International Trade committee  I'm happy to talk about it since I was the one who raised it. Here's an example that I've heard from companies in the past about their repair person coming across the border. When you buy machinery or equipment, and you buy from an American supplier, for example, there are typi

International Trade committee  I think that, in your riding, companies like Irving, for example, are pretty significant employers. Obviously, they don't operate just in New Brunswick. They have massive operations across New England and in the border states. They move products back and forth constantly, whether

International Trade committee  Good morning, and thank you for inviting me here, on behalf of Canada's 90,000 manufacturers and exporters and our association's 2,500 direct members, to support the ratification of Bill C-100 and the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. I would like to thank the Prime Minister

International Trade committee  Sure. I mentioned the mentorship networks earlier. I think they will be critically important to transferring knowledge to those who don't know how to export. Some of the funding will go to different sector associations across the country to give their members the tools they need

International Trade committee  Most of the tools we had put forward and suggested were largely copied in the fall economic statement yesterday, working very closely with Minister Carr's office, so there's not a whole lot more from our perspective. Again, trying to implement them is going to be critically impor

International Trade committee  My light went on, so I guess it's me. We were very happy to see that language on the folks in SMEs in the agreement, but let's not get lost in technical agreements. They really don't matter to SMEs at all. No company is reading these. I don't want to read them, and I'm paid to r

International Trade committee  As I said in my commentary, we were very pleased to see the $1.1-billion investment in an export strategy. That target very much aligns with what CME had asked for. We spoke about it in front of this committee before. Getting the tools right is really important. Just saying you'r

International Trade committee  No, we were in favour of implementing it in the first place. We know it's a problem. I think our focus right now is to improve the process to make it quicker for companies to get the refunds that they should be getting under the existing processes that are there. Right now, it's

International Trade committee  Sure. Maybe I'll just talk about the mentorship networks because that was something that we worked directly with the minister's office to get in the fall economic statement. We were very happy to see it in there yesterday. The idea simply is to get people who know what they're a

International Trade committee  I agree with everything that Jocelyn just said—something that we've talked about here a number of times—but I think there are a couple of things that you hit on that we fully support as well. This idea of connecting companies to the government support programs is critically impo

International Trade committee  Thank you for having me. Thank you, all members, for inviting us back again. I'm here today on behalf of Canada's manufacturing and exporting industries and our association's 2,500 direct members to talk about how we can get small and medium-sized enterprise to export more and t

International Trade committee  Yes. I think it is critical that we look at that. The problem that we're in right now is the short-term nature of the actions. Between now and Monday, I don't think there's enough time for the government to act to make us more competitive. This is not a new issue, though. This i

International Trade committee  I would say that our number one recommendation to the government on the tariff retaliation was to focus on NAFTA. That to us is the number one priority. With applying tariffs, we understand the need to retaliate, but we need to fix the base problem, which is NAFTA in the first pl

International Trade committee  We've certainly looked at it. What we've been told is that the new government is ready to negotiate, whoever that new government is. Negotiations will resume shortly after July 1 because of their willingness. Maybe the negotiations won't be as hostile as we originally thought the

International Trade committee  I don't know if there is a quick answer to that. I'd say just don't forget that they are our number one customer and they're our number one client. We need to work with the U.S. regardless of the political realities of any situation.