreement would give us, and

International Trade committee  I do not have any exact figures, Mr. Julian, but given the size of the markets concerned, I do not foresee any major growth in the immediate future. It is part of our European strategy and will doubtlessly have a positive impact; I could not, however, be more specific at this tim