International Trade committee  I don't want to be too controversial, but I can probably do that. I'm a new Canadian. In general, I have found that in a boardroom in Canada, you have to lay out the risks and benefits, and obviously the risks generally outweigh the benefits in the short term. I think Mr. Shory

International Trade committee  Absolutely. The two other jurisdictions we have done business with are China—I don't know if you can really call it an emerging market anymore or not, but we could call it an emerged market—and the Middle East. There are a couple of points there. Each of these jurisdictions has

International Trade committee  I think it's more a question of a mindset change. I've always found that the U.S. firms are greater risk-takers. We Canadians are generally more conservative. In order to do business in India you have to—

International Trade committee  You just have to be....

International Trade committee  No. In fact, I haven't heard anything. I've actually travelled a lot with the law firms from Canada, going to India and vice versa. It has always been an issue that Canadian law firms can't open up offices in India, and obviously the legal system is an issue, but I don't think it

International Trade committee  There's no question in my mind. I don't know when you were in India, but perhaps you remember that Pepsi tried to enter India way back in the seventies, I believe. They were thrown out. The first store that KFC opened was actually stoned. When Walmart tried to open up its store

International Trade committee  Yes, absolutely.

International Trade committee  I haven't had direct conversations—

International Trade committee  Look, there will obviously be two sets of views. One will be from organizations that are state-controlled and were trying to do business with Canadians in the past. In the mining sector, for example, NMDC has been here several times. ONGC Videsh has been trying to acquire oil san

International Trade committee  I'll start with my conclusion. My conclusion, which I've written down here, says exactly that. People have always debated whether India needs Canada more or whether Canada needs India more. I'm Canadian, but I'm going to tell you that we represent less than one percent of the tra

International Trade committee  It can, as much as our federal government can have on Quebec, for example, or on British Columbia. There are certain subjects that are state subjects and other subjects that are federal. There is an ability, but it is limited, because at the end of the day, you have to work in th

International Trade committee  That is true. Here are some of the experiences of Indian counterparts working in Quebec, for example. They have had no issues in getting licences or getting approvals. It's a very streamlined process. Under all our securities laws, for example, if they want to acquire a company o

International Trade committee  Yes, it's IFFCO.

International Trade committee  They are obviously not, because I've seen that in a state like Gujarat, the chief minister will gladly take a meeting with one of our large corporations. He'll sit down there and instruct his deputy ministers at the meeting to ensure that these licences are done. The deputy minis

International Trade committee  Thank you. I don't really have prepared remarks, but as a typical investment banker, I do have some bullet points that I've jotted down, and I'm happy to have a more interactive discussion on those. Just quickly on my background, I spent about 23 years of my life in India initi