**Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand spoke at the Toronto Region Board of Trade this week. /** **LINKEDIN PHOTO**

Despite the global trade uncertainty, Canada’s economy is on a growth path, says Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand.

“Canada has everything the world wants. There is not a room that I go into where people are uninterested in Canada. On the contrary, energy superpower, critical minerals, leader in AI and tech, agricultural products that the world wants,” she told John Stackhouse, RBC Senior Vice-President, at a Toronto Region Board of Trade event this week.

“And the Prime Minister has said something on agriculture I think I just have to mention, which is that we will never, as a country, we will never weaponize food. We will not weaponize the food supply chain. We will not use food as a tool of aggression. That is not the Canadian way. We want to partner in a professional manner and trade in accordance with principles that the trading infrastructure of our world is built upon. So these are the types of positive messages that I'm not only receiving but delivering internationally.”

Stackhouse said Canada has moved quickly to reset relations with India and China and asked Anand what Canadian businesses need to think about when trying to diversify their trade.

Anand said that when she was running for reelection last year after announcing she would not be, she spoke to Prime Minister Carney about what his plan was to actually ensure Canada’s trade diversification.

We have the infrastructure; it needs to be operationalized

“My view is, and we've been saying it as a government for some time, that we had significant trade agreements around the world. We are the only G7 country that has a free trade agreement with every other G7 country. And it was true at the time we were having those conversations as well. So what is missing?” she said. “Well, right here in this room, this is a very, very important message, is that we had the infrastructure in place from a trade perspective. We need it to be operationalized and utilized.”

That’s her goal, she said, in working with India, China and the Mercosur countries among others. She said the government wants to finalize a free trade agreement with ASEAN this year also.

“This is the infrastructure of trade. We are in a moment where the global trading environment and network is being completely reordered. We need all of us to be utilizing the agreements that we are executing, or they will stand there and we will keep having to rely on one trading partner and all the difficulty that that has caused.”