International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My name is Mitch Garber. I am the chairman of this new organization. It's true that it was conceived a couple of years ago, but it's really come to life in the last six weeks, when I was named chairman and Mr. McKay named CEO. We'll be happy to

International Trade committee  First of all, I think it's the right question. I think it's the reason the agency has been created in the first place. As Ian pointed out, we have some really excellent regional foreign direct investment offices. Montreal last year brought in $2 billion in foreign direct investme

International Trade committee  I only know one way to measure success. If I'm a hockey player, I measure it in goals scored. If I'm a CEO, which I've been for almost 20 years, I measure it in terms of my quarterly and annual results, and my growth rate in business. So if we're doing x dollars of foreign direc

International Trade committee  I think it flows quite naturally. If you think about all of the different foreign direct investment, this is not new. We currently have approximately $800 billion in foreign direct investment in Canada. Much of that foreign direct investment has created jobs.

International Trade committee  I think it is part of the mandate. When you look at it, our main objective is not to bring dollars into Canada that neither fuel the economy or create jobs. So mergers and acquisitions are not the priority, although we welcome them because they're an important part of world capit

International Trade committee  I think it's a combination of both, but it's almost always going to be the case that there will be far more Canadian jobs created than foreign jobs created.

International Trade committee  Let me answer the first part and then let Ian answer the second part. We're quite fortunate in not having to worry about when we're fully operational. This week Ian was in Lima, Peru, with the Prime Minister's delegation. Last week I was in Quebec City at the B7 dinner ahead of

International Trade committee  I don't know if the speed of return should be of concern to Canadians. We are going to make a major investment to get a very large return on this investment, but I don't know of any business situation where you would invest $50 million and get an immediate return on your $50 mill

International Trade committee  Ms. Ramsey, this might answer part of your question, since you were cut off, unfortunately. First of all, of course we don't want to make bad deals, and we don't want to attract hit-and-run investment. However, it's important to recognize that the Canadian economy would probabl

International Trade committee  Thank you very much for your question. Actually, I play hockey every Sunday morning in Boisbriand so I spend a bit of time in your riding.

International Trade committee  Yes, that's right.

International Trade committee  Yes. I also saw representatives of the Canadian Electric Boat company on the television show, Dans l'oeil du dragon. They just appeared on the show. Ms. Ramsey asked about the budget. Honestly, the budget has not been decided on yet, but a big share will go to marketing. Why? B

International Trade committee  You can't make much money out of romance.

International Trade committee  Those are two separate events. The B7 Business Summit was in Quebec City, and the Scandinavians came here, to Ottawa. The Scandinavians are more involved in the finance and banking sectors. They are already in love with Canada. They are already used to doing business with Canadi

International Trade committee  We don't say no to anything.