Minister Addresses Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters’ 19th Annual Conference and Trade Show

(Minister of International Trade)

…We believe that when businesses succeed, Canadians succeed. Because when businesses succeed, they create jobs, they generate prosperity, and they help support the quality of life people rely on and enjoy here in Canada.

These uncertain global economic times have added some urgency to our government’s efforts to strengthen Canada’s economy. We are putting a strong focus on our Economic Action Plan – to protect incomes, create jobs, ease credit markets and help workers and communities get back on their feet.

Budget 2010 outlines our plan for returning to budgetary balance over the medium term, and well before any other G7 country. We’re helping our manufacturing sector by making Canada the first country in the G20 to become a tariff-free zone for machinery and equipment imports. We’re creating and protecting jobs, and investing in the skills and education of Canadians to build the jobs and industries of the future. And our Economic Action Plan is working to help ensure that, from coast to coast to coast, we are emerging from this economic downturn better than nearly every other industrialized country. But while we may be turning the corner, we are far from fully recovered.

And I’m sure you’d agree that you can’t really talk about a lasting recovery without talking about an aggressive and ambitious trade agenda. Canada is, after all, a trading nation. Trade is equivalent to about 60% of our gross domestic product. And nowhere has our commitment to free and open trade been more successful – or more instructive – than right here in North America. Read the complete address here.