THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, December 15, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 12:42 p.m. [ET] to study the Canadian foreign service and elements of the foreign policy machinery within Global Affairs Canada.
Senator Peter M. Boehm (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, my name is Peter Boehm, I’m a senator from Ontario and the Chair of the committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Before we begin, I wish to invite committee members participating in today’s meeting to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba, from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
Senator M. Deacon: Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator Harder: Peter Harder, Ontario.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, colleagues. Welcome to all of you and to all Canadians who are watching on senvu.ca.
Today we continue our study of the Canadian foreign service. As you know, the purpose of this study is to assess the suitability and readiness of our foreign service and foreign policy apparatus to meet current and future global challenges.
[English]
To discuss the matter, we are pleased to welcome the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development. Welcome to the committee, minister. The officials from Global Affairs Canada accompanying you today are Alexandre Lévêque, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy; Sara Wilshaw, Chief Trade Commissioner, International Business Development, Investment and Innovation; and Bruce Christie, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations.
There are other officials from Global Affairs Canada in the room, and they may be asked by the minister to answer questions. In which case, they will be called to the table and will then be asked to identify themselves before answering any questions, and I will do that asking.
Before we hear your remarks, minister, and proceed to questions and answers, I wish to remind and ask members and witnesses in the room to please refrain from leaning in too close to their microphone or removing the earpiece when you are doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff and others in the room who might be wearing the earpiece for interpretation.
I will also mention that we are in the last stages of a senate sitting, and we are expecting votes. It’s very possible that we might have to interrupt briefly for some of us to run downstairs and vote on some bills.
Minister Ng, the floor is yours for any opening remarks you might want to make. This will be followed by questions and answers from senators on a first-come-first-served basis.
Hon. Mary Ng, P.C., M.P., Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development: Thank you so much. It’s terrific to be here in the Senate Building. I think this may be my second time here, and it was certainly a lot easier when we could just walk down the hall and see one another.
I’m going to do something a bit unusual, and that is not to have any lengthy opening remarks. I was looking at the robust questions that were being asked of others who have appeared before the committee, and I thought, why not make all of the time available so that I can engage in a dialogue?
This is such an important topic. I want to thank this committee in particular for looking at the present and the future of diplomacy, its fit for purpose and why something like Canadian international trade is important to Canadians, the work that we do today and how we as an organization are best positioned to create the very best capability for Canadians to reap the benefits that come from international trade in the global marketplace. With that, I will stop and go right to questions. I welcome them, and I want to have a wonderful, candid conversation. I hope that’s okay, chair.
The Chair: Thank you very much, minister, it certainly is. I just want to remind my colleagues that the topic is the study that we’re engaged in, as I said at the outset of the meeting in French.
Honourable senators, you will have four minutes each as per usual. Since we’re starting late, and with the minister’s indulgence and with the possibility of interruptions, I would like to have the full hour, if we can. It depends a lot on your schedule, minister. I think we can manage that. Again, because we have only four minutes, we can go to a second round. I would urge you, colleagues, as I always do, to keep your questions precise and concise, and that will elicit more time for answers and responses.
Senator MacDonald: Minister, you know parliament introduced Bill C-11 in Parliament to amend the Broadcasting Act, and you met with U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai. The U.S. has repeatedly raised the matter noting concern about how this bill and Bill C-18 will impact digital streaming services.
You also know that the former chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein, appeared before the committee examining Bill C-11. He stated that the bill’s discriminatory measures will impact U.S. streamers and we can expect U.S. retaliation under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. Has the U.S. trade representative been specific with you on what type of retaliation that the U.S. will launch against Canada, and which Canadian sectors do you expect to be most impacted?
Ms. Ng: Thank you for that. I have many conversations with my colleague in the United States. It’s so important, because it is such an important relationship to Canada. The United States is Canada’s largest trading partner. It is precisely because the relationship is so large that there are going to, inevitably, be issues that we just need to work through.
I was very clear that bills and legislation that go before the Canadian Parliament are prepared in such a way that they will be trade-compliant. As a rules-based country that is a strong defender of that, we take it very seriously to make sure that we meet our international obligations. I was clear with the U.S. trade representative that our bill, which is going forward, is trade-compliant. We had a conversation, as we do about a whole range of issues between Canada and the U.S. It’s an important relationship, and I always welcome an open dialogue with our trading partners, particularly the United States.
Senator MacDonald: I just have one follow-up question: If they take the position that it’s not trade-compliant, where is the retaliation likely to fall, and what are we doing to prepare for it?
Ms. Ng: During the renegotiation of CUSMA, we thought a lot about that and ensuring the mechanism for dispute settlement and resolution is built into that agreement. Just as we have seen with an issue that Canada has around solar panels, for example, as rules-based countries, we are able to utilize those very processes of consultations, using those mechanisms.
That’s what we would intend to do. We would certainly expect that the United States would also follow the very rules that we negotiate together.
As I said earlier, in a relationship as large as the one we have with the U.S., you have to be able to have a range of conversations over a range of issues. Sometimes I raise issues with them, with a view, at the end of the day, to coming to a resolution using those rules-based mechanisms in trade agreements, which is the purpose for which they are designed.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you, minister.
The Chair: Senator, do you want to be down for the second round?
Senator MacDonald: We’ll see how it goes.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: Hello, minister, and thank you, all of you, for being here today.
The recently announced Indo-Pacific strategy is, for me, a great example of the marriage between our diplomacy and international trade, so being here today is quite timely.
In that regard, I am wondering how our diplomatic and trade offices go about finding the balance between Canada’s priorities around human rights and the kind of success that we strive for in trade. There are a number of countries in the Indo-Pacific that may run quite different from what Canadians would deem appropriate when it comes to issues around women’s rights, for instance, or adherence to what we may define as democratic norms.
So how does Global Affairs Canada, through your office, balance putting pressure on these countries to respect human rights while, at the same time, indicating that Canada is open, ready and aggressive for business? How do we manage those trade-offs?
Ms. Ng: That’s a terrific question. It’s what I spend every day in this job working through with my colleagues in the department and those across the way in Minister Joly’s and Minister Sajjan’s areas.
I will take a step back for a second. When you heard the chair read the title before, I’m not only the Minister for International Trade, I’m also the Minister of Small Business and Economic Development. The reason for that is because international trade is so important to the Canadian economy. One in six jobs in Canada is related to trade, and two thirds of our economy is dependent upon trade. It’s very much a part of our history.
We are also seeing the incredible innovations in the kinds of enterprises that are emerging, whether it is in clean technology or agri-foods and agri-tech. There are a range of new businesses, particularly small ones, working in innovative areas like AI. Those are emerging as small- and medium-sized enterprises.
So the Prime Minister very deliberately put the two files together so that, in the course of growing those opportunities, we are doing so in a way that helps the businesses that are small and those that have often been underrepresented in our economy, like women, Indigenous people or immigrant businesses and so forth.
Where am I going with this? International trade is not just about where we trade and what we trade but who trades. We spend a lot of time creating and negotiating robust trade agreements. I would proudly say that we are the best in the world. We negotiate terms into trade agreements that I think are also forward-leaning. Some might remember that the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, became the CPTPP, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. I reminded my colleagues about that agreement, around that table, not that long ago, when they were talking about how the high-standards agreement is something that we value, but what are those standards? They are standards on the environment and protections for labour rights; we ensure that our trade agreements have provisions for who trades, such as small- and medium-sized enterprises, and are inclusive of women’s enterprises, for example.
When we are around the trade negotiating table, as with the Indo-Pacific, where we are at the trade negotiating table with Indonesia right now and with the ASEAN countries, those very features of the Canadian trade agreements are parts of that. When you are at the negotiating table together, you are negotiating as equal partners, and you come to agreements on those very issues that are really important to Canadians, our values and our democratic values. We are able to work with them in a way to come to an understanding of that trade framework and those sets of rules that will bind us —
The Chair: Thank you, minister. I’m going to interrupt you, because we’re well over the four-minute mark there.
Senator Woo: Minister, welcome to you and your officials. Thank you for taking the time to be with us.
I wanted to ask you about groupthink in the Foreign Service. You have such talented people in your department. I can’t imagine they will have the same views, but bureaucracies have a way of forcing people to conform, which is very dangerous, particularly for foreign and trade policy.
Could you speak about how the department allows, perhaps even encourages, fosters and permits, alternate ideas to get far enough that they are taken seriously — not to the point of embarrassing anybody, but to the point that they are taken seriously — and given fair consideration for alternative paths in the way we pursue our foreign policy and trade objectives?
Ms. Ng: How am I going to do this in four minutes or even in two minutes? It’s a very good question.
Maybe what I’ll do use a practical example to illustrate. It picks up a little bit on the previous question around the Indo-Pacific Strategy. What you see there in that strategy is that nexus between Canada’s diplomacy work in the region, the trade and development nexus that gives us the opportunity to develop the capacity that is necessary in some of our present and future trading partners. You will see that we are also finding partnerships with civil society and business groups that will help us, partner with us and work with us in a way that will give us a range of views that, on the one hand, respect and uphold the values that are really important to Canadians and, at the same time, provide us with a considered view by bringing in that external element.
I will explain what I mean by that. In the Indo-Pacific Strategy, we’re investing $25 million — I think it’s a little over that amount — to the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, which will set up a presence in the region and will bring in thought leadership from a wide range of civil society, business and academia that will inform and be a part of the conversation in the region. That is an example.
I’m going to open up a trade gateway for the region. It’s going to partner very closely with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and will build upon the strength of the diplomacy and the missions we have there. We’re going to start bringing our businesses in there, and through that, we’re going to augment the capabilities we have in our trade commission services and so forth.
This is a continued work-in-progress, knowing that we have got to use the very best of our expertise in the geographies and also cognizant that we don’t do this alone; we do this with partnership. We must do this with partnership. I think that external view ensures we will be broad in our thinking.
Senator Coyle: Thank you to Minister Ng and to all the officials present for being with us. As you know, we are having a really thorough look at Canada’s global workforce, our government global workforce. We’re very interested in having all of you here today to specifically better understand both the existing situation with our trade commissioners and others dealing with trade and also our future needs in that area.
We were recently down in Washington, D.C. One of the things we discussed with our state department counterparts down there was that idea of outward-facing versus inward-reaching in Canada and, well, in that case, in the United States. It caused us to pause and think about our own workforce. As we know, trade is between our country and others, and we trade what is produced here in Canada for that outward part.
I’m curious about the outward-facing expertise that you currently look for and what kinds of expertise you might be looking for that you may not yet have in spades for our future growing and changing trade needs. But I’m also interested in whether our trade workforce is knowledgeable on those products and the regions from which those products come here in Canada and how we ensure that balance.
Ms. Ng: I’m going to connect a couple of dots here because I started answering the other question about my portfolio and why it is what it is. I will leave the senators with this thought. The horizontality of how we work inside the Canadian civil service is extremely important. In here, we have trade expertise and analysis on how to get into markets, et cetera, but you must be able to nurture and grow and work across the system here. That collaboration must be taking place inside the country in order to take place outside the country. Here’s what I mean by that.
I have to collaborate with ISED, or Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and all the regional development departments because, well, think about all the wonderful businesses being developed across the country in that. I work with NRCan, Natural Resources Canada. Why? Because we are outward-facing in terms of developing sustainable critical mineral development, so I must work with the minister at NRCan. I must work with ISED on another side which is all about innovation.
So, the horizontality is what I would encourage us to focus on to make sure we have the aptitude of the skills and the workforce to do that. It is that horizontality that is going to give us that capability of developing the very best internally and seeing what those very capabilities are for exporting and in helping them to get export-ready. So, there is a range of programs, and it’s connecting the dots on CanExport, on trade acceleration, on working through the RDAs, regional development agencies, making sure that the Net Zero Accelerator, or NZA, and the projects that we’re funding through there or through the sustainable development group in Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or STDC, because they’re supporting some of the most wonderful clean-tech companies.
So, I would say it’s that horizontality. So, our trade workforce also has to be horizontal. It must have the ability to connect horizontally to our internal, wonderful colleagues across the system.
We do that at the ministerial level. My portfolio, I think, speaks volumes because that’s the mandate. I have two deputies, one on economic development and one on international trade. It’s that nexus that is helping us develop and lead the workforce — well, the team of the future.
The Chair: Thank you, minister.
Everyone will see that there are lights going on. That means we have a vote coming up at 2:02, but we can keep going for a while.
Ms. Ng: I understand this, as you well know.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Welcome, minister. Your role places you at the forefront of the government’s efforts to diversify Canadian exports. Your mandate letter states that you will develop a strategy for economic cooperation with Africa, including support for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which provides access to 1.3 billion consumers and a market worth over $3.5 trillion.
Just this week, in fact, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced on Monday that her organization is preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding with the African Continental Free Trade Area to explore next steps in the U.S.-Africa trade relationship.
My question is twofold. First of all, as Minister of International Trade, how is your department, within Global Affairs Canada, working on creating closer economic ties between Canada and Africa? Secondly, are you also considering signing — like the United States — a potential free trade agreement with AfCFTA? Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Ng: Thank you for that. The dynamic opportunity in Africa is a very exciting one. I remember, just before the pandemic, I joined the Prime Minister on a trip to Africa where he was meeting with the African Union. Just preceding that trip, I tagged along on a trade mission to Kenya and Ethiopia. I also made a trip into South Africa because of the significant annual Investing in African Mining Indaba conference and how important that is to Canadian industries.
While there, I developed some of the sort of business-to-business relationships through the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business to be able to connect those who do business very directly.
In advance of that and while we were there, we decided we’d work on something that we both thought would be quite complementary to Canada and Africa. That is around fighting climate change. Canada was very much a partner and a participant in the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference that took place in Kenya. We have had a couple of clean-technology summits where we brought in and sort of worked to curate those entrepreneurs and businesses, both in Africa as well as in Canada, to look at how we can collaborate in the areas of green agriculture or green renewable energy and so forth.
I would say we are doing the work by enabling businesses to do that. At the same time, the development-to-trade nexus can probably be expressed best through Canada’s work in capacity building, working with Africa in what eventually became AfCFTA, the African Free Trade Area arrangement among the African Union.
We absolutely have aspirations to deepen our relationship with Africa, our trade relationship, to build on the historical relationship between Canada and Africa. That work is something quite exciting to do. We’ve been in conversations with a couple of the countries very specifically on FIPAs, foreign investment promotion and protection agreements. The work towards something deeper is certainly under way; that would be the best way to say it.
Senator Harder: Thank you, minister.
A couple of basic questions, if I could. The Trade Commissioner Service joined the then Department of External Affairs some 40 years ago, and there were some of your predecessors who believed it should be disentangled and have a stand-alone minister and ministry. Happily, from my point of view, that didn’t last long.
I would like you to confirm for this group that there’s a real serious advantage for Canada to have the capacities and responsibilities of trade, foreign affairs and now international development together, as long as they’re bigger than the sum of their parts.
Ms. Ng: I agree. We are stronger because we are together.
I can share the practical experience that I see. I’ve been doing quite a bit of travelling now that we’re able to travel post-COVID. I’ve been in Asia, it feels like, every three weeks and in different parts of the world visiting our operations. The sum of those parts is so incredibly important. I think the trade component that relies so much on the geographic expertise and understanding that is in the field but also here at headquarters is a real complement to what trade does, because when we say that we want to execute inclusive trade, or we want to make sure that our Canadian businesses are upholding the high standards of what is expected of them in responsible business conduct, we are informed by the work and the expertise in the geography.
Senator Harder: Thanks very much. If I could ask a follow-up question on this, it seems to me that we are not in some of the geographies we need to be, though. That might not be with full-fledged missions, but we have just talked about Africa. My colleague talked about what the United States is doing. They have 51 missions in Africa. Now, we’re not the United States, but we have 17.
Don’t you think we could be a little more creative in finding ways of having a presence in situ that could expand our network and that might be principally trade-based or development-based, depending on the location? Can we be a bit more creative?
Ms. Ng: I think the work that your committee is doing is so important, because I think it’s going to add to the current work and thinking that is already under way at Global Affairs Canada.
There is, of course, work that is taking place in parallel to the work of this committee that is really contemplating that future of diplomacy and the human capital that we need across the world, as well as here. Is it fit for purpose so that we really are working horizontally here in Canada and having enough presence in those parts of the world that, really, Canada needs to be in, not just from a geopolitical standpoint but from a trade support standpoint?
The best example would be what you saw come out of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. It is a very fulsome strategy that covers a range from diplomacy, to trade, to development and to defence. I think you’re seeing that as the way the government is working in terms of the whole of government.
I think what is going to be terribly important is the work that you are doing here at this committee, but also the work that is very much taking place right now, to be sure that we have the right resources in place for what Canada’s trade and global presence needs to be.
Senator Harder: Thank you.
Senator Boniface: Thank you, minister, for being here. My question is a follow-up around the Indo-Pacific Strategy. Particularly, you’ll be appointing a new trade representative in the region.
Given the broader examples you’ve given, can you tell me how you’re going to build the capacity from a skills-level perspective? Will you have support back here in Ottawa? What type of boots on the ground, and such, will you need there? Please help me understand that.
Ms. Ng: Absolutely. This is a very ambitious and wonderful strategy that will help Canada position itself to seek the opportunities of one of the fastest-growing areas of the world. You’ll see in the strategy that I believe the right amount of resources are being put to that.
That planning for execution work is very much being planned right now. The capacity uplift that is part of the strategy is actually about people and the kinds of resources we will need in the region. Having an Indo-Pacific trade representative is really to be able to have the strength of coordination and leadership, particularly for helping create that nexus, that front door, if you will, to the region for Canada. It will also help to work in the region so that the region understands a lot more about Canada, which it doesn’t as much as it ought to right now.
Very much at the heart of it is the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada that I talked about a little earlier and having leadership through the Indo-Pacific trade representative. Having the capacity uplift, really, is about the people and the right distribution of people, building on what is in the region so that it’s very complementary, and then finding the right partners in our provinces and territories, as well as business organizations. You want this to be implementable and practical, and that is certainly my approach — our approach — to how we’re going to pursue the implementation of the trade aspect of the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Senator Boniface: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, minister.
I’m going to ask questions, picking up a little bit from where Senator Boniface was and recalling Senator Coyle’s comment about our trip to Washington last week. We had very good meetings there, and it is clear that the U.S. Department of State is engaged in a major modernization exercise, for which they have congressional support. We also met with members of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and we heard all of that.
One of the things they want to do is to on-board new hires within six months. They realize it’s going to be a difficult thing to do. It’s certainly very difficult here at Global Affairs Canada, because it can take years for someone to join. In the meantime, the average foreign service officer age, as we have discovered in data that we have asked for from your department, is 47.
When you’re looking at really expanding into the Asia-Pacific, certainly, to have trade commissioners on the ground and also more negotiators on board, as we look at future free trade agreements, how do you stimulate the work that will ensure that this can happen and, in particular, getting people in who might not be the first to pass an exam that is cognitive but might have foreign language skills and other abilities that would be very valuable?
Ms. Ng: People are our greatest asset, and that is, I think, at the heart of your question.
The way in which we are approaching the trade aspect of it, particularly the Indo-Pacific Strategy, is, if I draw your attention to the assets that we have at the moment, it really is about greater coordination. Let me explain what that means.
I have in my responsibility Crown organizations like Export Development Canada, Canadian Commercial Corporation, Invest in Canada, and, of course, the Trade Commissioner Service. As part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, we have this incredible network of expats in the region who have also formed in-country, local, Canadian chambers of commerce.
In this strategy, we are going to increase the support for those who are on the ground and are the expats in the business community, and we are leveraging the very strong capabilities of those organizations, those Crown organizations, who already are working precisely to get in the market.
There is no question that there is work we’re going to need to do to make sure we are putting and augmenting the right people into the range of missions on the ground, but we’re not starting from zero. We are very much already doing this. BETR is an acronym that stands for Business, Economic and Trade Recovery. I created that during the pandemic, but who is it? It’s the Trade Commissioner Service, Export Development Canada, Canadian Commercial Corporation and Invest in Canada working across the organizations. Who are they focused on? They are focused on the exporter, the small- and medium-sized businesses and the large businesses. They are actually working as “Team Canada.”
I fully envisage that when I can take those Team Canada missions abroad again, we will be able to bring together these incredible businesses. By the way, during the pandemic, we were doing them virtually, and last week, I was in Japan. Having an implementation plan about people in the region in collaboration and coordination with these very strong pieces is how we’re going to do the trade piece.
One final point on that. I say this often: Canada is the best to trade around the world because we come from around the world. How do we make sure that the human capital of those great Canadians — whether expats or here in Canada — see themselves as part of Team Canada here in Canada and are willing to also be part of the trade team abroad?
The Chair: Thank you, minister.
Senator Woo: Minister, I’d like to pick up on your reference to Canadian expatriates. I just finished a consultation with all the Canadian chambers in the Asia-Pacific, and, generally, they feel they are underutilized by the Trade Commissioner Service and the foreign service more generally. My question is whether the government has given thought to leveraging Canadians abroad in a more holistic and broader sense, not just as stand-in trade commissioners — if I can put it that way — but accepting them as part of the Canadian citizenry with unique concerns, needs and challenges that have to be addressed through a range of public policy matters — again, not just calling on them to help make introductions to export a product to their market. I’m talking about issues like tax, resettlement, keeping in touch with Canada, recognition of their contributions and pensions. There are a variety of questions that Canadians abroad feel are not properly addressed by the government, which hinders their ability to be the kinds of ambassadors or representatives of Canada that we would want to see.
I’ll just conclude by pointing out — and you will have seen this statistic from Statistics Canada — that the fresh estimate of Canadians abroad now is 4.4 million, which would make Canadians abroad the fifth-largest province if they were a province.
Ms. Ng: I love that question. That is the aspiration. We aspire to precisely place that investment so we can increase the capacity of those CanChams and networks that are in country so we can tie them closer to our missions on the ground.
I think about one example. I was in the Philippines very recently, and there is a very robust Canadian chamber made up of expatriates. They cross the Pacific quite often. It is exactly those opportunities that have been identified to me and to our government, which is precisely why this investment has been made into the Indo-Pacific Strategy very particularly.
However, it is more — as you said — than just introductions to a network. It is really about the development of a relationship, which is why the Asia Pacific Foundation is going to be there, why I’m opening a gateway, why we’re investing in the chambers and why we are going to focus, for example, on the really good work that we’ve done here in the Canadian women’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and how to make that more internationalized. We have three great representatives that the government has appointed to ABAC, which is the business advisory council to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC. They’re extraordinary because they are working in that multilateral forum on the business side.
We are seeing first-hand the opportunities for those relationship developments and how we convene that. I think the very best capability we have as Canadians — we have lots, and one of the things we are really great at is that we are fantastic conveners. In region, the opportunity to do that is immense.
Is there work to be done? Absolutely. But if I point you to the Indo-Pacific Strategy, you are seeing those features precisely because of what we’ve heard and how we want to invest. Now the proof will be us doubling down and getting to implementation.
Senator Woo: Can you tell me if there is someone in the department who is responsible for Canadians abroad? Not consular issues like solving problems when they get arrested, but someone who is cultivating, developing and engaging — doing the sort of thing you just described. Who is in charge of that?
Ms. Ng: I don’t think it’s one person because on trade, I often look over here to the chief trade commissioner, and on negotiations, I look over there.
On the trade side, I think someone was referring to the alphabet identification of departments — the “T” branch and the “B” branch. I have been trained to understand, in business and in trade, that one was negotiating and one —
No, there is no single individual.
The Chair: I could help illustrate that. In my previous life, when I was posted in Washington, we had, of course, 9/11. We looked at developing a network of expat Canadians in the United States who would help get the message across because there was a lot of disinformation out there about where the terrorists came from, et cetera. It was not easy.
The point I’m making is that embassies can do a lot of this on the ground and not necessarily in a consular sense. In the past, it has really been through the public affairs sections of our missions. They only have so many resources and so much strength as well.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I would like to take this opportunity today to commend the work of trade commissioners. In my former life, I dealt with many trade commissioners and they are often underappreciated, or are they not thanked enough. There are over 1,400 of them, I believe, working all over the world. This is an opportunity to acknowledge their work with entrepreneurs in my former life.
The Privy Council Office has issued a call to action against racism and for equity and inclusion in the public service. I would like to know what your department is doing to ensure and promote the best representation of minorities among trade commissioners around the world. Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Ng: Let me echo, senator, the tremendous appreciation for the Trade Commissioner Service. I hear this appreciation from businesses across the country. In fact, you see it in the surveys that come back where they constantly score over 90% in client satisfaction. In fact, it is often the case that when you talk to someone and they don’t know about it, you wonder how they can not know about it. So the export promotion part of my job ensures I tell as many people as possible that this is the best service they can possibly have to get into market and help when they are in market.
I do think there is a tremendous opportunity to make sure that our workforce, trade commissioners and team reflect Canada. It goes back to the statement I made, which is that Canadians are the best traders because we come from around the world. What a tremendous asset that is.
A reflection I would have — and this is the work that is under way — is that we do want a workforce and our team to be diverse. It is a strength for us as Canadians because the understanding of culture and language is terrific. Within the young generation of those who come into our system, we must have a laser focus to ensure we get that representation and that diversity.
For those who may not presently be bilingual, we need to make sure they are also supported. We need to support them so that when they come, en français is something that they will be able to embrace and learn throughout their careers. Our Chief Trade Commissioner does that already and really focuses on it. That diversity is key for us on trade around the world. However, we don’t want impediments for us to have that kind of workforce. We need to support people not only to be bilingual but also to embrace the third, the fourth or the fifth languages that some of our tremendous Canadians have. That is the work we have now and that is ahead of us.
The Chair: Thank you, minister, in particular, for the last part of your answer. I think it’s really important.
Senator M. Deacon: This is a small question, but a question that I’m trying to work through to understand the study that we’re doing right now. I want to get a better idea of your working relationship with Export Development Canada.
As a Crown corporation, is there any official level of cooperation between Global Affairs Canada and the EDC? Or are they more or less left to their own devices?
Ms. Ng: They are a Crown corporation that I have responsibility for as a minister of the Crown, and I issue a statement of priorities to them each year. They get a guiding document from me in the same way that I get a mandate letter. It outlines the government’s priorities to them. I have a regular check-in with both the chair and the CEO.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for that. At this table, we are trying to garner as much as we can to make the best recommendation.
My final question for you is this: As we’re looking at foreign services and international trade, what have we not touched on? If you are looking at the work you are doing, what do you wish was different or better?
Ms. Ng: I would encourage the committee to look at that horizontality. We are a big system in government, and we have big departments with robust work. This work has already started through the very fact that I have the mandate and the portfolio that I do, that it includes small business, economic development and international trade. The skill set that you need, on the one hand, is expertise in geography around the world and diplomacy. You certainly need trade expertise as well, in terms of helping your Canadian exporters understand the markets that they are going into and helping them navigate to be successful in those markets. However, before you even get there, you want to be sure that you are working horizontally as best as you can — and in a systematic way here — to leverage our many strengths.
When I look at my own portfolio, as I already said, I work with my colleague ministers who have responsibility for regional development agencies. I’m also the Minister of Economic Development. As a result, I play a bit of that coordinating role. We work horizontally in the Crown corporations that I have under my responsibility, and I encourage more of that collaboration across the system. It’s essential for us to work in that way so that we can do our level best. For example, how do we ensure that, when we look back, we have a cadre of incredible Indigenous entrepreneurs in markets around the world? That will take us working horizontally here and then working in such a way that will help them get into those markets. It’s sort of a to and fro, but it certainly requires that horizontality.
The Chair: Thank you. I wanted to check with Senator Coyle and Senator Boniface to see if they had any follow-up questions. Senator Gerba, Senator Woo and I also have questions, so we’re going to run out of time. Senator Coyle, you are first.
Senator Coyle: This has been a fascinating discussion, actually. Looking again at that horizontality that you raised in response to my initial question — and you have been reinforcing that throughout — I want to look back at small business and economic development.
I know you are here mostly on international trade. As you are trying to encourage and stimulate that more horizontality, what does that mean on the ground? In your workforce — for example, the small-business-oriented workforce and the economic-development workforce — what are you looking for there in order to better prepare them to engage in that horizontality with that international trade ambition that we have?
Ms. Ng: Terrific question. I have two deputies: one for economic development and one for international trade. I’m pleased with the way that they work together. Some of the work that has already taken place is something that I call a “no-wrong-door approach.” That is, looking at our work, from where we sit in government, from the viewpoint of the client. Big organizations are resourced; they tend to do all right. If 99% of our businesses in this country are small- and medium-sized businesses and you want to help them understand how to build that capacity so that they can be traders internationally, then how do you do that? Our Trade Accelerator Program, for example, is an investment that was made out of the ISED side, not out of the trade side. What does it do? It works with businesses, with the world trade organizations, and it partners with a program in British Columbia precisely so that you are developing that capacity from a no-wrong-door approach. That is, from the viewpoint of the female entrepreneur, from the viewpoint of the Black entrepreneur, from the viewpoint of an Indigenous entrepreneur, from the viewpoint of a small, innovative company that is focused on growing their company, but not even thinking that they need to get their IP up. Do they have the right growth plan or marketing plan? And where in the world, in what sectors, can they get into a value chain or a supply chain?
Maybe someone will ask me this other question, which is how important rules-based trade is. That’s the other part of my job. The other part of my job is defence of the multilateral rules-based trading system at the WTO and also through our multilateral agreements. We have done some important work on that front as well. The rules-making side in Canada’s outsized capability is terrific.
The Chair: Thank you. My two colleagues have indicated that I can ask my question — chair’s prerogative — but then they won’t get a chance to ask theirs. We’ll catch up at future meetings, I’m sure.
Canada is good in terms of negotiating free trade agreements. The trick then is trying to get businesses to use these agreements to sell our products and our services abroad. In my experience, there has always been a reticence among businesses to go a bit beyond the NAFTA framework and the 75% of our trade that is with the United States. Germany has just ratified CETA, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which is a huge step.
One of the things that we’re looking at in this committee is mobility of people. That is, having them move into not just other government departments but into other agencies.
The Americans are doing the same thing. We have a great shining example in our permanent representative and ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva who was a consul general and grew up in the system and moved into a Canadian corporation and now moved out.
The career question is this: Can you look at moving people around in a way that is not detrimental to their career, in a way that would provide some incentives to businesses, despite all the wonderful work that the Trade Commissioner Service does, and then bringing them back to take Canada’s influence even further?
Ms. Ng: That’s a terrific question.
When I think about the opportunities for that kind of collaboration between the private sector and in government, the question is, how can we actually do this in a way that can really work? I think it is that synergy. How do you put it into our system so that it becomes a secondment or interchange opportunity? This would allow you to take someone who has grown and developed their business into an international business and who actually can have something quite meaningful to offer to our system, because they would have had to be a practitioner of the rules to which we have created around Canada and worked with our partners and multilaterally, and bring them in and then find a way to have them and their experience, because they have come into the system, go back out there. I love that suggestion.
Maybe the answer here is that I look forward to a recommendation from this committee. Are there really innovative ways to look at that? In some ways, when I think about what we have done for Indo-Pacific, the effort is sort of that multifaceted type of an effort to implement trade in a way that creates relationships, leveraging on really deep and good knowledge on the diplomacy side, being able to develop rules through trade agreements and also then collaborating in a very robust way with the business community who already work with our Crown organizations, whether it’s EDC or CCC, in the contracts that we already are doing. I think my request there is that I look forward to the work and the recommendations you might make on that one.
The Chair: Well, that’s on the record now, so thank you.
Minister, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you very much for joining us today. This was a very rich discussion. No doubt we’ll have you back again. I want to thank you for not overburdening your officials, who are all very talented and who have come along.
I wanted to also publicly recognize our committee clerk, Gaëtane Lemay. This is her last committee meeting. She is taking her retirement, and I want to thank you very much for all of the service you have provided to this committee, to the Senate of Canada and to our country. Thank you very much.
I would like to wish everyone a very happy and safe holiday, and don’t shovel too much snow. Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)