Finance committee  Was that question for me, Mr. Rajotte?

Finance committee  It's tough to put a number on it, but if this develops the way we would like and hope that it will, it will lead to not only the kinds of business-to-business deals we've been talking about but also opportunities for consumers to invest directly in Chinese financial products or t

Finance committee  It was a critical piece of it. Both sides, as I said, both the financial industry and the government were needed to make this happen. The government wanted to make sure that the financial industry was interested, was prepared to take this forward, and had the capacity and the int

Finance committee  I think that's certainly one of the major factors. They want counterparties, if I can use that phrase, in the financial industry that are safe, sound, reliable, and our Canadian financial institutions are that. Secondly, a number of our financial institutions have long-standing r

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, if you look at the Prime Minister's trip last year, he signed some $2-billion worth of different trade agreements in aviation, nuclear technology, blueberries, actually, as well as our particular agreement. Premier Wynne was over in China in October and she

Finance committee  One of the things that is exciting for Canada is that we have four cities that are considered international financial centres on a global financial centres index that ranks and does this kind of thing: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. It's clearly showing the national r

Finance committee  Ms. Kennedy is going to answer this question, Mr. Côté.

Finance committee  Mr. Côté, I think that for some businesses this is unfamiliar. They haven't done it before, so we have a bit of.... I don't know whether inertia is the right word, but we have a bit of a hump to get everybody over so that they are familiar with it. I think you'll see, once that h

Finance committee  First of all, regarding one of your comments that you made earlier, it needs to be—and it has been very much—both a government and an industry partnership to get this going and make it work. It does require both sides of the equation, if you will. We have been working with the C

Finance committee  Where there are investors in infrastructure projects in Canada, I think we should be encouraging that across the board. As you know, whether it's municipal, provincial, or federal, we have great infrastructure needs across the country. Our infrastructure investors are domestic

Finance committee  I certainly think that clarity and transparency are very, very helpful. As you know, it's a complex area. We do have national interests, which I think, quite rightly, that any government would look to protect. However, doing it within a framework of a Canada-China strategic par

Finance committee  They are looking at the kinds of businesses they want to support. As you know, some of them have more global operations than others do. They're looking at what kinds of services and products they want to provide. They're looking at the kinds of teams they'll need to do this. That

Finance committee  I think it could, because it just makes it easier to deal with Chinese business. You're taking away some of the currency risk. You're taking away some of the time. You're taking away some of the complexity. Obviously a company will have to take steps to do this the first time, bu

Finance committee  I think it's going to be a little easier for them to do business deals with Canadian business. As you know, China is very interested in various industries here in Canada. They're interested in our agricultural products because, of course, of their growing consumer markets. They'r

Finance committee  Anything we can do that makes business deals easier, faster, and less costly is a good thing. I think the win-win about this particular agreement is in the ability to have the direct exchange between the two currencies. It's a win for financial institutions in terms of being able