People can buy the kind of things they consider as normal and take for granted because of globalization and trade and use of supply chains and the reduction of the cost base of the manufacturing of some products.

When you think of a safe and solid arbitration place, you think of Switzerland, Sweden, Canada. Those attributes may be associated with clichés, but I think they resonate with a lot of people and they are a solid base for Canada to co-operate and help others.

Social unrest and protectionism are the two major risks of the world economic crisis.

Think about it. Women control 70 percent of global consumer spending . . . when women do better, economies do better.

We cannot just look at a country by looking at charts, graphs, and modelling the economy. Behind the numbers there are people.

You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.

It so happens that because all the economies are strongly inter-connected and aggregated, there is trade that is happening not just from China to the rest of the world, but from the rest of the world to China as well, and that is going to continue.