Carr bullish on exports growth

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This article was published 26/11/2018 (2567 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Monday, with the announcement earlier in the day of the imminent closure of a large General Motors plant in Oshawa casting its shadow, Jim Carr was in Winnipeg touting Ottawa’s new goal of growing Canada’s overseas, non-U.S. sales by 50 per cent by 2025.

In his new capacity of international trade diversification minister, Winnipeg South Centre MP Carr said the federal government will spend $1.1 billion over the next six years to broaden and enhance export development assistance available to Canadian companies, especially to small and medium-sized businesses.

Speaking at the Ace Project Space, a unique partnership between Red River College (RRC) and North Forge Technology Exchange that matches RRC students with startup tech firms, Carr said international trade isn’t normal coffee-shop chatter, but “rising global protectionism, the most recent experience in our own backyard, has lifted trade diversification to top of mind.

“The U.S. will always be our closest trading partner. Our geography, our history, our family ties make this relationship special. And with the new NAFTA secured, that relationship is in very good shape for years to come. But we cannot rely on a single customer for our future prosperity.”

Among other things, the new export-diversification strategy announced as part of the federal government’s fall economic statement last week will provide resources to small and medium-sized enterprises to help them explore new export opportunities and increase the size of the country’s international trade commissioner service from its current contingent of about 1,000 people in total.

All the details are not yet available, but it seems likely that the age and size of businesses able to access funding from the CanExport program, which subsidizes the expenses for companies to attend international-trade missions and trade shows, will rise.

On the GM announcement, Carr said his thoughts are with the families of those affected and that over the coming days, there will be a better understanding of the impact and the appropriate response.

“It does show that it is increasingly important that Canadian businesses know these trade agreements we are signing that gives us access to 1.5 billion consumers internationally are designed to promote growth and create jobs,” he said.

Canada’s free-trade agreement with the EU (CETA) is now a year old — with exports to Europe up $1.1 billion — and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is set to go into effect by the end of the year.

Canada now has 14 free-trade agreements covering 51 countries with access to about 1.5 billion consumers. Canada is now the only G7 country with free-trade agreements with all the other G7 countries.

But Carr said businesses across the country have to champion trade diversification as a national imperative.

Kay Gardiner, the program director of Tech West, a consortium of western provincial information and communication technology associations that assists western Canadian technology markets access international markets said, unlike other traditional sectors new technology companies often need to scale up internationally while they are still in startup mode. But it can be a tricky process.

“We have not seen tech companies take advantage of that (export-assistance programs) to the degree we would like, but I am really looking forward to these changes,” Gardiner said.

“We think the changes they are making will make a huge difference.”

The fact that Carr is now touring across the country talking up the new strategy is an indication that the federal government knows Canadian businesses need to be encouraged.

Don Leitch, the CEO of the Business Council of Manitoba, said the province also needs to do a lot more in that regard as well. He said Manitoba’s trade branch has become less active in recent years and needs to become more engaged.

“It’s great that the feds are stepping up to the plate.” Leitch said. “But it’s the province that has the linkages to the local firms and knows them way better than the trade commissioner service.”

He said international trade development services have been active in Manitoba in the past but have been languishing the past few years.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca