Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. I think we need to talk about the context of how large Canadian economic presence is in the country, and it's very small. Why is it small? Since 1992 we have not been promoting the economic exchange. So if companies have come to us and talked to missions, to the depar

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Martin. I'll turn to David Angell, the DG for Africa, to comment on the first part, the resources in UNAMID, and then Louise Clément from CIDA can talk about aid in the south.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. My colleagues and me are truly pleased to be here today. I think it is propitious timing that we're here today. I do have a number of colleagues with me--more than you normally would have--and the rationale for that is that we weren't sure how wide your questioning mi

International Trade committee  That's exactly it. We take a look at the costs in any post, for both our Canada-based and the locally engaged, the mixture that you would have there. We have what's called a Canadian commercial interest list--we're in the process of changing it right now--which takes 22 indicator

International Trade committee  We could clean up the list for the purpose of giving it to you. We take a look at the countries and what the opportunities might be. Having said that, deciding whether adding a fourth person in New York is better than putting in a first one in Kazakhstan is where the value judgm

International Trade committee  We start with the objective, and then at the margins there is a subjective nature to it, obviously. There has to be.

International Trade committee  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment on the first part, which is that our department is not a program department. That is one of the issues: over a long period of time, our program funding has gone down. I can tell you that the total program amount on the trade side

International Trade committee  Yes. That's in program dollars on the trade and investment side. On the diaspora, I think that's the change I was trying to get at in my statement. The world has changed, and Canada has changed. I think what we're trying to do is both recruit new people and also have a much more

International Trade committee  To be honest, I'm not quite sure how to reply to the question about the population's belief that somehow companies will abrogate their Canadian roots, in the sense of a NAFTA or other free trade agreements. I think what we're trying to do is build the small companies into mediu

International Trade committee  The link between security and trade has never been stronger and more difficult. Your colleagues have talked about passports and the thickening of the border, which is not a term we like to use because it's negative. But security is a big issue. It has also opened new opportunitie

International Trade committee  I should just mention that there's one other thing we have. Our department and our deputy has started something called our executive outreach plan. So every one of our senior managers, from a director general to the assistant deputy minister to the deputy minister is allocated a

International Trade committee  We do both. I talk about the market plans. Let me just use an example, because some of you may be going there. In the Gulf Cooperation Council states--Dubai, Abu Dhabi--the growth has been tremendous. We took a look at this, and we felt that actually health care was an area, from

International Trade committee  We have 140 missions abroad. I think that's in 80-some countries, on the trade side. Our senior trade commissioners meet regularly with senior officials of other countries simply to find out if we have any market access issues, problems, or regulatory issues. We try to meet quite

International Trade committee  You used the example of the passports and the border. Clearly, if 16,000 of our clients are heavily involved in the U.S. marketplace and access is a big issue, this gets to Foreign Affairs and International Trade. My colleague is the assistant deputy minister for the U.S. I'm on

International Trade committee  It's regular. It's daily; it's weekly. For instance, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters or the Canadian Chamber of Commerce we see on a regular basis. Do they seek us out? Do we seek them out? I guess my comment would be, as in my opening remarks, that our clients are their