Mr. Philip Kelly:

One of the key areas is public procurement. Canada has very restricted access to public procurement, only traditionally at the federal level. As mentioned, but maybe I did not read it out in my opening remarks, public procurement at the provincial level and at the local government level in Canada is twice as big as the federal market in public procurement, and all three markets, federal, provincial and local government will now be open to EU producers, including Irish firms, to bid for. The concession by the Canadians of doing what we do in Europe, which is having a single website with all tenders above a particular threshold listed centrally, makes it easier for Irish SMEs to bid for Canadian public procurement. That is just one example.

The other issue is if we try to simplify the customs procedures, take out the tariffs on goods and make it easier for people to enter Canada to deliver their services, there is no reason SMEs would not benefit all the more, given that the costs they bear in overcoming regulatory barriers is disproportionately greater than large firms who have large technical departments to be able to negotiate these non-tariff barriers.