International Trade committee  Just on the Canadian brand, the fact that we're bilingual and multicultural, that we are the world, with language skills and links to the old countries, gives us a badge of being a wise country. That leveraging of our multicultural communities back into these emerging markets is

International Trade committee  The concept is that we are trying to correct market failure. So the SMEs without information on the means of going global are assisted by government. We're able to show satisfaction levels, and we can even help a company by having it decide that no, coming to this country does no

International Trade committee  EDC and DFAIT come under the same minister, the Minister of International Trade. We work very closely with it. We have advisory boards for each of the key sector industries, such as ICT, and EDC is on that advisory board. It involves a majority of private sector people. They meet

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, in answer to the question, we do have documentation, an SME exporters guide. It is available in hard copy and online, and is used by our staff in our regional offices to assist small businesses to look beyond their local market. That's one way of doing it. We also rel

International Trade committee  In your riding, one of the reforms we've made is to put one-person trade commissioner offices and BDC offices in Windsor and in Waterloo. They travel the region in southwestern Ontario, and are basically linking to the big operations and consulates general in Buffalo and Detroit

International Trade committee  I would add to Mr. McGovern's comments that the department participates in the FITT program, the Forum for International Trade Training. We're on the board and we are trying to assist that organization—it's an NGO—to better train entrepreneurs for the international field. We're

International Trade committee  The prospective client of the trade commissioner service walking into that office would benefit from an interview and an informal discussion of the firm's capabilities and commitment to international trade. Is it doing business within Canada already? Is it a born global company o

International Trade committee  With regard to the wine industry, we have what we call a virtual practice in wine. We have a sommelier, an expert in wine, here in Ottawa. She works closely with wine industry groups in British Columbia and Ontario, in particular, but also in Quebec and Nova Scotia, where wine is

International Trade committee  One of our four key services is exactly that: troubleshooting or solving problems. Working with CFIA in Asia in particular we have now established CFIA positions in places like Japan and China. The one in Japan was set up to fight the BSE problems. That person is a veterinarian a

International Trade committee  Mr. Chairman, we use our normal communications products, copies of which we've brought to the committee and which I think the clerk has, to try to market the service better via both the web and more traditional communications products. This is a very important point that you rai

International Trade committee  Mr. Chairman, we are working constantly at a regional office level. The 18 regional offices have an important role to play in preparing clients to get into the international arena, working closely with provincial and territorial governments and, in some cases, local industrial cl