Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged European partners this week to finalize Canada's trade deal with the EU, a push that came with his government facing a tough sales job at home: getting domestic firms to use it.

A recent government survey suggests the vast majority of small and medium-sized exporters, which are positioned to benefit from the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, could very well be asking: CETA who?

The survey said only seven per cent of the surveyed businesses were familiar with details of the Canada-EU deal, while fewer than three quarters had even heard of it. Only nine per cent said they took advantage of CETA and 17 per cent planned to use it.

The survey, commissioned by the Foreign Affairs Department, asked questions of 507 exporting companies online in March and April, and also involved 40 "in-depth" telephone interviews. It was delivered in June and cost more than $132,000.

Researchers asked questions on about a dozen of Canada's free-trade treaties and found CETA wasn't the only deal in need of a promotional boost.

"Among Canadian (small-to-medium-sized enterprises), there was fairly low awareness of Canada's free-trade agreements," said an analysis that accompanied the results...

This was excerpted from a 19 July 2019 article by The Canadian Press.