Thank you, Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the committee. Also, if Dr. Fry is on the call, I wish her a personal hello as a former colleague.

On behalf of the Canada Turkish Business Council, or CTBC, I will begin by thanking the committee for the invitation to appear as part of your deliberations on the issue of export permits for Canadian defence products to Turkey.

As some of you know, I am a former member of Parliament who served as Minister of State for Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and Secretary of State for International Trade.

I am here today in my role as chair of the Canada Turkish Business Council.

The CTBC is a chartered, not-for-profit organization formed in 2001. We carry out a variety of activities to serve our members and enhance commercial relations between the two countries, including coordinating two-way trade missions, conducting outreach in Canada and Turkey, and advising members on how to facilitate commercial opportunities.

Specific initiatives we have supported include the negotiation of a double taxation agreement between Canada and Turkey and the establishment in 2019 of a bilateral joint economic and trade committee, or JETCO, headed by the respective Canadian and Turkish trade ministers.

The members of the CTBC are part of a broader business community that exports annually approximately $1.2 billion of goods to Turkey, the largest sector being aerospace, followed by agriculture particularly from Saskatchewan.

Our members see Turkey as having huge potential for their individual businesses and more generally increasing imports from Canada. Our hope is that the issue of cancellation of these export permits and the process of re-establishing confidence in the end-use assurances will not unduly hurt the relationship so as to put exports outside a specific segment within defence at risk. We hope that in the immediate term the government continues to actively support an expansion of Canadian non-military exports to Turkey, or qualifying military exports, thereby helping facilitate the continuation and growth in Canadian jobs.

At the risk of stating the obvious, our members share Canadian values that underpin the robust export control system.

Having provided you views that originate with our members outside the defence industry, I would be remiss if I did not pass on concerns of our members that export group 2 controlled goods regarding the current process.

From my work as a lawyer and a consultant, I am aware that the process of approving or denying an export permit is too often non-transparent, particularly if concerns are raised during the internal consultations, and most importantly, too often takes too long to provide an answer.

To be clear, I've had many interactions over the past year with the export control desk at Global Affairs and they've been nothing but professional. It is not Global Affairs personnel who are the challenge to permit issuance, but the process itself, which at times seems to be designed without consideration for the implications for businesses, small, medium, large and very large, that are trying to sustain jobs and industrial capability in Canada.

In short, businesses require transparency, predictability and accountability when they apply for permits. Service standards that are not met are a poor guide for suppliers and customers and lead to reputational damage for all parties. If companies know that permits will take longer and are told up front a realistic time frame, it is easier for them to plan accordingly and give customers an accurate sense of delivery expectations.

Global Affairs staff should be able to set some time limits on consultee responses such that if there is no response within a certain time, there is a presumption of no concern. Only by having some measure of accountability from the consultees can Global Affairs hope to keep to their service standards. Similarly, companies would appreciate an opportunity to engage with consultees who raise questions or objections. Often technical or confidential commercial information can add clarity to a permit request that a non-technical evaluator might not immediately grasp. Such engagement adds to the sense of transparency since companies are often left feeling that the process is arbitrary, capricious and unpredictable.

I know of at least two companies at present that are considering relocating their manufacturing outside Canada because the export permit issue has made doing business as a Canadian firm impractical. Those two companies alone would represent the loss of approximately 300 direct jobs and affect several hundred indirect jobs.

We should be focused on understanding what is in Canada's interests. Supporting a company that is going to export a product through Turkey to a country with which we are on good terms seems to make perfect sense but is now impossible. Supporting such a company during hard times also makes sense. Supporting companies that are equipping UN missions or working with the U.S. to supply humanitarian supply missions also makes sense.

Finally, there should be no need to go through the entire permit review process any time a piece of equipment that has been bought and paid for, and is now wholly owned by another country, is sent back to Canada for repair as part of the initial permit terms. Having a separate stream for such repair and maintenance permits would seem to be an obvious correction that could be implemented fairly quickly.

I hope I haven't run over time. On a personal note, I want to say hello to Dr. Hedy Fry.

Thank you.

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