International Trade committee  We're going to start from the perspective of being a younger company that's gone through the last few years beginning our exporting into the Japanese market. What we've learned primarily is that the standards we meet and often exceed here in the Canadian and U.S. markets don't re

International Trade committee  In terms of starting to build the relationship with Japan, we need resources that are closer than a Canadian consulate on the other side of the world. Our suppliers, our manufacturers, our local regulatory people, our Japanese representatives, and our government representatives h

International Trade committee  Predominantly in Canada. I haven't gone as far as Japan. When your Canadian counterparts can't help you and can't find someone on the other side of the world who can help you, we tend to go backwards at that point to the chemists and to the raw material suppliers to try to deciph

International Trade committee  I don't think we're going to find a harmonization of comparable standards. That is a good phrase which I might have to write down for later. I don't think that the major North American corporations that manufacture and distribute in these markets are ever going to feel that the J

International Trade committee  It's background documentation.

International Trade committee  Yes. We require our distributors to manage the tariffs and import duties related to our products, so I would say it's a non-tariff barrier. Much like what is happening according to my limited knowledge on the markup on pork, they're marking up our product to cover all the tariffs

International Trade committee  Yes, most people don't have offices there. It's resources. It's experts who are local, experts in the domestic market who have had experience trading in the Japanese market. Yesterday, I spoke to a colleague who is a skin care consultant in the U.K. and a manufacturer who can po

International Trade committee  It needs to be during the development stage. It's one thing if you tell your distributor to just figure it out and do the testing and come back. Further to that, we need education for businesses that are looking at entering the Japanese market so that people don't hear what is

International Trade committee  Right, and it's not representing the country, in whole, as business people. It's resources here on the ground in the marketplace.

International Trade committee  To me what matters is what resources come along with signing the agreement. If the agreement comes with a commitment to support businesses as they build their business abroad, then the sooner the better. If it's an agreement that doesn't come with resources for small businesses o

International Trade committee  I would say it would be to learn as much as you can about where you would find the regulatory variations between what's happening domestically and what's happening in the Japanese market, so that you'll know where to send companies, when they want to go into that market. There's

International Trade committee  I've been there.

International Trade committee  Dragons' Den works as a reference as well.

International Trade committee  It's not about how to relate to the other companies. I can get all the advice I might need by flying to Houston to the International Quilt Market, which happens to be a $34 billion industry—yes, quilting—so the president of Olympus Japan can come with his entire team for a meetin

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. There were periods of time when I spent months doing nothing but answer questions for my Japanese distributor every day. Now I work late for our Australian distributor. It's easier to just work from seven until midnight than it is to wake up in the morning t