Unlocking Global Government Contracts with CCC

The audience raised great questions. Here are a few standouts:

• Can CCC work with different levels of government? Yes — state-owned enterprises, municipalities, provincial and regional governments, ministries, and more. Smart cities, wastewater, and waste-to-energy are all on the table.

• What if a project gets cancelled? It happens, often due to elections or competitive offers. CCC’s strength is the relationships and whole-of-government engagement that can keep projects on track, as the Quito airport showed.

• Can CCC help with minerals and agriculture? Absolutely. CCC has a long history in potash and critical minerals, including supplying Bangladesh, plus engagement in agricultural infrastructure and export facilities.

• What TRL levels are required? TRL 8+ for U.S. DOW, TRL 9 for international — solutions need to be commercially ready and proven.

• How fast does CCC respond? A dedicated client contact centre handles inquiries on a best-effort basis. If you don’t hear back, email directly or reach out on LinkedIn.

Claude Gendron   0:11 
Welcome, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you’re located. I’m Claude Gendron, the Director of Customer Acquisition and Outreach with the Canadian Commercial Corporation. Thank you for joining us on this webinar on Unlocking Global Government Contracts with CCC. 
Before I get started, I’d like to acknowledge that CCC is located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nations. What presents here reaches back to time immemorial. 
The webinar will be recorded and there’ll be a link sharing the recording after that if you would like to get access to the recording. Also, for the Q&A session that has been planned for this 
webinar. At any time during the presentation, if you have any questions, please feel free to add them to the chat. I’m accompanied by my colleague Jonathan McAuley, Senior Export Advisor, with our customer acquisition team here. 
there as well to answer any questions and also join as needed during the session today. 
And so next slide, please. 
So, Canadian Commercial Corporation was established in 1946. 
the current corporation of the Government of Canada reporting to Canadian Parliament under the portfolio of the Minister of International Trade, Minister Sidhu. So, we are a we have a mandate to help Canadian exporter grow internationally, as well as strengthening bilateral trade with other nations. 
Within the Government of Canada trade portfolio, we’re the only agency that offers international contracting expertise and services. Over the last five years, we’ve concluded $17 billion of contracts. We can operate across sectors, so we’re sector agnostic. 
We have a strong presence in defense and defense security in aerospace, but we also had great successes doing infrastructure, ICT, clean technologies, and other solutions. So CCC bring in contractual expertise. 
We help, we sign contract as prime contractor to help companies sell their solution to government authorities worldwide. And we help this government to acquire goods and services from Canada. And just quickly today, during our presentation, 
We’ll talk about how CCC can help gain companies for successes in selling to government authorities internationally. We’ll talk about how to become G2G already as a company. So we’re really talking about readiness. What are the requirements to be able to access our programs? 
And now we’ll show some of the examples of successful partnerships we did. 
So. 
CCC has offices in Ottawa. We have a team who travels abroad very extensively. And we have active touch points in around, last year was 78 countries, varies every year. Important note here is that 
The countries that we choose to do business with will depend on a number of factors, so… 
We’ll always work with Global Affairs Canada to ensure that the work we do on a government-to-government basis align with bilateral trade relations. We don’t want to create any irritant in engaging with the government that, you know, could present some more difficult relationship. So we will work. 
very closely with global affairs colleagues. We’ll also work with provinces as they want to pursue and advance some businesses. We work with those governments who are bankable and work on commercial terms, who have a good respect for human rights, and also have a legal ability to justify direct contracting. And I’ll speak more to it. 
later in the presentation. So these are some examples of the countries that we have been engaging recently. And on the next slide. 
So, we’re showing here where we see opportunities. I mean, as I mentioned, aerospace defence security, we’re pretty strong. At CCC, we do a lot with our DPSA, defence production agreement business with United States. 
We’re looking at doing more with Mexico. We did some transaction in the past, I believe, with the Hercule modernization. Brazil, we’ve concluded the defense cooperation agreement. With Global Affairs, we’re looking at engaging more. And I believe there’s a 
prime ministerial engagement that they were being planned later this year as a follow-up to all of the earlier engagement taking place with Brazil. So last to come, Chile, Peru, Argentina. We did some projects in the defense sector in the past. We see a strong brand for Canada and Latin America. 
not only defence, security and aerospace, but in other sectors as well. You could see here, we’re looking at some projects in infrastructure. There’s also discussion in critical minerals. The Europe remains, you know, a market of high interest in the defence and security. 
Lots of needs to expedite procurement and acquisitions. Canada has great solution on interoperability with NATO allies. And this is something that we’re, I think we’re well regarded and well positioned in supporting some of the growing needs. 
of defense forces in Europe. 
The Africa, you would see some interest in, you know, hydro asset modernization, clean technology, some development of natural gas to reduce dirty fuel, reliance on dirty fuel energy projects. 
a bit of solar and wind. There are some infrastructure projects as well. We listed a few countries here. 
And we also see here in Asia Pacific, Australia, also some diversity of engagement across sectors. I mean, I would not, so if you see a sector of interest in a given country and you don’t see it on the map here, does it mean that CCC cannot 
do business. We are there to support exporters with their own trade journey, help qualify them first, and then after that qualify their opportunities. This is pretty much how CCC has been operating over the years. So that really shows some of the active engagement we have right now. 
but does not translate to the level of ambition and possibilities that a CCC can offer. 
And. 
So we provide advisory services to companies. So if you’re unsure, you’ll be a fit to CCC. If you know some companies that could be referred to us as a partner, we’re there to assist and take on a call and do an onboarding discussion and really take it to the first step in a company. 
a business. We manage 3 programs. We have our international prime contractor where we can assist companies to sell directly to other government internationally. And that program is really managed on a direct basis. So CCC, and I have some slides, I’ll be speaking about it. 
But as opposed to our DPSA program with the United States Department of War that works on public solicitations and our international prime contractor mostly rely on direct contracting. And the goal is really help a government acquire a solution on an expedited basis for a solution of national interest that requires 
sovereign guarantee of contract performance from Canada, or other mechanisms to help really build the right level of confidence and deliver that solution. The third program are sourcing. So CCC play a contracting, logistic delivery arm for aid, for assistance, Biogram of Canada. 
We have several MOUs with our government agency, Global Affairs for any emergency responses that can commit internationally, DND for assistance to Ukraine. So we’ve been quite active in supporting the soldiers in the battlefield, the government of Ukraine to equip. 
on critical component to try to make a difference in the current situation they’re faced with. 
So, essentially, as a contracting model, CCC would work with a company. 
with the possibility to act as a prime contractor. CCC wants to help offering a solution that would help de-risk the transaction to the government buyer. So by doing that, CCC has the legal ability to sign a contract as a government of Canada. 
with legal effect assigned by the Government of Canada, will provide a certain guarantee of contract performance to build the right level of confidence with the government authority. CCC will remain the full-blown prime contractor, so we are becoming accountable and liable. We’ll provide oversight, responsible business conduct, 
and we’ll troubleshoot as needed. And we will subcontract domestically with your business. Your business needs to qualify with our services, and these services, the criteria differ from one program to another. But if you, once you qualify, CCC will sign a domestic contract with your business, and you will be responsible to deliver. 
the goods and services. On our international prime contractor program, what is amazing for a company is in your value prop, you’re moving away any potential competition because we would be engaging your business alongside having a Government of Canada partner, CCC. 
engaging in discussion with a government authority before tender, before an IFI. And we would be engaging with an authority that has a legal framework to justify a direct contract. And there’s a number of reasons why a government may choose to do so. 
Um… 
And then that leaves ample discussion for you to customize your solution at best to fulfill your solution and ensure that also you’ll meet the needs of the government for the best interest of the parties. And also that could increase your chance to, you know. 
for much further engagement with that government. So CCC will act as a prompt contractor, will sign a contract, will receive all the payment, and will participate in every discussion along your side. And there’ll be a three-week communication as we engage with the government. 
and also once a contract is signed. 
So our international prime contractor program helps provide faster procurement. Two years ago, I engaged with the German Navy, and thank you to my colleagues at DND, as they were hosting German Navy for bilateral consultation, and we were invited to present CCC. 
The government of Germany was looking to acquire some solution, combat management systems on an expedited basis. The regular procurement channel would have taken them a consideration with industry prior to acquiring the solution, which would bring them 
five to seven years on the road before acquiring and implementing the solution. 
So they went through CCC and we did the whole project, I think, I believe it was 1 1/2 year, two years. And it’s still not yet completed, but like, I mean, we are implementing now, but we really facilitated faster procurement. And that was a game changer. 
for the government of Germany. I mean, our sweet spots in terms of government authorities internationally are usually government that are not as sophisticated, government that perhaps could lack governance, could be a smaller size of government, may not have all the expertise, may want to acquire a solution that 
could look very technical and challenging for them. They may have attempted to acquire a solution through a tender in the past and did it work. Maybe there was a failed tender or there was a scandal, some corruption or other reasons that may have halt the acquisition. So these are all kinds of reasons. 
where CCC could provide added value. Also, a government may come, may make a new announcement on see if it can increase spending and all of the solutions that are required to be acquired on an expedited basis. 
make it a potential opportunity for CCC to engage. We help reduce procurement contract risk. We become liable and accountable as a G7 country triple A credit rating. Those chances we may be able to lift a performance bond on a project. 
And CCC has never defaulted on its on its projects, and I mean Canada also has pretty well good standing with our credit rating, so that really helps in terms of improved project outcomes. Our team, as you know, legal services. 
contract structuring, contract management, risk, business developers. So we really looked at every single aspect of a contract in a way that do not expose the Graph Canada, but also your business as best as possible. 
And it makes it a win for all parties, because if you remember, one of our mandate is to strengthen bilateral trade. So we cannot also deliver a solution that will become an irritant to the government and our team of diplomats posted in that country. 
Um… 
There are some government and some sectors that are that prefers G2G. If you think about the nuclear sector, if you think about the defence sector, about security, security projects, whether it’s on civil infrastructure, on the defence, there’s some government that 
prefer that route. Last summer, I was engaged with the government to was looking to for a role in commissioning, field support, training, and honors engineering, PMO, a role for National Gas Development Network. They had a bad taste in the previous relationship they had with foreign companies. 
And they really insisted to turn to the government to do a G2G because of the past history. And the project was quite a significant price tag. And we were in discussion for a much smaller role of supervision. But again, that government was 
very clear on his intention. There was no other possibility. 
So what are the type of businesses that we can work with? What companies need to be aware of to qualify for programming services? I think the one first key element, do you have 
a solution that is relevant for government. That, however, can vary between our programs. So through our international prime contractor program, obviously we would look at solutions that are more than widgets, with all respect to all companies, and it’s important to also sell widgets. But 
Companies who have a solution that are valued at, you know, around 10 million or more. 
There are some solutions that are straightforward we can do that are smaller. We did a little no with the reflection of a cathedral in Australia at $2 million. But we try, because these are intensive on our resources, all of these transactions, we try to be mindful of the impact on our staff. 
and our team. So the ideal for us is really trying to develop a solution that are 10 million. That means that you could be selling to a government for five years and the total value would be 10 million, so 2 million per year. We don’t carry any contractual template. We have a template, but we can adapt these templates. 
depending on what the government wants. You may have done projects in the past in the same region using one specific template that works well. And this will be developed through a discussion. But really important having a solution to sell to government is important. To sell to government internationally, we can sell to any level of government authorities. It could be the SOE, 
the municipality, the provincial government, the regional government. It could be the, you know, any ministries, prime minister’s office, presidency office. In some rare cases, we could also sell to private sector. Rare cases because our niche is ready to sell to government authorities. But in a country where 
Let’s say the space is not governed by the government, it’s owned by private sector, then it makes sense for us to explore engaging. In the case of the cathedral, it’s a non-for-profit, and the cathedral had to modernize their organ. They didn’t want to lose their money, and they had 
set aside $2 million for that. So these are the rare cases we can explore. We did some engagement in the past, prior to my time at CCC with private sector, but really the bulk is with government. So we want a company who have experience selling internationally. 
Doesn’t have to be a very significant experience, but tomorrow you tell me you want to go to Nigeria, but you’ve never done business in Africa, you’ll need more to convince me. 
So, I mean, in some markets, it’s much more difficult than others. Selling to the United States, for instance, despite some of the difficulty in the predictability in the environment right now, some of the volatility happening, very predictable as a market. 
well integrated with Canada. There’s 43,000 exporters roughly selling to the United States across sectors. Selling to the Europeans, also, you know, very like-minded, very predictable in most of the markets, not all of them. So some experience doing business internationally is important. 
At least two years of experience in sales. 
You know, many companies that we support have been in existence for quite a while, but there’s a few that have been, you know, established recently, two years, three years ago, and they have a good track record already. We want to make sure that your solution has a technological readiness level 9. 
commercially ready for commercialization, you already made some sales. We want to make sure that we were not selling something that was built out of the blue. There are some exceptions. If your business is specialized in customizing solutions, that could be a different 
a driven discussion here, but for the most cases, we try to sell goods and services that are already existing. And again, that fits for most of their business lines. If you’re doing projects in infrastructure, 
We can do SPV, special purpose vehicle, we can do a P3. There’s a rare case is that rare case we can do consortium, very rare cases, but we can. We could also take a smaller role of a larger project. In one of my slides I mentioned Peru with the largest drip irrigation project. 
where we’re partnering with Hatch to do a PMO role, but we could do an oversight role, commissioning field support, owners engineer of a much larger project. So these are the different, you know, role we can play in support of exporters. 
In terms of annual reviews, we would usually expect on our international prime contractor program that a company has around, and it’s not a set in stone rule, but around three times the size of annual revenues than the size of the project they’re putting forward on a year basis. 
So if it’s a 10-year project, if it’s a 15-year project, five-year or one year, if you divide by a number of years and the capital requirement, we want to make sure that you have enough cash flow to mitigate potential risk for the project. 
Another program that we manage, our US Department of War contracting program, CCC is a custodian to the DPSA, an arrangement between Canada and United States Department of War since 1956, where Canada is considered as part of the North 
industrial base to supply to the US and DOW. And CCC by default in the DFARS supplement regulation is a default acquisition partner. So companies will register, their NCAGE code will register on sam.gov. 
the public database of United States government, everything under DOD or DOW, all the certification that are emanating from Sam.gov’s companies will be treated on equal level playing field as American companies. If there are any tenders that are listed, 
that prevent a king company from applying under our treaty obligations, CCC can make representation. 
I just see a question here on the chat about can we support nuclear energy, nuclear projects? We are right now rehabilitating with the state-owned enterprise in Romania, C1, a CANDU nuclear reactor. And we’re also in discussion to support a new construction of CANDU’s 
and also rehabilitation of other can dos and globally. There’s other roles as well that we could play in the nuclear sector. So just moving back to the US DOW Prime Contractor Program. So that program is accessible to companies 
that have around a million annual revenues and above. Very accessible to companies. We support projects that are of 350,000 US in value and above. Again, we want a company with two years of sale. 
We want enough financial capacity, financial strength. 
A solution that could be sold to the US DOW could include TRL 8 and above. So there’s a number of requirements. If you want to access federal government contract or documentation, you may require to get CNMC cybersecurity or the equivalent. We have a great material. 
for you to read and to follow in terms of the different steps to engage with that program. My team engage with many, many exporters every year. I think it’s above 800 exporters every year across sectors, across four different programs. So we are there to assist you and your different 
inquiries. If you come and you have an opportunity that you want to discuss, we’re there to as well support you to help you to qualify for services and also qualify the potential projects you may want to put forward. And just before I move here, the US DOW, 
So, the ecosystems of the United States is quite significant, and the needs… 
of the government of the United States to support for the defense, not only include the core critical defense spending, but everything else in support of. If you think about GA Larue, who sold snow blower, I believe, to the United States government, there are many, many opportunities here. And like recently, we had a number of announcements. 
to supply equipment for US military on emergency evacuation. There was some maintenance for US Navy with standard aerial. The Curtiss Wright to support helicopter landing systems for US Navy. When I look at solicitation, I see 
many in the, you know, on the telecom infrastructure, roads, training for military. So there’s quite a number of different opportunities that that could be smaller scale, but very diversified. So for companies that are in the defense sector or companies with dual use technologies, or even companies that are not in the defense sector, but 
may be able to supply shelter or other goods and services in support of that ecosystem, it may be worth registering on the database, some.gov, getting your encache code, and looking at these sort of stations. 
Sourcing. So for companies who have a solution that could be relevant for Ukraine. When we onboard companies, we asked to share their description so that DND could be made aware should future discussion decision be made on a direct sourcing. So CCC managed direct sourcing for Ukraine. 
Also, for any emergency response or any of Canada, Government of Canada, its commitment internationally to help others. So whether it’s anti-terrorism efforts, transnational organized crime, disaster relief, post-conflict reconstruction, military assistance, or global health emergencies, 
CCC works with other government departments, including GAC and DND, to do the contracting and the delivery of it through a direct sourcing. 
So, a few examples. I touched on it previously on my presentation. Amazing project with Romania, leveraging the Canada account with Ministry of Finance and a portion of the financing. I believe this one was done through a consortium. 
involving Atkins Realis and a state-owned enterprise in Romania for nuclear reactors. So we’re rehabilitating C1. It’s around $800 million. And I believe the performance bond was lifted on that project. We’re also in discussion for future projects in Romania. 
as well as some countries in Europe and also in Asia. So the nuclear sector is looking very promising for CCC, very strong interest in government-to-government contracting, and very strong partnership with Atkins. 
There’s other players in the career sector. Yes, we know, and we’re in discussion with them. And there’s also other roles that we can play. Maintenance, rehabilitation and construction, new construction is 1, but supervision, oversight, helping to provide the right regulatory safety framework for government. 
Canada has great experience. There’s Darlington experience, there’s experience in, you know, you know, in a number of area of nuclear in Canada, including the regulatory and safety framework. So these are all roles that CCC could potentially could explore playing. 
Largest drip irrigation project, Peru. Amazing project when we look at its social impact. This was a partnership with the Peru Ministry of Agriculture, Development and Irrigation. The goal, the objective of the project was to improve 
to provide access to 48,000 of acres of existing farmlands and open up 63,000 additional acres for cultivation and supply of potable water to 40,000 families. And I believe the project’s objective was to create around 120,000 jobs. 
and triple or quadruple the export for the country. So it’s an amazing project, very, very important for the country. We are playing a role that is not of the turnkey, but the, you know, a PMO role with Hatch on the project. 
but still very essential role to make sure the project will be delivered on time, that everything, all the issue with the suppliers goes well, address any risk. There’s always, you know, issues in any projects that has to be addressed. So really being there at the table, working very closely with the different parties, 
So, great, great project of CCC. Another project here with United States with Kinetic. Qinetiq has been a has been engaged with our US DOW program for for many years. This one is with the US Navy providing a naval air working with the naval air warfare. 
Center Weapons Division to simulate with unscrewed targets to simulate the threat of missiles and aircraft for our defense systems. 
We also, for companies who are active exporters, I’m sure you spend a lot of time on solicit stations. So we’ve offered to exporters a free tool that encapsulates public tender opportunities from government around the globe. 
It includes 200 jurisdictions. So there’s over 5,000 opportunities that are listed every year, every day, new opportunities. You know, most of, well, internationally, our program works outside of tenders, but for, because we support exporters, we thought it was relevant to offer 
At that database for exporters, in the end, we want to help exporters grow internationally, so this is available at gbuf.ca, and it’s free for Canadian businesses, so I encourage you to register. We work very closely with our… 
government department colleagues. The trade portfolio includes Global Affairs Trade Commissioner Service. I was part, I was an alumni to that service, spent many years with the Global Affairs Trade Commercial Service before joining CCC. We also work very closely with EDC. You may have seen them very active in the defense sector. 
Um… 
And also, CanExport offers some funding with Global Affairs to cover some of the travel costs when you go to a new market. There’s other government agencies that would have merit to be listed on the slide. BDC supports some of the companies that are delivering sourcing for Ukraine, for instance, and other markets. 
very active in helping companies grow in the defence sector and other sectors. So working very closely with the EDC and us in the help of exporters. Defence Investment Agency, the DIA, as they’re implementing the Defence Initial Strategy, the DIS. 
They’ll be looking at addressing gaps in the supply chain. We understand the market in Canada remains small, and for companies to be successful, they also need to be able to export. So we’ll be looking at working very closely with them to help exporters within their 
their request system and portfolio to help them export the business to help them export. So, so there’s a great alignment of different government organizations. We work so very closely with ISEDISDE. We used to manage ITBs. There’s also the Marine Defense Branch and the RDAs, the original different development agencies. The ITBs now have been transferred over to the DIA. 
but we’ll continue to work very closely. I made a reference to the ITB’s companies to work with CCC need to be registered in Canada, but it could be also a subsidiary in Canada. We’ll expect, at the very least, to have 25% gain content on the projects that we support. 
The higher threshold, the better. But in some cases, like infrastructure project, it’s sometimes difficult to achieve a higher cane content. It really depends on where the players in Canada and their expertise, and we’re able to deliver meaningful results with mitigated risk. 
I mean, there’s a, you know, there’s quite a number of examples for CCC across sectors. And one that I did not mention, if you look at the space, International Space Agency, the Canada arm was procured in a partnership with NASA through CCC. 
a long time ago, and provided amazing benefit for the International Space Station for so many years. We also built an international airport with the municipality of Quito, a terminal with the airport of Bermuda, and also expanding some ports. 
So that the possibility of engaging with other government has no limit. So some of the companies, so the way we would engage with companies comes, I mean, 75% of the leads that we support. 
comes from exporters for the most part. Sometimes government will come to us with a specific ask and then we’ll turn, we’ll look at the companies that we have qualified to see if there would one would have the expertise. If there’s more than one with the same expertise, we may invite these companies to 
to prepare an offer and let the government decide. CCC may play a role there, but it’s important to be fair with all of the exporters. 
But you know, in some case, we get referrals from partners. And we’re really happy when, you know, Global Affairs, provincial partners, regional development agencies and others, industry associations as well, we have a very strong partnership with CASI for CANSEC and other engagement. But we’re really proud and, you know, privileged to be receiving referrals from them. 
So we would engage with a company and we’ll see if there’s a way we could do a corporate due diligence. So we’ll assess the company’s managerial, technical, financial abilities. We take around 2 weeks to do that. We can do it on an expedited basis in a few days. And that would allow us 
to know if, you know, if the company is qualified, then we could engage with that business and the government. In the case of our international prime program, we can issue a letter of support in favor of the company, a letter of introductions to the government authority that we’re targeting to explain what is CCC, what it brings, 
and see if there’s any appetite, any interest. Some companies come to us, sometimes there’s a tender and it’s late and there’s a bid bond requirement. Usually when a tender is out, it’s a bit too late for us to engage. There are some specific cases where we could do a shortlist tender. 
But we also need to be mindful of the time to go through our own internal processes. We can do things very fast. We did wildfire assistance in Bolivia in six days in the past, but some projects take much longer. We want to be very honest here. So once we qualify your business, 
We’ll advance a pursuit along your side. If that pursuit is already well advanced, we’ll qualify it. We want to make sure the government has appetite for potential G2G. We want to also work with our embassy colleagues and discussion with the government to see if they have the ability to justify a direct award. 
And the justification belongs to them. It could be of national interest, emergency response. They may want to acquire a solution to meet some specific requirements, whether their own government prerogatives. It could also be that they have the funding allocated, but the funding had to be spent within the fiscal year. 
CCC could offer a non-binding MOU if that helps build the right level of confidence with the authority. We don’t need those MOUs to proceed. But in the case of defense sector, for instance, it’s always a good thing to do. I met some government in Europe. 
in March and April, they’ve asked for MOUs in some cases, as it was their first engagement. I believe today, CCC sang an MOU in the defence sector with the Dominican Republic. 
So we did those from time to time, but we do it in order to help a government eventually acquire solutions from Canada and help exporter sell to this government. We can do a multi-country agreement in some cases. We did the rescue EU. I believe it was water bomber. 
initiative for a billion dollars in multiple countries in Europe. So required to be, we can be quite flexible and agile in the way we can structure a contract. So once a lead is well identified, well qualified, we’ll do the formal transactional qualification. 
And then after that, CCC will make a final decision and proceeding. Financing is always a challenge. We don’t provide financing at CCC. We work very closely with EDC or it’s been enough to elevate finance, but we can work with other financial institutions as well. We can do bank syndication if there’s a need, depending on the size of the project. 
There’s an organization we sign an MOU with UK export financing. So for projects that have a minimum of UK content, I believe it’s 20 or 30 percent, we could seek financing from UK, EF and they have, they can go pretty far in what level of financing they can provide. 
If there’s US content, we can work with EXIM Bank, and EXIM Bank has some flexibility in supporting any local suppliers. A lot of companies we do business with are offices globally, but also many have no offices work with consulting firm, and this is also this also work. 
in the context of CCC, will ask the company to declare a relationship they have with their consulting firm and what are the potential, you know, commission structure. And normally, this is a way that, you know, many companies do. So there should not be any issue there. 
So there is a number of trade mission that happened. You know, the government has been pretty aggressive in mobilizing Ministry of Trade and trying to open doors for companies. I believe there’s one for Japan coming up. As you’re preparing to attend a trade show or a trade mission, if you want to engage with our services, 
You want to learn how to work with us? What are some of the tips that you could look at? You know, at a trade show, for instance, if you go, if a government has a boot, who will be opening up the boot? Is it the minister? What time could you try to have a, you know, a potential pull aside with the minister? Could you work with the embassy, if you’re a client of the Trade Commercial Service, to try to have some engagement with the government? 
at a trade show or, you know, during a trip, and that you’re planning for companies you are looking to do business abroad, it is important that you think beyond. The CanExport is amazing as a first entry point in the market. But in order to be successful, you need to carve aside enough funding to travel. 
travel a few times, well, many times, to be comfortable enough to make sure that the government see you, they believe that you’re well, you have a good presence, you understand what’s at play, they feel comfortable with you, that’s very, very important. Some companies come to us with leads that are 
with advance. And one of the success I find is, you know, when they get the chance to present a solution to the technical expert, you know, the minister maybe sees with the solution, but when the technical expert believe this is the great, the best solution they want, they become puzzled with running a tender because they need a solution. 
and it becomes your solution they want. And now they want to look at their best procurement channel, and that becomes much easier for CCC to undertake a potential G2G contract, who in turn will become, as a result, will become a bilateral arrangement between two countries to allow you to sell your solutions. 
Um… 
We have 14 minutes, 16 minutes left. I’d like to open it up for questions. On the slide here, three, myself and Jonathan, who has joined me for this presentation. Also, Mathieu Larivière, I have Mitch 
Groen and Yely Migunova, Yely. I’m sorry if I didn’t pronounce your funny name correctly, but they’re part of my team, very engaged. We’re there to meet with companies and assist you in your journey. So we would welcome questions. Don’t hesitate, please. Thank you. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   44:51 
Claude, just for fun, get us started. There’s a question about whether CCC can assist with governments at different levels, like in Vietnam. 

 
Claude Gendron   45:04 
I mean, definitely, I believe that my team has been engaged with Petro-Vietnam as a state-owned enterprise. But, you know, a municipality could look at wastewater solutions, could look at waste-to-gas power solution. They may want to address traffic. 
or develop smart cities. Smart cities could be very ambitious projects, high value projects, highly complex as well. But, you know, if you believe your solution is fulfilled, would fulfill a need of a government authority, I think that the first thing you could do is, you know, 
Give us a call. Let’s schedule a meeting to touch base and see and initiate the discussion that does not represent any commitment on your end with CCC. But it could also allow you, if you have future engagement with the government authority, you could ask more questions that are targeted for potential 
direct award, either the direct contract, as you engage with these authorities. So we can prepare you a list of questions, ask you questions to vet some information, whether it’s yourself or your local partner who could confirm this information, but really to help you position yourself to make your journey successful. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   46:24 
We have another question from Steve about whether CCC has ever started a program that had to cancel at some point due to a sudden change in alliances. 

 
Claude Gendron   46:38 
Yes, I’ve been supporting a space project in the continent of Africa for almost 2 years, at least 1 1/2 year. And there was competition. 
So we’ve tried with one exporter, and we tried with another one, and we tried with another one. And the third one, it was a buyer lead, so the government had a private sector business because that government did not govern space telecommunication. 
And they were looking at acquiring a satellite without giving the specificity of it. And they had a timeline as well as a window, a specific window. And obviously at the end, there was a competitive offer. And perhaps, you know, we presume that was quite, you know, 
quite beneficial for the government authority. So we were unable to proceed. So it became radio silence with that government. But there was a strong relationship. That happens. I mean, in our pipeline, you know, not all of the projects will go through, not because of our lack of commitment, 
But because we have a number of parties, it could be your business changing your mind. At one point, it’s not working anymore. You put too much effort and you want to stand down. You could also be having another approach to your rising and then you don’t have enough cash flow to support all of them at once. But it could also be the government went to an election. 
They cannot do it anymore. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   48:21 
And actually a good example of that is our airport we built in Quito with Aecon. And that project took a good 10 years to come together and then until completion. And the reason was they went to an election. There was a change of government and the new government had paused the project on the airport and threatened to cancel it entirely. 
And the benefit of having CCC involved on the project with Akon is that we brought together a whole of government and a political approach to engage with the government of Quito to help them understand the value of the project and that it was a political neutral project and that, you know, without CCC and Akon, that the project would likely never go finished. 
So it ended up getting finished and is an award-winning airport at this time. 

 
Claude Gendron   49:13 
The, you know, some engagement, I mean, I had, I met with two ministers in a full delegation of a new government around PDAC. And we talked about border security, border safety. We talked about critical minerals, updating the country geological survey that was outdated since the 1980s, a country in Europe. 
And the government has to go back to the ballot for election. That was not anticipated. But the government clearly mentioned that they had the funds allocated for some of the projects and the fund had to be spent this year. And also the government was relatively small and lacked capacity. And they mentioned to me 
an energy transition project that took them five years. And they were not pleased because for them, it was about delivering services to their businesses and to the population. And just because of their lack of capacity, they were, you know, hampering, they were, you know, not being able to deliver on their ambitious mandate. So 
You know, these are all areas that, like, for now, we will be re-engaged with that government soon, but they asked for MOU and they were very, very happy with knowing that CCC existed. And I have to say very specifically in the defence sector, when Jonathan, myself, and my colleague Suzanne Wilkinson met German Navy, 
Two years ago-ish. 
They didn’t know CCC existed. They knew USFMS. They had a liaison to USFMS at the meeting. USFMS, US stands for US Foreign Military Cells. They do on government to government basis, they sell US military surpluses. They require congressional approval. CCC does not require 
parliamentary approval. But many government knows US FMS, and they know the potential delays also for doing business with them. But when you mention CAS and FMS, it may trigger their attention on the defense sector. We don’t call ourselves the FMS, but we are a form of equivalent. 
equivalency here. So if you engage with the government and defense sector and security, this is something that you may want to pay attention. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   51:20 
And speaking of sectors, there’s a question about whether we have experience with businesses that supply minerals, such as sulfur, and maybe we can talk about Campotex here. 

 
Claude Gendron   51:32 
Yeah, well, CCC has been a long timer in critical minerals because potash is considered a critical mineral, I believe. We’ve been supplying potash, fulfilling, it used to be 30 to 40% of the needs of the government of Bangladesh. It is now all of the needs of the country since the unfortunate situation happening in Ukraine. 
We could be replicating the same model anywhere a government authority or state-owned enterprise would like to acquire Potash. But also, if we think about offtake agreements, stuck part agreements with NATO allies, CCC, in its mandate letter, as a role we could play as a contracting agency, 
to help de-risk and elevate to bilateral engagement. When it’s to supply to mixture of defence, for instance, G2G makes a lot of sense. Jonathan just came back from a conference on critical minerals. We are in discussion with the Centre of Excellence on critical minerals at NRCan. 
Eventually, who’s going to be is looking at potentially branching out as a crown corporation, but there’s a lot of synergies and collaboration that we could be exploring in the critical mineral business. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   52:53 
Are there any other questions that people would like answers to? 
Feel free to use the chat. 

 
Claude Gendron   53:12 
So CCC is able to do business in agriculture. I mean, potash is part of, you know, as fertilizer, it’s, you know, it’s either mining or ag business. We’ve been engaging with AGI Growth, FWS group of companies and others to explore. 
government who wants to reform their ag infrastructure, their export facility, expanding their port for more future exporting, or any assistance in their governance of the ag business, the safety of it. There are many aspects that we could play 
I think the Prairies have great capabilities in that regard. Not only the Prairies, but you know, companies have a lot to offer there on that spectrum. Doesn’t mean that we have not done a project recently that we cannot support. And that’s very important to note that CCC, we could say we have a number of priority sector. 
If a company come with a lead and they qualify with our businesses, we’ll be looking at it and looking at supporting it. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   54:23 
And maybe you can talk to the TRL levels that we’re looking for when it comes to businesses. 

 
Claude Gendron   54:31 
Yes, so I mean, US Department of War, TRL 8 and above, there are some instances where DARPA would want to work through CCC on potential engagement to support innovative companies through R&D and research. 
like financing their innovation and quantum is an example. But really in terms of the core of our operations is TRL 8 and above. Internationally, we look at TRL 9. So we want solutions that are ready for commercial that have been sold at least once. 
We have to remember that when Government of Canada, CCC, we sign as Government of Canada, we need a risk mitigated approach. We want to provide our contracting vehicle to help. 
Both the government acquire goods and services on expedited basis with a risk mitigated approach and help the exporter increase their chance of successes. So, but that recipe, we need to reduce potential risk. That means that the more solution has been sold, the easier. At the same time, we want to offer solutions that are still unique, 
that provide a great comparative advantage for both the government. And so, I mean, we look at innovative companies still. Something that is commercially available, sometimes it’s a bit harder to sell to another government. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   56:01 
And then there’s a question about average response time from CCC after they fill out our contact us page. 

 
Claude Gendron   56:09 
I mean, it depends on the size of my team. And we have a very dedicated team. We manage a client contact center. This is a recording, so you have our email address. If you ever don’t hear back, you can write to us directly. But we really take best effort to return calls and email. 
And… 
It may happen that there’s some delays. This is not really our intention. All of our team is involved in responding to inquiries. We also do a lot of engagement at trade shows. We do out calls. We do a lot of, you know, calls with other partners, the concierge service on the DIS, for instance. 
on the high growth service managed by ISEDISDE and another engagement like better. So, we’re really playing roles with, you know, with different actors, including industry association. So, if there’s any companies that have, they’re looking to engage with us, we’re happy to do that. 
And if you don’t hear back, you can also email us, write to us on LinkedIn, but we normally would take steps to respond to our client contact center as best we can. 

 
Jonathan McAuley   57:23 
And then about what kind of partnerships we’ve done in emergency relief in the past. So this is a bit of a tricky question because there’s our sourcing program with Global Affairs Canada, where we have in the past done aid in response to a humanitarian crisis for Global Affairs Canada, such as the earthquake in Haiti. 
But we can talk to, for example, how we use G2G on a commercial basis for emergency response. 

 
Claude Gendron   57:52 
Government of Bolivia years ago asked for assistance for a wildfire affecting the Amazonia forest in their territory. And CCC was able to deploy security aircraft in six or seven days. And like all resources at CCC were moved. 
to make that transaction successful. I don’t believe the government, I think the government was speechless in their ability to move so fast. There’s a, I believe in our can governance emergency response. There’s some MOUs where CC has been referenced with countries in Europe. We are actively pursuing other MOUs. 
which means that when does wildfire assistance required, for instance, or any flood, CCC on a contracting basis can deliver emergency response. And every natural disaster brings a lot of novelty, which is always, always complex for a country or an organization to manage. 
So having these MOUs in place really help turn a situation on a dime and really help increase chances of successes, provide immediate response for those who need shelters and immediate relief and save lives. So CCC sees a great niche in emergency response, emergency recovery. 
And that not only applied to the civilian sector, but also the defense sector and also the security sector on cybersecurity. I want to thank all of you for attending this session today. Please don’t be shy to engage with us. We’re there to help you be successful in your business. 
As you plan some engagement internationally, whether is a trade show, whether is a trade mission, or on your own, don’t hesitate if you want to brainstorm some ideas, you want to initiate a, you know, the onboarding for your business. If you have any potential lead you want to discuss, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. 
Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to engaging with you. Thank you.