International Trade committee  It is, and funding or financial assistance from banks is also a major concern. I've heard SMEs complaining about that too. But if you have sound business practices and a good business plan, a good track record, then the banks are willing to help you out. I think that if SMEs are

International Trade committee  I would not comment on Canada's regulatory system as much as I would on the ISO systems and AS9100 systems, which are self-imposed and now industry-imposed upon companies that are participating in the industry. If you're not AS9100-certified, you're not eligible to deal with comp

International Trade committee  As it was put to me, it was a matter of timing. They said that if they could have had a little more time, perhaps another couple of weeks, to get the word out...because it does take time for these stakeholders to get out to visit their clients. I just want to tag on to the prev

International Trade committee  My controller would tell you that it's disincentivizing, but I don't get too worked up about the tax side of things. It is what it is. We take advantage of SR and ED tax credits when we can. We take advantage of any facilitation that can be provided to us, but we don't cry over i

International Trade committee  I do feel that the South Korea one will open markets for us. We already had some preliminary discussions with trade commissioners, actually, on work that we could be doing there. We're also pretty excited about Indonesia. We have a list of clients that we want to be doing busines

International Trade committee  Extremely helpful, I would say. We have had assistance in the past in going to exhibit at foreign trade shows, and it's not inexpensive, especially for an SME. You could spend easily $20,000 to $30,000 to do a show, no small potatoes for an SME. That's to take two or three people

International Trade committee  As far as promoting Canadian products is concerned, there is what the government can do, but there is also what the companies can do, and I'll speak to both. John mentioned being on a plane: it should be on Air Canada, for instance. Why not use Air Canada, when you have a person

International Trade committee  I did actually mention them in my opening remarks, although it was a bit muddled. I'll just revisit that. There have been three in our region. I visited two and I spoke at one, on a panel. They are good events, but we need to have more notification that they are taking place. I

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I am indeed, yes.

International Trade committee  A number of years ago, we had been dealing with one bank for many years. They routinely change their account representatives or relationship managers, and we had a new general manager come in. They brought him around to our company, and he sat in our boardroom and said, “So, what

International Trade committee  I'd like to make a comment on one particular facet of infrastructure, and that is the highway system. We come from a very busy part of southern Ontario. This is the Mississauga region where the 401 intersects with the 407. The 401 is going to be widened through our section of Mea

International Trade committee  Sure. Further to John's comment, if we go into an interview or we begin a relationship with a new trade commissioner, we treat them as being a supplier to us or actually an employee of ours. If there has been an experience, and we haven't run into it yet, but obviously it can hap

International Trade committee  The company was in New York state. Once we notified EDC and BDC, both of which we have relationships with to start with, they immediately jumped into the queue and were willing to help us out. We met with them here, and down in New York as well, to get their insight as to what c

International Trade committee  It wasn't so much my thinking as evidence that had come to me in recent discussions. I'm involved with the Peel Goods Movement Task Force in the Toronto region and also with a freight commission; there's a “freight day”, for instance, that happens annually at the University of To