Minister Sidhu and Team Canada's trade mission to India

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I think it's a really interesting time to be sending more than 300 delegates overseas to India to try to drum up business right now. And the only thing that I find a little surprising about it is just the sheer volume of delegates that are making their way overseas. So I wanted to get into this with somebody that I trust when it comes to anything economics. Eric Cam is a professor of economics out of Toronto Metropolitan University. First and foremost, Eric, happy Thanksgiving to you.

Well, happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. I'm speaking to you live from Fort Lauderdale, where it is 110 degrees during the day. Oh,

multiple showers, I would imagine. Just too sticky for me. I would have no interest in that whatsoever.

Yeah, actually, I got to tell you, I like heat, but this is getting a little bit crazy, Rob. Oof,

that's a lot, man, 110. Okay, well, let's get to things that matter here, Eric. Canada sending nearly 300 business delegates to India. Very big trade mission, the biggest one in over 30 years. What does the size of this delegation tell us about how serious Ottawa is taking this India relationship right now?

I think it tells us a lot, Rob. I mean, we know that Canada as a country, we've spent decades putting almost all of our economic eggs into an American basket, right? And unfortunately, we're discovering that that basket comes with a tariff attached, right? So India represents an enormous opportunity to diversify our trade. And it's funny we don't talk about it more because it's one of the world's great growth markets. And if Canadian businesses want to grow over the next 20 years and diversify away from the U.S., They just they realize now I'd like to think they can't afford to ignore a country with more than one point four billion potential customers. So you keep mentioning the number. It's huge. And I would call it a really good start. But, you know, you've got to be careful when it comes to trade. We don't measure successful trade policy by how many people jump on an airplane. Right. In the end, we measure it by how many contracts get signed. and how many jobs get created. But we know we're working in a time where we're trying to diversify, we're trying to reduce our vulnerability to the American paid market, so it's good. But listeners should note that thanks to things like geography, infrastructure, regulatory barriers, and of course, the existing interdependence of the supply chain, India is wonderful, but it cannot and will not replace the United States.

Okay, so I do have to say this because I'm looking at a couple of different buckets here. And one is obviously the economic bucket. The other one is the political and security trust bucket. I