TORONTO -- It's time for Canada to start pursuing new free trade deals around the world, says David Binks, president of FedEx Canada.

Addressing the Strategic Supply Chain Management Forum in Toronto, Binks said the recent calamity in global markets has brought new economic opportunities, and Canada needs to take advantage of them.

"Canada is the only major trading nation that has not negotiated a brand new free trade agreement -- not one -- in the past four to five years," he said. "For a country of such diversity, and for a country that has a friendly, non-adversarial relationship with virtually all of the world, that's a crime. Or if that's not a crime, it is at least a real missed opportunity."

Binks said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent visits to India and China have been a good start but he believes the government needs to send more trade delegations abroad, open more trade offices, and aggressively pursue more free trade agreements, rather than rely on a single trading partner.

"Don't get me wrong, the U.S. is a fantastic trading partner, and the U.S. is a logical trading partner for this country. But as we tie ourselves so closely to the U.S., we perpetually put ourselves right on the edge of potential disaster," he said.

"It is really dangerous to have all of your business with one major account. It's too risky. It's too dangerous, and the consequence are too severe."

He said as the world emerges from "some of the most staggering economic decline situations that we've been through in modern history" companies are re-orienting their supply chains to address new realities.

"Sustainability, evolution of consumers, emerging markets, continued growth of the Internet and e-tailing, the growth of small to medium enterprises, those are all things that are going to make this a global network in which we're competing," he said.

"As we developing markets around the world, as we see economic growth, as we develop access, we're actually creating new consumers. And those new consumers create demand for more infrastructure, and more access, and more trade, which creates more wealth and the cycle continues."

He cautioned, however, that creating a global network is far more complex than it was 20 years ago.

"Nowadays being global means operating seamlessly around the globe 24 hours a day; it means giving customers what they want, when they want, where they want it, and how they want it," he said. "You need a new supply chain strategy. You need to know what's happening today and what the new trends are going to be tomorrow, and you need to adapt your supply chain thought process to that."

Binks said the economy is "littered with people who have a traditional perspective on how supply chain is managed."

"We have to rethink our traditional approaches. As we open up access to these emerging markets, we can't think about the same problems the same way as we used to," he said. "In the Canadian economy if we're going to thrive, we have to expand our horizons, we have to look for the new trading partners, but most of all we have to look for the competitive edge by being really smart and managing the supply chain strategy."

The forum was organized by the Conference Board of Canada.

-- Allan Janssen