The Montreal branch of the Canadian International Council, The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s National Conversation on Asia, the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, and the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce jointly organized a bilingual half-day international business conference on Canada and Free Trade with Asia in Montreal on September 24.

Among the speakers were Pierre Marc Johnson, Former Premier of Québec, & Chief Negotiator for the Québec Government in the Canada – European Union Trade Negotiations; François-Philippe Champagne, Strategic Development Director and Member of the Group Management Committee, AMEC; Pierre Fournier, Geopolitical analyst with National Bank of Canada; Joseph Caron, served as Canada’s Ambassador to the Peoples’ Republic of China, with concurrent accreditation to North Korea and Mongolia, as Canada’s Ambassador to Japan, and as High Commissioner to the Republic of India; Pierre Lortie, Senior Business Advisor at Dentons Canada LLP; Douglas Goold, Director, National Conversation on Asia and Senior Editor of APFC; Donald Stephenson, Chief Trade Negotiator, Canada, India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)

Naval Bajaj, President, Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce gave a special address on India. In his address, the ICCC President highlighted the effective work that the Chamber has been doing for the last three-and-a-half decades to foster bilateral relations between Canada and India. He also gave a brief overview of the new strategies that ICCC has adopted to enable small businesses to become globally competitive and explore the Indian market through ICCC’s India Missions.

Don Stephenson, Canada’s Chief Negotiator with India on CEPA, during his presentation stressed on the following issues: Global trade is important, for Canada, the US is important. But for trade to grow, Canada will have to look beyond the US. For Canada, the first tier of trade partners would include the USA, Japan and the EU. The second tier would include BRICS – the emerging economies, the third tier would include Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria and South Africa. Stephenson also emphasized that trade should be part of overall improvement of bilateral relations. 

The discussants raised several important issues pertaining to Canada’s trade with India not merely from a normative standpoint but even from a pragmatic, policy formulation standpoint. Among the salient points that emerged during the conference are:

• 35% growth in trade with China is equivalent to 2% in growth in trade with USA – therefore, overall growth is important and not just percent number
• There is a distinct lack of long term vision to develop trade ties between Canada and the Asian countries – for example no infrastructure to transport gasoline to other countries from Canada
• Also, an acute lack of awareness about commercialization of innovation and building value chain – for example USA, Japan, Taiwan, Korea have all smart phone value chain, but Canada hasn’t
• Need to integrate Canadian manufacturers and producers into the global supply chains especially with Asia to derive benefits from free trade – China, Japan and Korea have all developed intricate trade ties with the USA; Canada needs to emulate the US
• For a long time, Canada didn’t sign any trade accord with any Asian country – this lacuna will imperil Canada’s future and reduce it to a marginal player globally; also why is it so difficult for Canada to finalize a trade deals?
• Canada needs to emulate Australia too – in Australia, no matter which government is in power, the policy on trade remains unchanged – it keeps pushing forward and has involved other variables such as educational institutions and trade bodies to whittle down resistance it may face
• Canada has signed trade agreements with minor economies where the combined trade is worth $1billion, which is less than 20 hours of total Canadian exports ($1.2billion per day on an average)
• The result is Canada’s share in world trade is 0.5 %
• The delay in developing trade ties in Asia may prove to be disastrous as many Asian countries have already decided and agreed on their most favoured trading partners; Canada may be just too late
• Priority markets may be EU, Japan, Korea, China, ASEAN
• In the Far East, Canada should prioritize trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China, with Japan a prefect accord is possible because of the tremendous opportunities for Canadian companies in the Japanese economy; with Korea, the size of the population (45 million) makes it similar to Canada; with China, despite the generally antagonistic public mood, Canada should make it a priority to sign the agreement
• Agriculture sector is as important as oil and gas