International Trade committee  No, there is no causal relationship between signing FTAs or even bilateral investment treaties and getting increases in your country's productivity or competitiveness or number of jobs or average real wages. It depends on what you do with the rest of your policy toolbox. If you

International Trade committee  One of the reasons Canadian exports overall have not increased as much as those of other countries is that our basket of tradable goods has changed substantially in the last 14 or 15 years. We have become much more an exporter of natural resources, and much less an exporter of ma

International Trade committee  Sorry, could you say that again?

International Trade committee  Exactly, yes. This point is that most of Canada's exports are natural resources, and natural resources for the most part do not need much of a trade promotion diplomacy. People buy oil because they need oil. Most countries in the world don't have tariffs on oil, or silver, or gol

International Trade committee  Yes, the global geography of trade and economic power is changing in such a way that it may not return to what it was before. Yes, Canada is next to the U.S., and as such, it has had a very deep commercial relationship with the U.S., and as Ms. Campbell just explained, it remains

International Trade committee  Certainly our embassies and our trade commissioners are doing a very good job, but to be more successful, I think there is a lot of experience to be learned from other countries.

International Trade committee  Reallocating resources from one part of diplomacy to the other is something that for me is overly risky. It doesn't correspond with international practice. Most countries do have a political side that's not necessarily commercial and they don't have any commercial concerns on the

International Trade committee  I think you are very much at the same level in terms of trade diplomacy. What may be lacking in the case of the Canadian economy is there are maybe more domestic policies that need to be changed to support Canadian companies from Canada in a more effective way, but I don't see it

International Trade committee  The firewall I was referring to is exclusively to how the Canadian state operates when it's abroad. There's one side, where you would be having political dialogue or having certain diplomatic exchanges, for example with Honduras—or you can take any other country. Take South Afric

International Trade committee  No, not by any means. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. It's not what I would say. What I said was in the case of Honduras, to sign an FTA with a country like Honduras is not going to report any significant economic benefit. If you really wanted to help Honduras, you shou

International Trade committee  Yes, indeed. That's why most countries do not reallocate their diplomatic political resources to do trade policy, to do export promotion policy, because they basically need to have at least two faces. One is to promote your economic interest and your business interest, short-term

International Trade committee  In one minute?

International Trade committee  All right. I would say, in principle, yes. The international practice.... If you look at different countries in Europe that have quite substantial development programs, within them they have programs to support the private sector through aid programs. It's very difficult, beca

International Trade committee  Yes. I read in the GMAP presentation done by the government that there was a series of consultations with the private sector, with think tanks, and with academics within Canada and abroad on how to make that list. However, the actual process on how that list was put together was

International Trade committee  Yes, that's very much the case. Brazil is included, however, in the list of GMAP. I just want to basically underline the fact that if we want a business-oriented policy, then it must be business oriented. You cannot have it both ways. You can have certain strong political views